Through the looking glass
There’s a huge amount of building work going on at work, so the toilets have been swapped around so that no-one has to dash up or down three flights of stairs when nature calls. The upshot of all this is that my nearest toilet is a former gent’s toilet. Walking in there is a bit of an odd experience, even once you’ve got over the “Oh, wrong toilets!” feeling. I noticed some interesting differences:
- There’s a lot more graffitti in the men’s toilets. In fact I learned a few interesting things from the wall of the cubicle…
- All of the coat hooks on the back of the doors in the cubicles have come off, and are now fixed on the rear wall. What do the guys do with the hooksâdo they have excessively heavy coats? Do they pull 20 chin-ups on them?
- Before they switched the toilets over, someone screened off the urinals. Seemingly, the powers that be think that we women might have our delicate sensibilites offended, or might freak out if we caught a glimpse of the forbidden porcelain. How little they know us.
My guess is that the men are probably marvelling at the virgin walls and the hooks on the back of the doors.
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All the things you describe about public toilets bewilder me, too - and I'm a bloke. I have no idea of who writes the graffiti or vandalises the hooks. In the toilets for our Linguistics Dept someone's written some racist anti-immigrant stuff. It's nasty, and I'm waiting for it to be removed. In the meantime, I'm left wondering: WHO? What Neo-Nazi would wander into Leeds Uni, go into a specific building, go down two flights of stairs into the cellar (by-passing lots of toilets on the way), find the very small toilet for the Linguistics Dept, then scrawl their unwanted message on the wall there? It just confuses me beyond belief!
Long live the "Ladies", that's all I say! May I use them, too, please?----- There have always been neo-nazi types on campuses. It's sad but true that not all racists fascists etc are uneducated pebian types. Remember Oswald Mosely and his missus, well eductaed aristos, and Hitler's chief supporters in Britain.
by dave @ 04/06/2003 7:06 am • Permalink •
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Overnight, someone has stuck (I suspect with blutack) a red cardboard box on the wall of our Gents. It is marked "Emergency Services", has a picture of a small hammer and a faux glass panel, behind which is .... a box of DioCalm tablets!
by Mr.D. @ 04/06/2003 11:07 am • Permalink •
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Mr. D: Heh, that's great!
The graffiti in our toilets wasn't racist, just scandalous gossip.
by bsag @ 04/06/2003 9:06 pm • Permalink •
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