I'd like to take this time to wish the fans of the up-and-coming CoolSWAG a happy duce-double-o-six. If you've been keeping track of things around here, you'll notice that today marks one whole month since my last entry. You may think this is due to laziness, or that I became incapacitated by booze or something else entirely, but rest assured this was all just one big test. Yeah, that's right. I wanted to see just how many of you readers out there would actually care enough to check up on this blog after an entire month of inactivity. Okay, I lied.
So, what was I up to during my month-long hiatus? Not too much of anything to tell you the truth (which I rarely do). I did enjoy the 24-Hour A Christmas Story marathon on Christmas Eve. That's a plus. Anyway, if you are one of those lucky few who have returned to this crazy corner of cyberspace, you're in for one of my most interesting articles so far this year (hope you caught that)! See, I love this because I can build up my articles with whatever kind of ludicrous bull I want to and it'll be absolutely true when I use that kind of logic. If you're expecting the grand explanation to the great mysteries of the world or the cure for that pesky bird flu, however, I'm afraid you might be a tad bit disappointed. But no worries, if you are, you can always ask for a refund. Waitaminute...
And now, without further ado, I proudly present to CoolSWAGgers everywhere the fifth level of Hell: Public Restrooms! DUN DUN DUN! Oh how I dread thee, thou foul and wretched beast. I gotta tell ya, public restrooms scare the crap outta me. Funny that I should put it that way considering the subject matter, but it's the absolute truth and I would be forced to admit to it under oath so why not just come out with it now? I have a deeply developed phobia of venturing into the disgusting depths of public restrooms and it's been there for as long as I can remember. They scare me. The facilities themselves scare me. The people inside them scare me. Writing this article at this very moment...yeah, I'm a little scared. Anyway, as I'm sure you're all aware, the mens room is quite possibly one of the craziest places on earth. The first thing you'll notice is the peculiar lineup of urinals against the wall. There's usually anywhere between two and eight of them just kind of hanging there waiting for you to come along and say hello. The most bittersweet moment you can have in a public restroom is when you walk in to find a completely unoccupied urinal zone. Yep, I'm talking all lanes wide open. Sweet because you can pick your poison and get to work without having to worry about doing the restroom shuffle. The restroom shuffle, for those of you who do not know, is when you wait until you are able to jump into a urinal that is at least two away from the nearest occupant. It's kind of an unwritten rule in the realm of bathroom etiquette. This brings up the bitter part of our equation: the too-close-for-comfort guy. Everybody can name at least one of them. They're the weirdos who pick the urinal right next to you even when the one on the other side of the room is empty. Worst of all is when they start talking to you. Look, it's a friggin' restroom. It's not a place where I really want to be carrying on a conversation - especially when I'm exposed in front of a "personal comfort station." I kid you not, that's what those politically correct Nazis are calling them these days. I guess I understand their attempts to euphemize the word "urinal", but let me tell you, they missed the mark completely. Ain't nothin' comfortable about a urinal, and thanks to these too-close-for-comfort guys, there ain't too much personal about them either.
Anyway, these too-close-for-comfort guys are the same kind of people who come into the restroom whistling. They make bizarre comments about the color of the walls or the smell of the soap in the dispenser then they'll say something they believe to be witty about how terrible Mondays are or how much they're diggin your new watch. What I want to know is why he's noticing my watch when the only thing he should be noticing is the wall in front of him. You don't look around when you're in the urinal. Under any circumstances. I don't care if the guy next to you explodes. You wait until he's done exploding. Seriously.
(Notice the gentlemen in the above picture executing proper restroom etiquette - although with those wacky wall separators, it's a little easier)Really the too-close-for-comfort guy is only a fraction of my problem with the system. I mean, have you seen public restrooms these days? Have you seen public restrooms these days? I doubt they were ever any real source of unbridled beauty, but c'mon. Today's public restroom is quite possibly the most hideous sight your eyes can behold. You would think we were living in a world without soap. Or mops. Or janitors.
There's really no excuse for that. Another perplexing evil of public restrooms is the wide variety of sounds that come out of that place. I'm not even going to touch on what your dirty mind is thinking up. I'm talking about:
Weird business men talking on their cell phones while in the john (I tell you, if I hear this kind of thing, I usually flush the toilet as many times as possible just so the person on the other end of the call knows for sure that he's talking to a guy on the crapper).
The "warning cough" that sounds from the stalls everytime a new person enters the room (this is done so that the new guy doesn't accidently open the door of an occupied stall).
The jets of water that spray out of the sinks that have those "big-brother-like" red eyes (creepy, but I suppose it's a heckuva lot better than having to touch some disgusting knob).
The rustling of newspapers (because for some reason there are those individuals who feel they must be entertained on the job).
The list goes on and on. Then there is the guy who always remembers to bring along a sharpie. And he'll use that sharpie to scribble some random insult like: "You suck." This of course attracts another sharpie-wielding schmuck to cross out the previous guy's message and write: "No, you suck," leading to an all-out war between these two losers that comes to a brief end only when the janitor stumbles across the inky mess once every five years when he finally decides to do his job. Then the battle begins anew. After a while it starts to look like the back of a highschool yearbook.
Well, looks like I've wasted enough of your time for one day, so to be sure it's not a total loss, I've decided to include a little piece of good old Arab advice:
Oh no he didn't. He did not just write an article on public restrooms. Oh yes. Yes he did.
