The Modern Boy and the Public School Restroom Part II

I have to say that the comments I got about the last post were very good, although I had one relative tell me the ladies room was just as bad. Hey, I just always thought they looked something like this, but with perfume dispensers and lockable stalls.

The public school restroom, though, is a totally different situation. I can totally understand Finch's phobia and total avoidance of using the high school's bathroom in American Pie. He was just rightfully concerned about the cleanliness of a room which is on the final "get to if necessary" checklist of the school janitor.

For myself, and many other modern men, cleanliness wasn't the major problem with the school bathroom Although I don't remember soap every being provided in any of my school bathrooms. That may be because some idiot ripped the dispensers off the wall, or it was considered an expendible budget item after years of educational cutbacks.

The real issue of the public school bathroom wasnt' that your friend Mark always tried to hit the urinal from ten paces (and I don't mean "Hit" as in striking with a blow). It wasn't that the high school bathroom was actually full of long haired kids who were really smoking in the boys room. It wasn't even that you began to wonder where the bathroom pass you were carrying might have been placed by the hundreds of students before you who had carried before you. After all, it always seemed to be a little moist. It wasn't the off chance one of the school bullies would show up at the same time you did and attempt to see if you could be flushed down the toilet. No, it wasn't even the urinal 'cake' that someone creative had placed in the only working sink.

It was the stalls, or let's say, lack there of. At my high school, most of the bathrooms had no doors on the stalls. The urinals were of course, on the far side of the stalls, so you usually ended up getting the uncomfortable "How you doin' " as the next ten people walked through the door and tried not to make eye contact as they passed by. How do you answer that question with your pants around your ankles? Is there any dignified way? On the positive side, at least there was good reading material on the walls.

The locker room was worse. It was the most pristine bathroom I had ever seen. Clean floors, sparkling white toilets, and not a stall or wall to be found. Plus, there was no door entering the room, so if you had to "do the 2" you knew that the entire football team would be walking by on the way to or from their lockers. When they wave, was I supposed to wave back? Is this supposed to help in bonding? Who planned this? I'm begging somebody to tell me. Do I need serious counseling? Good Lord, am I sweating as I even recall this?

Thank God the modern man can drink beer.

My wife seemed to think that I was adding a little truthiness to my stories to gain sympathy for my childhood. Then one day, we were in a middle school for a conference when it happened. I walked into the boys bathroom, fully confident that bathroom technology has changed so much in the past 20 years there would be no worries. I walked to the only stall in the room and may have screamed like a girl.

There was no door on the stall.

Needless to say, after pulling my wife into the bathroom to show her proof of my previous rantings she finally acquiesced and agrees I'm not crazy.

Although I may have heard her mumble the word "truthiness" after she told me that.

The Modern Man and the Public Restroom Part 1

Every now and then something so important needs to be discussed, that uncomfortable and embarassing subject matter must be talked about frankly, scientifically, and professionally (Like your middle school sex-ed classes!).

This is not one of those times.

Recently, as I walked about a local shopping establishment, my body began to cry out that the diet Mountain Dew I had imbibed earlier wanted to return to the mountains immediately. I won't discuss the Power Bar.

I had a tough decision to make.

Do I ignore the call of nature, which at this point was starting to become more of a scream than a gentle cry, and hope I make it home before serious internal damage is done?

Or do I simply use the public restroom with the ubiquitous MEN'S sign and save myself possible future surgery in an area not meant for surgery at all? (Although I thought this sign was more appropriate) I mean, how bad can it be?

It sounds like an easy choice, especially if you happen to be one of the two ladies that actually read this column.

But it really isn't. It can be a choice that can redefine your mood, health, and belief in the overall goodness of the human race.

I of course, am talking about the life-altering experience of entering a public men's' room.

If a woman ever wants to be elected president, all she has to do is show a picture of a typically knarly men's public restroom and she'd be a lock. How can men run a country when they can't even keep a bathroom clean?

The amazing thing is how little women know about the men's' room. It's kind of like Elaine's surprise during Seinfield's "Shrinkage" show, but with slipperly floors. It's like the "I don't have a square to spare," show except with see-through toilet paper, a possible ax-murderer in the stall next to you, and graffiti that would make Eminem blush.

There seem to be three different types of men's public bathrooms to fear. These would be the basic store restroom (including gas stations and rest areas), the sporting event restroom, the public school restroom, and the port-o-potty. Four, four types of restrooms. (That's for Monty Python fans.)

Now I'm just talking about the public "store" restroom. As soon as you enter, you can feel the despair. That is, if the forbidding smell doesn't kill you outright. Dozens of normal modern men have entered before you only to find 1 of the 4 stalls empty, and I'm not talking about empty being "free of another human being." The one "clean" stall has a toilet seat with dubious backsplash marks on it since men can only leave the toilet seat up in their own homes.

As an aside, if you're a man and don't know about backsplash, use a typical urinal while wearing shorts.

If you're lucky, the stall door will actually function and maybe even lock, but more than likely you'll probably have to deal with that hole where the lock used to be which a ten year old always looks through to see if anyone is in the stall. Of course, the stall has no toilet seat protectors available, which is okay since you wonder how something manufactured out of paper that could be thinner than a row of molecules could actually protect you from anything. Seriously, if the manufacturers of public rest room toilet paper and seat protectors got together with scientists, we'd finally be able to miniaturize all those things like in the science fiction movies.

"Hey look John! A microscopic submarine! How did they do it?"
"Well, Biff, it's all due to our friends in the toilet paper industry!"

Now you notice that there is a liquid on the floor that could be from the janitor, it could be from condensation on the toilets, or, it could be something else. Whatever it is, it is now coating the bottom of your shoe. You try to hang your coat, but there's no hook. The urinals haven't been flushed in what appears to be days and you seem to be getting dizzy from that strange breathing shallowly out of the mouth thing you do whenever you enter a public restroom. Plus, you're doing that strange "hold the door closed with one foot thing" because the lock was broken and a man muttering Bible quotes has entered the facility.

"Pop quiz hot shot!" "What do you do? What do you do?" (Click here for the movie quote that came from)
a) Do the levitating toilet bit. (If you're a guy, you know what I'm talking about, although it's tough if your doing the hold the door closed thing.)
b) Try to expose your skin to as little of the seat as possible.
c) Just do what you do. If it doesn't kill you, it will make you stronger.
d) Run outside screaming and hope for the best.
e) Use the women's room. They're always clean.

Seriously, who are these guys? Who does this to a place that at home you probably spend most of your quality time in? Does this same phenomenon happen on the space station? Is this a reason to lose faith in mankind?

Whatever it is, I think maybe we just need one of these to make the world a better place.