Crack in partition: So, I have a little extra time now that I’ve finished my work for the day and think I should go ahead and talk about the crack in the partition. This is the crack that is between the door of the bathroom stall and the wall of the stall (Fig. 1). These bathroom stalls aren’t exactly the most secure structures ever designed and I guess as far as any job a civil engineer could land, I’m guessing that bathroom stall isn’t at the top of the list. Never-the-less, I do believe that the seals between the door and the rest of the structure could be a little tighter if only the problems that arise because of their existence was only brought to the attention of those designing and installing them. I guess those responsible have never actually used their own product as the issue is clearly evident the first time you are forced to sit on the cold unforgiving porcelain throne with all that you hold dear and private completely exposed to the elements with nothing but a poorly constructed bathroom barrier to protect you from the prying eyes of your office peers. Now, addressing the issue of being on the other side of the barrier, there seems to be some perverse and illogical draw to peering through the crack in these barriers. The crack acts like a tractor beam drawing your secretive gazes directly to it even though everything in your being is telling you that there is nothing good that could possibly come from achieving the goal of peering inside. Just the mere fact that there is a chink in the armor of a barrier whose very existence is meant to keep you out compels that you must exploit its weakness. And I, along with those who are not afraid to be truthful with ones self would probably admit feeling the enchanting lure of the crack gaze. That being said, if you happen to find yourself in the precarious position of having a viewing window to your pale fleshed parts not even the sun has seen, there are a few preventative measures you can take. This brings me to a curious event that presented itself to me while I was attending classes at Vanderbilt University.
On the third floor of one of the older classroom buildings in which I was taking some sort of Economics course, there was a single small bathroom. It had been remodeled with the rest of the building recently and had all new bathroom fixtures not excluding the standard crack in the barrier. But, this bathroom stall crack was unusually intrusive even by my standards and experience of noticing hundreds of cracks and their propensity to expose those concealed within. Because this building was older due to the fact that people were much smaller around the turn of the twentieth century, the bathroom was very compact and really didn’t have enough room to fit both a full sized sit down toilet as well as a urinal. Unscathed by bathroom etiquette and real world functionality of course, some engineer, possibly the same one who designed these less than concealing barriers to begin with, was able to squeeze the urinal next to the toilet barrier with merely millimeters to spare. Some women may need to stretch their imagination in this next exercise as most have assumedly never used a urinal but please visualize with me if you will. You’re standing at the urinal doing your business and you happen to turn your head ever so slightly to the left only to discover you have a direct shot through the barrier’s built in wiener viewing window straight to some college kid or professors higher learned junk. Great job engineer, you’ve essentially designed an apparatus for collecting pure human tears and cranking out a constant flow of ideal candidates for psycho analysis and shock therapy. Anyway, I did frequent this bathroom and used the urinal, but never the sit down stool as it is much better to realize that there is someone less endowed than yourself in the building than to allow it to be discovered that you are in fact the one who looks as if he has been swimming in the Arctic Circle all morning. In visiting this tiny bathroom I happened to notice something quite peculiar. Every time I looked to peer into the toilet stall, there was a length of toilet paper hanging from the top of this crack running the full length of the stall effectively creating an artificial barrier within the barrier to prevent anyone from taking advantage of the wiener window. At first this did not register with my brain as I was probably in much too deep a thought about economic problems throughout the world and couldn’t be bothered with such trivial a detail. More likely, I was probably in the mind numbing state that I put myself into in order to be able to physically endure most of the lectures I was forced to attend without expiring. Either that or chicks. Being the kinesthetic learner that I am, I felt the need to pull down this artificial barrier to the barrier every time I encountered it, which was every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. To my surprise and delight, the TP barrier would always be in place again the following bathroom visit. After awhile I became curious as to why this was occurring. I first looked for some sort of natural cause like possibly the air conditioner was blowing a section of toilet paper into the crack due to some sort of pressure variance within the stall itself. This idea was quickly defeated as common logic will deduce that such a vortex would clearly cause the free flow of other materials within the barrier walls, in particular fecal particulate matter. This of course is preposterous. (I’ve never actually written the word preposterous and felt that if there were ever a time, this is it.) Next, I reasoned that some sort of human interference must have occurred for the barrier to be placed perfectly in place time and time again. But then the question became why? Why would someone so superstitiously place this strip of paper in the exact location despite its inevitable removal by my hand day in and day out? It then occurred to me the exact scenario that must be taking place that I had not only discovered but was an unknowing participant in. Because the class was early in the morning and the placement of the TP was so consistent, the culprit must be a professor who worked in the building. I doubted that there was such a dedicated student who would show up that early to every class. Therefore, I in fact, was disrupting the pooping schedule of one of the intellectuals in the building. There was something about exposing such a basic and ordinary bodily function that everyone young, old, rich, poor, highly regarded professor or lowly college student, I found quite comical. It became somewhat of a game to me and I was sure to never miss a morning bathroom visit in order to remove this barrier with no more intent than to cause an unknown scholar a few more seconds of discomfort in his morning bowel regime. This scenario continued for the duration of the semester with me arriving to the bathroom and removing the TP barrier only to find it replaced the following trip. I will never know who that masked man was, but I can only hope he received even a fraction of the satisfaction I felt playing my part in that delicate dance. Back to the point of our rant, toilet paper can be used as an obstruction in order to plug the partition crack.
