Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
Is writing on the walls in public restroom toilet stalls a lost art? I ask that question because I don’t use them much anymore since I am retired and haven’t been getting out much lately. I’m thinking, now that most people have cell phones, they have things to occupy their time and attention while waiting for nature to take care of business. Back in the old days, you could get bored sitting on the toilet broken-hearted and constipated. If you had a pen in your pocket protector, you could be tempted to write a little poem about your situation. Many people did, and if your ditty was clever enough, you could entertain the next person that needed to use the stall. I’m not trying to encourage graffiti, but this was fairly harmless as long as the message was humorous and not hateful. You could get a bit risqué´ knowing that your targeted audience was the same gender as you. Having never used the ladies room stall, I have no idea if the fairer sex also participated in these rascally shenanigans, but it would be a great opportunity to trash talk us despicable men.
When I graduated high school, I attended the DeVry Institute of Technology in Chicago. The stalls at the school were masterpieces of bathroom stall humor. There was little room to write your own poem as the walls were completely covered in crapper humor. I’ll never forget the one that was my favorite. It said, “support mental health, or I’ll kill you”. Not politically correct in this day and age, but I thought it was funny in 1969. We didn’t have Homeland Security to report you to the FBI. Most people just took it as a joke and not a threat anyway. I was entertained by the creativity and thought it was a cool thing.
Even graffiti can be acceptable, in my humble opinion. I don’t like the gang tagging, depending on where it was painted. As an example, when a freight train stops me at the railroad crossing, I like looking at the graffiti on the boxcars. Even the gang related tagging doesn’t bother me, as the artwork is good, and it’s much more interesting to look at than a mile long string of rusty boxcars. In recent years, many downtown buildings are being spruced up with mural art. I like that too.
Other than being a nuisance to the custodial staff, I don’t see writing something funny in the bathroom stall as a terrible crime. As long as the message is intended to be funny and not mean spirited, I can appreciate that activity. I was a participant when I was a letter carrier at the Calaveras Branch Post Office where I worked in California. I did this work anonymously, calling myself the Calaveras Poet Laureate (CPL). There were 30 to 40 mail routes in that office, and most of the carriers were men. There was one woman carrier back then that we called Gramma. She never got to read my prose. I would go into the stall, write a poem on the wall, and quietly return to my work area. I always signed it CPL. While I continued to sort my mail, I would wait for someone to come back out and address the workroom floor that CPL has struck again. I was always amused and nobody suspected me. We had another carrier named Ray, that was the loud jokester in the group. Everybody thought it was him, but he swore that he was innocent.
I can’t remember how long I carried on doing this, but it was many months. No one ever suggested my name, and that was fine with me. The management in the office must have enjoyed it, as they never tried to put a stop to it. But I felt so sorry for Ray as everyone thought it was him despite his denials. I decided to write a poem exonerating him. The last two lines in the poem went, “if you think it’s Ray, then you are wrong… The CPL is NOT Ray Hong”. I felt better writing that one until someone walked out of the bathroom announcing “Nice try Ray, we all know it’s you”. Gramma retired, and I put together a booklet with many of the poems in it for her. I gave it to her at the retirement party and she loved it. I came clean at that function and apologized to Ray yet again, but he wasn’t upset with me.
