I might as well tell the story, since Dave mentioned it, even though it’s not that entertaining and I’ve told it before. So in the summer of 1997, Dave and I went to visit Leo in St. Louis. One night we went out to some hip part of town, I think it’s called “The Loop”, to a bar called Blueberry Hill to play darts. (I’ve shared this before, but the walls of the dart room were lined with pictures of champion dart throwers. Not the most athletic looking individuals in the world. Which is true of the champions of any “sport” you typically do while drinking, like bowling.)
Anyway, I don’t know what I ate that day but it was decidedly not agreeing with my system, so in the middle I had to make an urgent sprint to the restroom. Problem was, it was really hard to find one. My memory is hazy here, but I vaguely recall having to search a while, then when I found one, having to wait while the single stall was occupied. When he finally got out, I went in, and this bathroom was ghetto – there was no actual door, just a movable barrier that came up chest high.
Soon after I started my urgent, too-liquid business, some guy comes to the toilet, we make eye contact over the barrier, and he goes, “whoa”, and then backs away. Then he starts saying how urgently he needs to go and how long I’m going to be. The true answer is a while, my stomach was really not feeling well, and it was one of those things where there were several waves involved. But yeah, he sounded drunk and pushy so I kind of rushed things. Anyway, not good times. I’m not even sure what Dave finds interesting about this story.
I also had a bad experience in the Memorial City Mall Food Court bathrooms years ago. As at Blueberry Hill, the toilet stall doors were too short. I was also in an urgent situation so I grabbed the first stall I found, right by the door. But this meant that I made eye contact with everyone who entered the bathroom. Awkward. I dunno, being on the toilet is the most vulnerable position one can be in. You don’t want to make eye contact while you’re doing that, especially not looked down on. It’s even worse than eye contact between naked folks in the gym locker room.
Another bad toilet experience was at the tail end of Boy Scout Camp. I had successfully not went #2 the entire week because the toilets were so filthy. But on the last day, right before I was leaving, I just had to go. And when I did, it came out green. Haven’t seen that before or since.