Someday I'd like to meet the person that one day sat down to decorate the public restroom in their place of business and thought "wouldn't it be really cool to hang something interesting in front of the man using the urinal so that he can be entertained while he relieves himself?"
We've all seen them. Well, we men, anyway. Anything hung in the ladies' stalls would be difficult to see since it would be hanging behind their heads. But I've been in public restrooms that have had flat screen TVs mounted in the wall at head level (watch it!) so you can get a racing sports update while you whiz. (I'm sorry, I just couldn't pass that one up). Or watch a linebacker unload on a running back (sorry again - I can't help myself). Or see Coach Knight get pi--... Okay, I'm going to stop now.
There have also been the day's newspaper mounted to the wall. That one made good sense. Leaving newspapers laying in the restroom has never been too high on the hygiene list, and it doesn't work if you're standing to - well, you know. So placing the newspaper in a glass frame was genius, in my humble opinion. "But what if you need to turn the page?" you ask. Just how long do you need to do Number One, anyway? remember, this is the stand up urinal. People are waiting behind you. Finish and move on.
And wash your hands.
Tonight's visit to the Necessary Room was a bit different, however. This was a nice restaurant, the three figure kind when you pay the bill. Hey, it was Valentine's. I go in and begin to...begin. Once it has started and you know you aren't missing the mark, you no longer need to look down. (Yes, ladies, some of us do try to keep the stream on target). It's then I notice the restaurant management has chosen some old black and white photos in keeping with the restaurant and bar theme mounted on the walls. A couple of photo prints are near the sink but not above it. They're just wall decor. But there are two nicely framed photos mounted at the two urinal stalls. The one directly in front of me is one from some restaurant at the top of a high rise building, I assume, based on the view outside the restaurant. Two men wearing 1960's thin ties and suits are sitting at a table next to a high view window and a demure Asian waitress is standing beside them, all smiles. They're smiling at her, she's smiling at them. It's obviously a posed promotional photo for whatever restaurant she worked in at the time.
Now I'm thinking to myself "I wonder when these fine people posed for this photo if they could have possibly suspected that their faces would be giving me something to occupy my wandering mind while I completed the digestive cycle of the liquids I had consumed at this particular eatery?"
So now I'm becoming interested in what the subject matter could be in the photo mounted above the stall next to me. I started to look but the stall next to me was occupied by another middle aged man trying to hit his mark so I refrained from peering over. Yes, this is something that men do NOT do in the public restroom. I speak of The Look Over.
Maybe that's why the guy cooked up the photo in the urinal idea. To help keep the pi --, I mean peace - in the restroom.
Okay, I'm done now. And yes, I always wash my hands. Like a surgeon, so I'm told.