On the third floor of one of the older classroom buildings in which I was taking some sort of Economics course, there was a single small bathroom. It had been remodeled with the rest of the building recently and had all new bathroom fixtures not excluding the standard crack in the barrier. But, this bathroom stall crack was unusually intrusive even by my standards and experience of noticing hundreds of cracks and their propensity to expose those concealed within. Because this building was older due to the fact that people were much smaller around the turn of the twentieth century, the bathroom was very compact and really didn’t have enough room to fit both a full sized sit down toilet as well as a urinal. Unscathed by bathroom etiquette and real world functionality of course, some engineer, possibly the same one who designed these less than concealing barriers to begin with, was able to squeeze the urinal next to the toilet barrier with merely millimeters to spare. Some women may need to stretch their imagination in this next exercise as most have assumedly never used a urinal but please visualize with me if you will. You’re standing at the urinal doing your business and you happen to turn your head ever so slightly to the left only to discover you have a direct shot through the barrier’s built in wiener viewing window straight to some college kid or professors higher learned junk. Great job engineer, you’ve essentially designed an apparatus for collecting pure human tears and cranking out a constant flow of ideal candidates for psycho analysis and shock therapy. Anyway, I did frequent this bathroom and used the urinal, but never the sit down stool as it is much better to realize that there is someone less endowed than yourself in the building than to allow it to be discovered that you are in fact the one who looks as if he has been swimming in the Arctic Circle all morning. In visiting this tiny bathroom I happened to notice something quite peculiar. Every time I looked to peer into the toilet stall, there was a length of toilet paper hanging from the top of this crack running the full length of the stall effectively creating an artificial barrier within the barrier to prevent anyone from taking advantage of the wiener window. At first this did not register with my brain as I was probably in much too deep a thought about economic problems throughout the world and couldn’t be bothered with such trivial a detail. More likely, I was probably in the mind numbing state that I put myself into in order to be able to physically endure most of the lectures I was forced to attend without expiring. Either that or chicks. Being the kinesthetic learner that I am, I felt the need to pull down this artificial barrier to the barrier every time I encountered it, which was every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. To my surprise and delight, the TP barrier would always be in place again the following bathroom visit. After awhile I became curious as to why this was occurring. I first looked for some sort of natural cause like possibly the air conditioner was blowing a section of toilet paper into the crack due to some sort of pressure variance within the stall itself. This idea was quickly defeated as common logic will deduce that such a vortex would clearly cause the free flow of other materials within the barrier walls, in particular fecal particulate matter. This of course is preposterous. (I’ve never actually written the word preposterous and felt that if there were ever a time, this is it.) Next, I reasoned that some sort of human interference must have occurred for the barrier to be placed perfectly in place time and time again. But then the question became why? Why would someone so superstitiously place this strip of paper in the exact location despite its inevitable removal by my hand day in and day out? It then occurred to me the exact scenario that must be taking place that I had not only discovered but was an unknowing participant in. Because the class was early in the morning and the placement of the TP was so consistent, the culprit must be a professor who worked in the building. I doubted that there was such a dedicated student who would show up that early to every class. Therefore, I in fact, was disrupting the pooping schedule of one of the intellectuals in the building. There was something about exposing such a basic and ordinary bodily function that everyone young, old, rich, poor, highly regarded professor or lowly college student, I found quite comical. It became somewhat of a game to me and I was sure to never miss a morning bathroom visit in order to remove this barrier with no more intent than to cause an unknown scholar a few more seconds of discomfort in his morning bowel regime. This scenario continued for the duration of the semester with me arriving to the bathroom and removing the TP barrier only to find it replaced the following trip. I will never know who that masked man was, but I can only hope he received even a fraction of the satisfaction I felt playing my part in that delicate dance. Back to the point of our rant, toilet paper can be used as an obstruction in order to plug the partition crack.
1 comment:
This is one of my favorite stories of all time...seriously. I always mention bathroom stall partitions now...and share your story freely with my new bathroom cohorts...bam!
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