Not to be confused with bathroom small talk.I like to think of it as High Art or High Culture. Not to be confused with Low Culture, practiced by Barbarians, Philistines and the plebs, good bathroom graffiti reflects the mores of our times. T.S. Eliot believed that the only way to a complete culture was a mix of the high and popular culture. This apparent juxtaposition explains why I love things like Monty Python's "moistened bink lobbing a scimitar" sketch. (Bonus points if you can name that movie! In fact, now that I think of it, the first night I slept over with my boyfriend now husband of 25 years, we got up around 4 a.m., ordered a pizza and watched this movie together. No one bats an eye when you do such things in Montreal. Order pizza at 4 a.m. not sleep over at your boyfriend's house. Moving on...)
The best graffiti is usually found on campus stalls. I remember long discussions, sometimes going on for weeks, all over the walls of the bathroom stalls at Victoria College at University of Toronto. That is until the janitor ruined the fun and removed all traces of what were some most excellent debates. Mind you, I wasn't the janitor in question, so it was all fun and games and a black marker for me.
Now there's a blog called passiveaggressivenotes.com that posts notes left on windshields when someone parks in the wrong spot, or notes left on the communal fridge in the office or my favourites, the ones left in bathrooms, like this gem.
Original note:
If you need to extract dried mucus from your nose, please use a tissue. The bathroom walls are not the place for them.
Reply:
It's called "performance art." Expand your horizons.
Rebuttal:
Expand a couple sheets of tissue.
In fact, there is a host of notes on this very subject. Go here, if you dare for the "bathroom stall booger epidemic" as they like to call it. If you can't, you know, go there, and you're looking for something more pedestrian, try this one from Toronto, about why it's bad to park on someone's naughty bits.
Bad park you! Bad!
8 comments:
I love passiveaggressivenotes :) That bad parking one is a crack-up. The bathroom booger epidemic is one of the oddest things I've heard- a girl I work with was telling me the other day that they had exactly the same thing happen at a large law firm she used to work for- someone covering the mirror in the ladies' bathroom with mucus (ew!) just about every day, plus leaving pairs of used underwear lying on the countertop to boot. They had to call in psychologists to talk to staff and eventually, after quite a few weeks, figured out who was doing it and let that person go. But the psychologist said it's a common thing for them to see. And I just think... WHY? Oh man. So very strange.
I'd like to thank you for introducing me to a new time waster. This site is the best! I especially loved the one about replacing the toilet rolls. In fact, I'm thinking about copying that one out and putting it in the bathrooms in my house.
"Hey you! You know what's difficult? Running a marathon. Faking your own death. Building a rocket ship. You know what's not very difficult? Replacing the toilet paper roll!".
Claire, I have several psychologist and psychologist friends/rellies and they tell me the same thing. If we knew half of what they know, we'd never leave the house!
Yutha, off to find the toilet roll sign.
I sent this website to Cara. As an RA, to a wing full of boys who leave bottles of pee at her door, or shake their junk at her when she has to discipline one of them, I really think that she can never be too passive aggressive. I on the other hand, am wondering whether it is possible that I should be too passive aggressive with the school administrators that feel that this situation is acceptable.
RA? Is that like a don?
I'd be on the phone so fast if that was my daughter. Also, I'd want to contact the boys' parents to see if they find that kind of behaviour acceptable. Oy.
An RA is the Resident Aid, which means she's in charge of the wing. This year they don't have enough men/boys signed up for the job, so they have Cara, teeny tiny Cara in charge of a wing full of snot ass boys who are rude and threatening, and drunk and etc. I am in a constant state of concern. Cara thinks that I should mind my own beeswax. I'm trying to respect her as an adult, but I'm also very upset about this. I can't blog it, because she'd be furious. It's one of the stories behind the stories that's making me quite nervous.
So. Do you think that I should butt in and call the school? This has been going on since the beginning of the term. The fellow in charge of all the RAs just happened to be walking past the building when he heard the junk shaker say, "...and I'm going to punch that Cara ---- in the face, and then when I'm done, I'm going to make her suck my big fat -----, and a group of boys stood around laughing. He went into a screaming rage and hand all of them lined up against the building. They are being prosecuted, but still....I am concerned.
I want the "bonus points".
A "bint" is British slang for a girl.
The "bint" in question is from Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail.
DENNIS:"Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from farcical aquatic ceremony.
ARTHUR: Be quiet!!
DENNIS: Well, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR: Shut up!!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went around saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
I love that sketch!
KDTR
HAHAHA!!! (applause, applause) Well done KDTR!!
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