Liz Kersjes
Around the world, if a person finds him or herself in a public bathroom with a Sharpie marker and a minute of free time, it’s usually enough of an excuse to warrant a banal message to the world.
Notes, names and poetry pop up in every language on the doors and walls of restrooms from middle schools to pubs to train stations.
Scrawling on the wall of a business or school is probably considered vandalism, and most of the time, the quality of the message isn’t worth the time it takes to read it.
However, amid a sea of notes proclaiming “Jessica Loves Adam” or making crude jokes about bodily functions and parts, a few gems stand out. It seems witty and intelligent people also take part in small-scale vandalism from time to time.
A few blogs and Web sites have dedicated their domain space to the best and worst of stall commentary around the world. One site, www.thewritingsonthestall.com, bills itself as an online repository of writing on restroom walls, allowing submissions from anyone.
The site has an expected collection of crude poems and declarations, and the sources for the writings are as interesting as the notes themselves — hotel lobbies, air force bases and Ivy League universities contained some of the more offensive remarks.
My personal favorites from the site are snarky and political, such as this string of comments circa 1972:
“America lost its virginity in Viet Nam.”
“... and got the clap too.”
“Hey, I got the clap in Viet Nam.”
“You should watch who you go out with.”
“SO SHOULD AMERICA!”
In the end, though, the best comment on the site was simple, celebratory and straight to the point. From a women’s restroom in Ohio, someone proclaimed: “I had sex in this stall!”
Across the pond in a pub in Dublin, Ireland, some brave patron summed up the sentiments of people around the world with the phrase, “Mother Mary, who conceived without sinning, please help me to sin without conceiving.”
Of course, nothing makes a person think about personal hygiene and safety in a public bathroom more than a good ol’ STI threat. From a train station in South Africa, below a note that read, “In order to prevent wet feet, stand up upon the seat,” someone wrote “Don’t bother standing on the seat — the crabs in this loo jump 10 feet!”
All in all, not every bathroom wall scrawl is terrible. Some can be thoughtful, cheeky or downright hilarious. For all the aspiring anonymous wall poets out there, just try to make your comments interesting and keep the pointless, childish crudity to a minimum.
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