Sux." That's what it says above the urinal at Mac's Gas.
It's kinda unfair really...you're stuck there and by the time you realize what you're reading it's too late to avert your eyes.
"Teach Peace." Ughh. Where's the race stuff?
"Who's That White Boy? This crazy a** boy right here." Not exactly what I was expecting.
"KKK." There it is...scratched into the wall.
There must have been something pretty good under it 'cause whatever it was has been scratched out and "White B****" has been written over it.
Then from someone who's obviously missed the plot..."hey man, not everybody feels that way." The last person on earth who's shocked to find something offensive written on a bathroom wall has mistaken it as a space for genuine discourse.
What is truly disturbing is the six step, illustrated, instructions on how to was your hands for the employees. Who is the employable person that doesn't know how to wash their hands?
My favorite is something about a cat's genitals. Actually it isn't about a cat's genitals...just a declarative statement really...
"Cat's Genitals!"
P.S. If anybody is interested in a good time just leave a comment and I'll get a number for you on the way back.
It's a curious impulse - one that I don't immediately understand or, on lengthier consideration, understand - to want to write on the walls of public infrastructure ostensibly built with a specific purpose in mind, namely the expulsion and collection of human waste with the intention of maintaining sanitary conditions for the health of the general populace. By "human waste" here, I mean the literal waste and not to thereby encompass metaphorical "human waste", that is those humans who, perhaps through concerted effort, or mere misfortune, have made a waste of their existence.
ReplyDeleteNow, on the face of it, you'd have thought that, say, a library would be a venue more fitting for self-expression - albeit of a semi-articulate nature - in the written form. Further, one would have thought that, perhaps, a book - paper pages - and not a wall, would be the most appropriate media upon which to codify and disseminate the fruits of that impulse.
Anyway, after I finished permanent penning those thoughts on the wall of a rest room cubical I happened to be occupying at the time, I paused for a moment to reflect on life's little ironies.
True story.
PS. I wonder if the "Cat's Genitals!" is a variation on the "cat's whiskers" or "bee's knees"? Alternatively, it could be considered as an obscure recommendation, the nature of which is surely best left to the cubical of the author's mind. The unnecessary capitalisation of "Genitals" suggests the latter.
"If You're Reading This Your Life....Sux."
ReplyDelete... may be a profound comment on the triumph of literacy given the gauntlet of a dysfunctional modern educational system and that the rub of such a crowning achievement, in the face of philistine adversity, is the all too clear realisation that the scribe who wrote those words failed to capitalise on it. The implication being:
"If you're writing "If You're Reading This Your Life....Sux." on a urinal wall, then, by implication, the the "yours" is the "you" or "me" of writing; hence, it's "my" - your - life that Sux."
I don't want to stop you while you're on a roll...but in a sense it's not surprising that the bathroom wall gets so much ink. You've got anonymity and a captive audience. This is your chance to let the world know what exactly is on your mind.
ReplyDeleteWhat's maybe not surprising but certainly interesting is what most people choose to do with opportunity...naughty gibberish.
Hahahahaha. It tickles me.
I forgot this gem from the peanut gallery...
ReplyDeleteU R All "Retards!"
With retards in quotes like that?
Six steps to wash your hands? I ran out of ideas after four...turn on tap. Add soap to hands. Rub hands together under stream of water to facilitate germ removal. Dry hands.
ReplyDeleteWhat did I miss??
In between turning on the tap and getting the soap you have to wet your hands...then get the soap. I can't remember what the sixth one is but I know there were an even number of steps...they were in boxes.
ReplyDeleteI'll see it again.
If only The Boy could get to a bathroom wall right now. It looks like he'll be going to a very good prep school here in town. He had a little screening there yesterday. A teacher took him into another room and asked him questions.
According to her he did a very good job. According to him, all they talked about was underpants.
"What did they ask you son. What did y'all talk about it."
"We talk aaaaaaaaaabout.....UNDERPANTS!"
"You did not talk about underpants."
"I couuuuuuuuunted....UNDERPANTS."
Then he breaks up giggling.
"Underpants, underpants, underpants, underpants."
"So how many underpants were there?"
"Four"
At least he got the number right.
UNDERPANTS!
Perhaps the the missing sixth step involved a reminder to wipe down your marker pen to remove any residual faecal matter that may have accumulated in the process of defacing public spaces?
ReplyDeleteI think you're on to something...step 1. Put your pen in the trash.
ReplyDeleteU R All "Retards!" ... hides the subtlety of its psychological insight behind the crudity of its naive text-speak expression.
ReplyDeleteRetard: "re" being from the Latin implying "again" or “again and again" and "tard" being from the French for "late".
So, to summarise, "retard" would appear to reference the human condition: the impulse to return, again and again, to the source, the origin, the matrix - or in Freudian terminology, the womb - but since, by definition, it - the beginning - has already passed, it is a moment for which we will always be late or "tardy".
Thus, existentially speaking, we - indeed the "you" encompassed by the "we" - are all retards.
That broke me up....that was funny.
ReplyDeleteWe are proud to have you as our contributing philosopher. We want to give you a 10 % raise on what we're paying you now.
As soon as I read anything about writing on toilet walls, or spy something particularly amusing scrawled on one, only one thing pops into my mind. Withnail & I. Paul McGann's ineterior monologue on the statement before him at the urinal is still one of the funniest things ever.
ReplyDelete"...in a moment of drunken sincerity..."
Thank you Sir.
ReplyDeleteSo happens...I haven't seen it, it's streaming on Netflix and, I don't intend to do anything today except lay around.
Perfume Ponce.
ReplyDeleteGet in the back of the van!
ReplyDeleteEvery line a classic, there aren't may film where the entire script is so damn quotable.
"Then the ******* will rue the day."
ReplyDelete