For the past thirty years, my workdays have been spent on the campus of a large northeastern university. During much of the year, the campus is abuzz with activity, and cold. But when the spring semester ends and the students head home to jerk off, the maples wake from their comas and the campus becomes a quiet park. This transformation draws me from the solitude of my office. I take my thoughts on extended strolls around the pond and along the deserted paths that connect buildings and disciplines.
One beautiful day last week I was on such a walk when it hit me: God, how fortunate I am to work in such a place. Not only am I in turn stimulated and soothed, but I'm never more than two minutes from a half-dozen spots where I can take a legal shit. While many of you in large office buildings with fast elevators probably have as many shitting options at your fingertips, the various drop sites are probably identical, leaving you little motivation to play the field. But a university campus is like an attic: a sprawling space where things accumulate. Over time it becomes an interesting place in which to rummage around. Tucked in corners of the campus are restrooms decked out much as they were at the turn of the last century, while state-of-the-fart facilities are being plumbed as we speak.
Inspired by these thoughts, I armed myself with a camera this week and went on a toilet safari. While I explored some new territory, I also visited a few old friends, some of which I hadn't dropped in for years. (A bit of advice on taking cameras into men's rooms: have your equipment stashed out of sight when you go through the restroom door. Guys get unnerved when you walk in holding it at the ready, and will blurt out things like "What the fuck?" It's a good idea to have your camera tucked in your pocket as well.)
The first two photos are of a restroom in the basement of a building erected in MCMXIV. Uh, let's see. MCMXIV. That would be, uh...
(While we wait for someone to figure this out: does anyone know why buildings, movies, and Super Bowls are still dated with Roman Fucking Numerals? Can we do anything about it? Or are we stuck with them like we are the penny?)
I've been informed that MCMXIV works out to be 1914.
I discovered this restroom several years ago only because upstairs is an auditorium which seats three hundred (that would be CCC for you Romans). Over the years I have attended eight or so string quartets here, enough to learn that they work a number on me. Vibrating strings of the violins ripple the surface of Bladder Lake, while the heftier timbre of the cello and viola knead the icing down the fecal pastry bag. When the chamber-pot music finally breaks for intermission, I beat a desperate path through the crowd and downstairs to this jewel in the crown. The stall doors are painted oak and start a mere three inches from the floor; so once you close them, you're virtually invisible.
But this is no place for the Shameful. Sounds echo in this underground cavern; even a Louganisesque entry reverberates in the bowl like a cannonball. The unique arrangement of sinks in the middle of the room sets up a face off between the guys coming from the eight urinals and those coming from the six stalls, as if they were on opposing teams. I'd like to walk in there one evening dressed in a tuxedo, make like I'm pulling a microphone down from the ceiling above the sinks, and announce in the dripping intonation of Michael Buffer, "In this corner, and wearing red briefs pulled down around the knees..."
The above is a photo of the stall that a former colleague dubbed "The Solarium." We'd been sharing an office for a year before we discovered that we'd both been walking right past the restroom nearest to our office to drop load in this 40s vintage beauty. It has more features and character than any stall I've ever gone steady with. Notice the radiator -- a real asset come February. The ledge you see wraps around the corner, giving you about four linear feet of shelf space. The two books in this photo (one is the tragedies of Sophocles), just happened to be there when I stopped by, but it wasn't uncommon twenty years ago when I was a regular to find reading material left there. The south-facing window streams in sunlight year 'round; and if it gets too hot, you can close the blinds.
The ample wall space was home to both drivel and brilliance. One day I was taken aback by the appearance of a lengthy and overly-earnest poem -- certainly not the sort of sentiment to expose on the wall of a men's room. But how to cleverly express this? Well, someone finally figured it out, penning beneath the poem: "Who let the chick in here?"
After conducting the camera tour, I checked the campus web site to see if, along with the number of degree programs and items in the library, the P.R. office thought to list the number of restrooms on campus. No dice. But I'd estimate the number to be around a thousand. Let's assume that half of those restrooms have doors with little men on them, and that inside each are three toilets. That means that if I wanted to shit in a different toilet each day, it would take me six years to work my way through the entire university collection.
How perfect: because on the seventh year, and right on schedule, I could take a sabbatical to some place like Oxford to expose myself to what they have to offer in the way of ivy-covered stalls. Oh, people! There are so many things to live for!
