As each on of my [painful!] school days unfurls, I am incessantly presented with a problem whose ultimate solution has the power to make or break my spirit:
Can I make it to one of the two Safe Bathrooms in time?
I have a problem with most of the restroom facilities at IU. For example, Ballantine Hall's 4,000 year old facilities not only smell like bus station urinal cakes but also frequently have had the doors to the stalls removed. This is because (rumour? urban legend? probably not!) intensely large amounts of unsavory activity goes on in them, from crack deals to lube-less sodomy. And and AND, when one adds the pleasantness of unflushed thrones and graffiti that makes your eyes go milky with bewilderment, it's enough to make you want to just hold it until you pass out from the pain/internal bleeding/poisoning from internal wastes.
{ At this point, all of my women readers are shaking their heads and sharpening their machetes. "Bitch," you all are saying, "at least you can take a leak without having to 'float' over toilet seats that haven't been cleaned since the fall of Saigon." You know, you're right. But, I think in general that women probably don't lay cable on toilet seats, spit lungers on the flush levers or perform farmer blows on the walls of the stall. Correct me if I am wrong, please! Being possessed of a Y chromosome, I am not privy to your secret world! }
As far as I can tell, there are but two men's restrooms at IU that do not require immunizations or a Gideon Bible to use. One is in Goodbody Hall, home of Indiana University's Central Eurasian Studies Department. Down a tiny corridor past offices bedecked in posters extolling the virtues of, of all things, Estonia, you find a quiet, seldom-used men's room with a gigantic antique urinal that I'd initially thought was a bidet. Boy, was that a disappointment: there I was, waiting for that chilly stream of cleansing water, and all I got was a flush. Anyway, the other is on the magical, semi-secret second floor of the Memorial Union. Every time I go there, the cleaning-person is just leaving: gleaming in lemony, bacteria-free splendor, it's all I can do to not wet myself with delight right there at the threshold.
{Aside: I'm writing this from the dim little Union Cluster; it's the one that always makes me feel like I should be seeing rusting fetters bolted to the wall and hearing the wails of those whose misdeeds have earned them torment or insanity. Anyway, some asshole clearly has ignored the "Please turn off cellphones" sign posted on the door in five languages and is currently screening a call that is coming in. His ringtone sounds like something you'd hear in a bad vampire movie (some sort of pipe organ?) and it just keeps going and going and going. He's staring at the phone like the secret for turning fingernail clippings into uranium is on that tiny screen. The gentleman sitting next to me leaned over and whispered "Why doesn't he just hit the effing "Ignore" button? For eff's sake! I mean, dude!" Neighbor-dude is currently surfing the Abercrombie site for summer fashion, and yet I know that deep inside he'd help me load the bazooka when it came time to vaporize our special blood-drinking friend. }
Anyway, I was walking from Turkish class to the Union when I felt the need to visit my second-floor lair. And when I say "felt the need" I mean "I became sure that I'd befoul my undergarments and have to ride the bus all the way home like a methadone junkie." When I walked in, I stood in the doorway completely stunned: not one but BOTH stalls were occupied. My internal situation had gone from "dire" to "Chernobyl"; with all of my fortitude I hastened to the first floor bathroom and made it just in time. Now: the first floor men's bathroom has ten stalls, and two of them were occupied, numbers 1 and 2. I hit up number 10 (just in case) and was doing my 'thang when become aware that there is a conversation happening nearby. Oh oh oh, it was number 1 and number 2 stall-dudes having a conversation while they moved their bowels. Yes. It went something like this:
1: Shit man, did you go to the Deke party last Friday night?
2: Naw, my bitch wanted to do some early Valentine's Day crap because she had an exam Monday night. Man! Don't tell me it was a good one!
1: Some dude brought a dime-bag and I smoked until I thought I was gonna hurl.
2: Sheee-it.
1: I was still baked when I went to class Monday morning.
2: Mutha-effah!
1: [grunts]
And no, I am not making that up. Not a single word of it. The conversation alone wasn't what worried me; I'd heard conversations like it 4.2 billion times on busses, in hallways, in classrooms.... in HIGH SCHOOL. But anyway, when did it become OK to talk to someone in the neighboring stall while you rid yourself of that which is undesireable? Even if it is your buddy/girlfriend? Isn't that, like, special private time you spend with yourself? Or is it just us gross boys who do this?
As the light of broad day shone into my room, I poked a stick under my bed to see if Honkers (the clown) was awaiting. Seeing that he was out finding toddlers upon which he feeds (that's what his AOL Away Message said: " BigRedNose'n'Fangs01: out eating toddlers ") I hastily grabbed my Ouija board and the little movey-aroundy-thing and lit some incense while tearing the head off a fruit-bat. As my room filled with the stench of mothballs and curry, I summoned "Sean", a married father of three who drank a pint of embalming fluid on a dare.
"Sean": I...t...t...a...s...t...e...d...l...i...k...e...b...u...r...n...i...n...g.
Me: Good times. Well, it made the funeral home's job a bit easier. And it knocked $100 bucks off your bill; bet the merry widow was so proud of you!
"Sean": M...e...w...a...n...t...c...u...t...y...o...u.
Me: Ah, but you're dead. And, might I add, amazingly lifelike. So "Sean", why is it that people feel like they can hold conversations while they are dropping their kids off at the pool, if you know what I mean?
"Sean": Y...o...u...l...i...v...e...i...n...a...c...e...l...l...p...h...o...n...e....c...u...l...t...u...r....e.
Me: Oh, you mean that it's in our nasty American culture to feel the need to always be accessible to others for conversation, even when doing the unspeakable? Wow, that's an asstastic answer.
"Sean": [ g...r...u...n...t...i...n...g ]
So, I don't know. Maybe I'm a prude. Maybe I was just brought up differently; being raised in a convent does that to you. Pray, eat, pray, learn sump'n about Jesus, eat, learn sump'n more about Jesus, eat, pray, watch Murder, She Wrote and hit the hay after praying again. Nowhere in there was "talk to someone you know while pinching a loaf." The only "loaves" we had came with a side of "fish", umm-hmm
For all of you who read that 'blog: I'm sorry.
I remain, as ever,
Dom
2 comments:
very cool blog! Nothing I like better than a little uninal and crapper talk! Wouldn't it be sweet if there was a crapper on the bus you take to classes......
Keep up the good work and don't let those toilet crabs bite too hard!!!
Funny you should talk about bathrooms, my was just re-done and luxurious. By the way, there is always that secret bathroom that even faculty don't seem to all know about. Search well... the force is with you, just hold it a little longer. G*
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