American Graffiti

The bathrooms here have surprisingly little written on the walls. Normally, especially on a military installation, people write stuff all over the place. Usually about who is gay or your mom’s phone number. But here, spotless. Well, almost. There is a wooden rack that holds the toilet paper in each stall. On many of them are not insults or pictures of male genitalia, but numbers - 10 31 30 31 and so on. Counting. It is never clear whether they are meant to be counted up or down, i.e., how many days a person has been here versus how many they have left.  But counting nonetheless.


I found this curious, mostly because of how common it is. Apparently while taking a crap many people have nothing better to think about than how many days they’ve either been in this shithole or how many they have left. Putting it that way, I guess the connection seems rather obvious.

Also, there is a picture of a stick figure squatting over the toilet with a big X over it, with the caption “Do not stand on toilet sit.” I still don’t know how I’m supposed to read that.