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A Peace of My Mind

Restrooms, bathroom, the John, the shitter or crapper are words that describe those places we go to do our business.  At the Mary Davis Home, we referred to that place as the Pink Pagoda.  Yes, the stool and sink were '60's pink.  At home these are places of familiarity, insuring peace and solitude, unless you are raising a large family. Not only do we do our constitutionals, we get a break from whatever is happening outside.  We can grab a magazine, newspaper, or DS Lite and play Virus Blaster.  I swear, I haven't had a meaningful bowel movement without my DS since I was 47.  

On the road, these bastions of peace become a little more problematic.  Throw familiarity down the toilet, because, as we all know, the road is a mish-mash of public flushing.  Convenience store restrooms provide the relief we seek while making us navigate around the proclivities of past patrons.  It isn't always pretty, and it isn't always scrupulously clean, but for the moments we are there, it does provide a modicum of peace.  We can raise the drawbridge, batten the hatches and keep the world away for only minutes until we must give it up to the next weary and full-bladdered traveler.       







I've been in some places that provide some kind of reading material on the wall to help while they time.  Sometimes the reading material is the latest sports page, sometimes fliers for things on sale.  But more often than not we rely on other patrons to provide the writing, as in the picture above.  Usually the writing is a brief evaluation of a past love, perhaps a past act, or maybe a rumination for what might have been. Short, easy to read, and to the point.  The above, however, is a fairly complex (for bathroom literature) remark about either transitive grammatical usage or transitioning to a different friend, perhaps more worthy to be scribbled on a public bathroom wall.  Now that's real love.  Someone then came along to correct the spelling.  Funny how people carry pens and sharpies to the can, man.   








And then there was this recent bathroom call down in Morton that had all the usual amenities like the toilet, waste can, toilet paper, but, what?  no sink.  Never fear, just grab the bar rag on the way back to your seat for proper cleaning.  




From London Mills, Alicia clearly loves Jonathan's member.  But since this was a men's room, the writing is Jonathan's.  We can only assume that he has it on good authority and is demonstrably assured of Alicia's love.  Perhaps she will someday come to love other aspects of Jonathan.  

I'm no math major, but if we use the bathroom 15 minutes a day for cleaning and using the facilities for an equal number of minutes, that's a half hour a day in complete solitude.  That's equal to 210 minutes per week,  10,920 minutes per year, or 182 hours per year, or 7.58 days per year.  Or, if you are 65 years old you have spent, more or less, a year and a half in the bathroom.  

So how do we spend that time?  Besides the DS game, do we think great thoughts?  Small thoughts?  The day's schedule?  Yesterday's challenges?  Jonathan thought to tell everyone in London Mills that Alicia loves his dick.  Hey, that's no small thing.     


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