"...but you already took a picture of a dumpster full of toilets [1]," Mary Mary said. Diggety just looked at me as if to say, "Leave me out of this."
"Ahem," said I. "That was merely the Ark of the Covenant. We now seek the Holy Grail. We are in search of THE NASTIEST TOILET IN AUSTIN!"
Diggety rolled over and licked her butthole. Mary Mary was much more enthusiastic.
"Oh, alright," she said.
Thus was launched the greatest crusade of my PoopReporting career. I posted a request on Craigslist asking my fellow Austinites to weigh in with their suggestions. Not wanting to lose momentum in waiting for replies, Mary Mary and I brainstormed. We reckoned that the nastiest toilet would have to be in some dive bar. We racked our brains, trying to come up with the seediest place we could think of, deciding upon The Poodle Dog Lounge. The name alone reeked of nastiness. The Poodle Dog is one of those places that serves only canned beer -- the idea being that you cannot do much damage to your fellow patrons with a can, as opposed to a bottle.
With this in mind, we set out to begin our quest. Despite the name, we assumed that The Poodle Dog Lounge would not allow canines, so Diggety was dispatched to the backyard while I searched for my crappy disposable camera and the other tools of the trade. Pad and pen in hand, Mary Mary and I got in the truck and drove towards our date with doo doo destiny.
We ordered our cans of beer and found a patch of wall to stand against. While I surveyed the area for a bathroom sign, Mary Mary was approached by a large beer-bellied fellow with a pit bull puppy in one arm. He stood in front of her and began pointing his middle finger at the dog while yelling "FUCK YOU" over and over again. Needless to say, this behavior was a little disconcerting, so I moved closer to MM.
The beer-sodden man looked at me and said, "This dog don't take no shit. Watch this." He then proceeded to flip off the dog and yell at it numerous times. He then slapped it on the nose a few times until the dog snapped at him.
"See that? He purt near bit mah finger off."
Duly impressed, Mary Mary tried to engage him in conversation so that he would not feel compelled to hit the dog again. This caught the attention of a toothless woman dressed in ill-fitting jeans and a tube top. She came over and latched on to Jethro's arm. Seeing that Mary Mary had the situation well in hand, I moseyed on over to the men's room to check out the toilet.
It was disappointingly clean. The floor, however, was another matter. It looked as though the tile had been pulled up and promptly thrown up upon. There was an amalgam of urine, gum, dirt, and God knows what carpeting that floor.
There was also an interesting urinal. It looked more like a bathtub than anything else.
Despite the unique urinal and the sticky floor, I was chagrinned not to find a filthy toilet. I went back to see how Mary Mary was faring with the cast of The Devil's Rejects. Jethro was yelling, "His name is CHEWbacca! Get it?" Mary Mary got it alright, and I got a look that said, "Are we done yet?" We said our goodbyes and left out the back door.
I dejectedly told Mary Mary about the clean fixtures. She was upbeat about it, though. "Don't worry," she said. "I'm sure you will find a disgusting toilet at the next place you go."
What a woman!
Barton Creek Mall is like most malls: full of overpriced crap and mindless, status-seeking consumer zombies. We made our way through the desperate throngs and looked for the bathroom nearest the food court, figuring that this would be the nastiest of all. Spotting the blue-and-white bathroom symbol, I headed off to the head.
It was pristine.
My hopes were flushed away like last night's corn. The bathroom had shiny tile and beautiful fixtures. There was no scat, urine, blood, paper, or even dust to be found.
Needless to say, I took no pictures. My story, after all, is not about clean bathrooms.
I returned to Mary Mary and told her the bad news. She opined that perhaps the women's room would be the nasty one. This also turned out to be a dead end. It was even nicer than the men's.
So we ventured to Trophy's. Earlier I had laminated some PoopReport press credentials that I thought I might need if anyone freaked out about me taking pictures of the toilet. With my press pass hanging around my neck, Mary Mary and I sauntered in to the bar.
The bartender immediately looked at my press pass and began to ask, "What the hell is the Poo--"
He was interrupted by someone calling my name. It happens quite often when I walk in to a bar that I am recognized by old friends. This often bothers Mary Mary. I don't think she likes to be reminded of how much I used to get around. Luckily it was a guy this time.
Mary Mary rounded up some drinks and we retired to the back porch to smoke. My friend Nick told me that we could smoke inside if we kept it "on the down-low," but I did not want to draw any more attention from the bartender. I told Nick what we were up to, and he was glad to tell me about some grisly scenes that he had encountered in Trophy's bathroom. He also mentioned Emo's, which was the third time that some one had brought that up. I made a note to myself to visit Emo's soon. I then ventured in to the men's room.
That is when it struck me that I had forgotten my crappy camera. Luckily, I had a camera on my phone. I just needed to figure out how to use it.
The scene before me was about what I expected. It did have the nasty rotating towel gizmo on the wall; and it did have a nasty stain running down the wall to the floor. The room smelled of urine and vomit, even though I could not see any vomit. The fixtures were actually rather clean compared to the floor, which looked like a piece of moldy bread. I was disappointed that there weren't actual bodily fluids to take pictures of. The graffiti was there, though -- but it was all written in the same color as the wall, so it did not stand out. I fiddled with my phone for a few minutes until I finally figured it out and took some pictures.
