The Chronicles of the

G-Building Bathroom

            by Sam Finn

 

            Over the past four years I’ve spent as a student at Berkeley, I’ve been privileged to experience a number of extraordinary events and opportunities not available to most high school students.  After a die-in, mandatory dance class, and a pirate-ninja fight, I didn’t think that there was anything left to rattle me.  I was wrong.  In this past year, I have begun frequenting the G-building bathroom and it has opened my eyes to a whole new world of oddness.  With incidents running the gamut from unusual to uncommonly disturbing, I have come away with a new perspective on life and my own normalcy. 

            The first of these disconcerting occurrences started out as an intense compulsion to relieve myself but led to much more.  With a bladder fuller than a Zeppelin reunion concert, I speed-walked awkwardly to my favorite urinal, the center one. 

            Ahhhhhhh, what an exceptional urinal that is!  If you go to the one on the left you’ll find yourself with your back to the hand dryer, and the last thing you want when you’re pissing is a guy standing behind you with shifty hands.  The one on the right is low enough to give you the feeling that you don’t quite measure up to the other bathroom users; its height seems synonymous with status (no alpha wolf would regularly patronize a low urinal).  The center is the balance point which allows you to relax and let go.  Confident in your security, you stand proudly in the middle, the master of your domain.  The world is yours.  None can withstand you.

            But I digress.  While Zed (as this incomparable being is known to me) received my urine skillfully with minimal splash-back, I became suddenly aware of a presence in the stall to my far right.  Two presences.

                        “Ooooooh, auooh, ooh, yes!!  Ohhhhh.....”

                        “NO PEEKING, NO PEEKING!!!”

            Hmmmm, I thought to myself with an apprehension tinged by fear, what am I supposed to do now?

            I tapped my shoes together three times, quickly, and despaired at the lack of magic which I had partially expected of all shoes since The Wizard of Oz.  There was no time for remorse though, I was extremely uncomfortable with the situation and something had to be done.

            Almost immediately I sprang upon the obvious solution: to stop pissing and run like there were bees chasing my ten inch long, honey-smeared genitalia.  With a godly resolve, I commanded all sphincters to close immediately, no matter the cost.  Unfortunately, due to low wages and poor working conditions, they chose that moment to stage a walkout so I had to wait a little while.

            As soon as the pressure decreased to a containable level, I closed my rebellious sphincters with Herculean strength and scurried out of the room with divine alacrity.  Breathing heavily, I reeled away from that temple of the unholy and made my sorry way to chemistry.  Those were thirty of the hardest seconds of my life.

 

            My next episode wasn’t nearly as frightening and decidedly less graphic.  As I walked though the tainted threshold, I noticed a huge ghetto guy on my immediate right examining himself closely in the mirror.  Well, whatever floats your boat, I said to myself with a  small grin and concluded my business with Zed the urinal.

            As I put away Sequoia (you know, like Giant Sequoia), an irrepressible curiosity overcame me; the guy was still two inches away from the mirror.  What could he be doing?  After carefully zipping up, I swiftly washed my hands and ambled on by my mysterious friend, taking a surreptitious glance while passing.

            He was plucking his eyebrows.

 

            The third installment was much like the second, weird but not intolerable.  Our tale begins in with me in front of Zed the omnipotent.  I was especially glad to be with him that day because the urinal on the left had several wadded up paper towels stuffed in it unattractively.  I was roughly two ninths of the way finished when I heard self-assured boot-steps behind me.  The noise proceeded to walk itself to the right side urinal.

            My casual peek to the right affirmed my suspicions: old white janitor guy.  I’d seen him around school before and had somehow developed the ability to sense his presence in an uncanny Jedi-style manner.  He was dressed in faded jeans, a red flannel shirt, an old khaki vest, and a workbelt dangling every tool imaginable.  He took in the disarray of his urinal with a cool look that said he’d seen it all before and, with steely eyed determination, removed the pliers from his belt.  I had been watching him from the corner of my eye the whole time and now my interest was piqued.  What could he be doing?  He looked prepared for battle.

            Confident in his choice of action, old white janitor guy languidly removed the offending paper towels one by one with his pliers.  The pliers slowly rose up and down with a careless ease that spoke of great prowess and experience.  When he was finished, he proceeded to piss like a racehorse and leave.  I was appropriately flabbergasted and shied away from the bathroom for a couple weeks like a mare from a randy stallion known to have gonorrhea.

                       Finally, I regained control of myself one day and returned to frequenting the facility on a normal basis.  Soon after, an incident on par with the first related struck me like a frying pan to the groin.

            That day at lunch I had downed about three Yoohoo boxes and badly needed to relieve myself; the pain was excruciating.  To make matters worse, my mind kept going over a story I had heard about a French noble who had died of an exploded bladder (to polite to leave the table).  With these grim thoughts racing through my brain, I staggered within sight of the G-building bathroom.  I closed the remaining distance at a brisk hobble and entered the room beaming.

 

My grin flew away, replaced by green bile

As out of a stall came a vision quite vile

The door was wide open, glaringly so

And through it a vista that Satan would show

It was a small man, many of years

Wearing a grimace, or was it a sneer?

He sat on his throne, pantless and sure

Reached for the roll that held such allure.

            Naturally, I left.

            That bathroom and I shared some good times.  I’ll always come back for more.