Fear and Loathing in The Library Restroom

Nature calls.

I make my way to the nearest restroom in hopes that a urinal will be available. Once inside, I’m greeted with the warm smell of freshly baked brownies and hot ammonia. There are a half a dozen other men waiting in line, and with the close proximity I am fortunate enough to experience for myself what it must be like to not shower in six months.

I eventually get to the front of the line and see something I haven’t seen since first grade: a grown man urinating with his pants around his ankles. This astonishes me, and yet, I am not surprised when, while pulling his pants up, a dingy heroin needle falls out of his pocket and between my feet.

“You mind handing that to me?” the man asks with a sheepish look on his face.

“Yes I do, sir,” I answer cordially. “I do not care to know what hepatitis feels like between my nimble fingers.”

The man stoops, picks up his paraphernalia, then brushes past me with an angry glance, leaving me a faint whiff of fresh cabbage and cheap cologne.

I proceed to the urinal, a three foot wide bowl attached to the wall. It is a waterless “green” facility, no wonder I am getting light headed from the overwhelming fragrance in the room. I unzip my pants and realize that I am standing in a puddle of what does not appear to be fresh spring water. I look at the giant bowl of a urinal and can’t imagine how this man has missed his target. I hope he does not have a gun.

A little phased, I turn around and proceed to a toilet stall being vacated by an older man who must be celebrating something the way he smells of alcohol. I enter into the stall, the door swinging inwards. I am forced to press my body against the wall in order to close the door, and somehow I manage this without falling into the toilet. Good thing too, because there must be some epidemic going through town causing people’s aim to falter. Amazing. From the looks of what I behold, the man before me must’ve had broccoli chicken for lunch and an anus on either side of his legs.

The moment becomes crucial as I sense a deep rumbling down below. Nature is screaming.

I make haste in cleaning up the man’s mess, trying ever so valiantly to not make physical contact with whatever it is that I am wiping up. I assume my place on the throne and make business happen. As I sit there, I notice that the stall door is about three and a half feet off the ground revealing my most personal areas to anyone who just happens to walk by and notice. Thank goodness they can’t see my face though, they’ll never recognize me from this angle.

I read the graffiti on the stall door. Ted must be a friendly guy, he seems to want to have a good time. Maybe I’ll call him and invite him out to lunch some day. Upon time to file paperwork, I find that the rolls in the T.P dispenser have somehow migrated towards each other and don’t want to separate. I find an end and begin to pull, but it comes off in little pieces. I fight with this contraption for a moment before it finally cooperates, giving me twice the amount that I needed.

I flush the toilet, pull my pants up, receive a few funny looks from some interesting looking people, then proceed to the sink. There is no soap in the dispenser, and the water is ice cold. I go to the touch-less automatic hand dryers and put my hands underneath. Nothing happens at first, so I put the closer and closer until my hands are barely touching the machine and it starts to blow. I’m kneading my hands together, and as my hands move away from the dryer it stops, requiring me to maintain a close proximity to the machine. After a few moments, the dryer gets to around a thousand degrees and burns my hand. That’s when I notice the sign: AVOID CONTACT, HOT SURFACE. No kidding.

I turn to leave and realize that nobody else has washed their hands. This wouldn’t be an issue if the door knob didn’t require turning in order to open the door. I question the efficiency of touch-less automatic hand dryers briefly, pull my sleeve over my hand, open the door, exit the bathroom, then vow to never wear this shirt again.