The Potty Parable

I once fell in love with a public toilet. Well, not the toilet specifically, rather the character of the whole bathroom which was tucked away in a cozy corner of the Jackson Hole Public Library. Unfortunately, it was a twenty-five minute drive from the teepee I was living in the summer I spent in Wyoming so I didn’t get to visit it too often.
My alternative was the bathroom at the boathouse out of which I was working. Though more convenient (only a few minutes walk from the teepee), it had none of the virtues of the library’s. The size of a Chinese water torture cell, it was used all day everyday by more than a dozen guys all of whom showered, shaved and shit there on a regular basis. Responsibility for its cleanliness alternated but no one ever touched the really dirty jobs such as the piss that dried in splatters on the concrete floor or the pubes that were sprinkled over the toilet like decorations on Leatherface’s birthday cake.
Not that I’m squeamish, I just prefer to be comfortable (and if possible unhurried).
The Jackson Hole Public Library is a quiet but joyful place used mostly by clean thoughtful liberals, a few well groomed rednecks, and just enough transients to make it interesting (but not enough to allow their filth to accumulate) with bathrooms that are equally welcoming. From the mellow lighting to the well stocked seat covers to the PG-13 graffiti (my personal favorite was “Free your prisoner of Azkaban!”) it was every bit a sanctuary. Reader friendly too.
I started thinking about all this last week when I found myself rushing to the bathroom of Boston’s North Station.
The bathroom at North Station is about as public as toilets get. It’s used by $500 Celtic tickets and spare change alike. The colorless floor tiles have been splashed with no less than three children’s stomachs worth of regurgitated cotton candy, the gushing blood of a couple of tattooed street fighters, and whatever evil bits trickled down the leg of an incontinent Eastern European drunk on one particularly lonely Christmas Eve. And these are only a sample of the heinous expulsions of bodily fluids I witnessed in less than a year as a security guard at North Station (when I worked there).
As I picked a toilet for myself I started to grow slightly nauseous with my own thoughts. But I was faced with a tautological reality, the second cousin of DeNiro’s, “this is this” line. When you gotta shit, you gotta shit. Any toilet that even hints at cleanliness will do.
And hell, for a moment you’ll probably even enjoy it.