A public female bathroom is located, fortuitously, just outside my office. This string of communal cubicles is far from being fancy, quite the reverse actually. This bathroom has an unaffectionate reputation as the most airless, constrictive and dirty toilet block in the whole of the social sciences complex, having missed out on the hygienic refurb that most other bathrooms were recently treated to. It has boarded up windows, locks that hang ineffectual and broken, and fluro lights that are stuck in a perpetual state of candlesticky flicker.
Although murky, musty and possibly haunted, my bathroom lacks the romance of say, an old English manor, or a moonlit moor.
Proximity is a strong motivator, however, and it is rare that I will put comfort before convenience in the matter of all things bathroom. Furthermore, in the small, dingy bathroom, so close to where I study, I have MY STALL.
Unlike the owners of this aquarium toilet, I have not yet customized my cubicle of choice.
It is a funny component of human nature to like consistency. People pick out seats and spots that they favour, and then continue to use them regardless of mitigating or external factors. In these cases, habit will often trump the desire to hunt around for something shinier, more spacious, or even more functional.
When it comes to my bathroom visitations, I too am a woman of routine. When adjourning to that dank and dimly lit set of stalls, I without fail choose the end cubicle to the far left of the bathroom. This stall is my particular favourite, not just because it is familiar, but also because I enjoy the sporadically increasing graffiti statements and conversations that spider up and down its walls.
Most people, if you believe the press, view graffiti as vandalism. In a toilet stall, however, I enjoy the varied reading material.
At the top of the door, creating a heading, if you will, the text reads:
VIVA LA RESISTANCE
Underneath this call to arms a feminist sticker with the printed proclamation “Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes” has been scrawled over with the adage,
TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE
To my right are written the ruder messages of the collection, with a musing student wondering in blue pen,
EVER WONDERED WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SHIT REALLY HITS THE FAN?
A flesh-phobic student has taken the spot next to the previous question to declare the wise and age-old truism:
FAT PUSSY STINKS
Another author has taken it upon herself to draft a response, with her rejoining scribble cramped underneath the declaration,
TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE
My personal favourite occupies the bottom right of the left hand wall,
BE KIND, EVERYONE YOU MEET IS FIGHTING A GREAT BATTLE
Finally, so faint you can barely read it, a girl has written a single, poignant word, in semi-translucent black ink:
ONEDAY