When I opened the door to leave, I saw the bartender looking at me. He must have wondered why I was in there for so long, and why he saw two flashes of light from under the door's crack. I hastened to Mary Mary and Nick and finished my beer. Nick left and came back, telling me that he had spoken with the bartender. "I told him what you were doing. He's cool with it, as long as you promise to go take pics at Beverly's bar up the road."
I assured him that I would and then finished Mary Mary's beer. We left quickly, deciding to go find Beverly's. Alas, I was a bit buzzed, as was Nick when he gave me directions. So we drove up and down Congress twice before deciding to call it a night.
I have been to Emo's a number of times and never thought of it as a place to lounge around. There was usually a band like "REO SpeedDealer" playing and a bunch of punks and other degenerates like me milling around. I did not really have any memory of the bathrooms, except that they were dark. As I was soon to find out, they were dark for a reason.
Once the weekend rolled back around, Mary Mary and I set out to see Emo's bathrooms in the light of day. This presented a problem, as they are closed during the day. Earlier in the week, I called the place and left a few messages. I also emailed someone who seemed to be in charge of scheduling bands to play there. I never received any answers.
Determined not to be put off so easily, I opted for the direct approach. We drove up and banged on the door. There was no answer. Going around back was similarly fruitless. As we sat in the car pondering our next move, Mary Mary spied some movement in the rearview mirror. "There is a van pulling up to the front door," she said. We watched as some scruffy-looking dudes piled out of the van and opened its back.
"That's a band!" I said. They must have known some secret knock, because the door was opened for them in no time. This was going to be my only chance. I asked Mary Mary to slide over and keep the truck running, in case I had to make a hasty getaway.
I waited for a break in the line of punks shuttling amps, mic stands, and instruments through the door and then set off confidently to the entrance. I untucked my shirt and put on a scowl, trying to look like I belonged. Strutting in like I owned the place, I breezed past the guy at the door (who had his back to me) and headed toward the back of the building. Just as I was realizing that I did not remember where the bathrooms were, I heard, "HEY! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
Not missing a beat, I wheeled around and strode confidently toward Cerberus. Brandishing my laminated press credentials and jutting out my hand, I said, "Howdy! I'm SamDamnit! with The Poop Report. I called earlier, but I don't remember who I spoke to. I'm here to do a story on your bathrooms."
Taken aback, Cerberus looked at me quizzically, and then with resignation. "Oh no! Not again. Is this going to be like The Onion piece?" he said.
(Apparently The Onion had stolen my story [3]. The fact that they stole it two years before I thought of it did not temper my sense of indignation.)
I soldiered on. "Those amateurs have nothing on the PoopReport," I said. "I just need to take a few pictures to round out my story. Can you point me to the facilities?"
He shrugged and said, "Follow your nose." Not wanting him to change his mind, I turned and headed toward the back again. As I neared the portal leading to the outside part of the venue, I realized what Cerberus had meant. The smell was not very welcoming on a hot Texas day. I turned and found what appeared to be the ladies' room. Venturing in, I was struck by the smell of urine. I did not know that ladies peed on the floor. Rounding the corner, I saw what I can only translate to you in a picture:
I had never seen graffiti on the toilet itself. I was astonished.
Camera in hand, I moved to the men's room. As it grew closer, the smell went from urine to that of road kill. I entered and found what appeared to be a nasty toilet; but I soon realized it was the sink.
I steadied myself and turned to look at the trough-like urinal. What was most disturbing about it was not the pizza crust at the bottom, but the fact that graffiti was written INSIDE the urinal.
This was bad -- and I had yet to take in the stall. This was where the carcass smell was coming from. It was similar to the "ladies'" room, but someone had been kind enough to leave me a present. There was a mostly-dissolved turd in a sea of bright yellow urine.
THE POODLE DOG LOUNGE
The Poodle Dog Lounge takes up a long storefront with ample parking space. On this night, all the parking was taken. Not to be put off, we parked on the grass alongside some other beat-up trucks with stickers that said things like, "YOU'LL GET MY GUN WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM MY COLD DEAD FINGERS." Entering the bar, we were accosted by the sound of country music and the smell of old beer and fresh cigarette smoke. This was telling, in that Austin has a smoking ban. The bartender was solemnly smoking a cigarette underneath a large sign that read "NO SMOKING."
BARTON CREEK MALL ON A SUNDAY
The next day, we decided to follow up on a tip that was given to us by Patricia from Craigslist: "Barton Creek Mall on a Saturday.....disgusting. The cleanest are Nordstrom and 4 Seasons Hotel Lounge bathrooms." Mary Mary thought we should check out the cleanest bathrooms, but I was not to be distracted from my holy quest. To the mall we went.
TROPHY'S
Dejected, we left the mall and headed for our next destination, deciding to follow up on another lead from Craigslist. Alex had written: "it would have to be the men's room in Trophy's on S Congress. LAst time I went the paper towel thing (which still has the old school cloth thing) had been ripped out of the wall and was on the floor. In the urinal there stood a 4 inch high pile of vomit. Graffiti and filth stain the walls. On an unrelated note the burgers there kick ass. Oh yeah, the scene depicted above was observed on a Tuesday afternoon."
EMO'S
I spent the next week asking various friends where the nastiest bathroom was. The answer that I got the most was Emo's. Upcoming.org describes [2] Emo's thusly: "The club's slogan is 'Alternative Lounging.' Emo's has had a great history in the 90s alternative/indie/punk scene in Austin."
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