I am right in the thick of midterms and papers, a period of disillusioned productivity, and I’ve started to just feel like a 10-piece bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken Colonel’s Secret Recipe chicken — greasy, crunchy and completely fried.
Of course, I’m using that all-encompassing “I” we’ve been using since about the time we could talk: “I want food,” really means we all want food. “I am bored,” really means someone should find something fun for us to do. And “I hate you,” really means everyone, even you, hates you. Because we’re all really fried, aren’t we? And we could all really go for some KFC, couldn’t we (only $9.99)? And, well, some gigantic part of us all really does loath midterms, doesn’t it?
But in the midst of these study sessions that drag on late into the eternal evening at MuMeL, (Mugar Memorial Library) when you find yourself studying for midterm number seven, (even though you’re only taking four classes) you turn to the only good thing in your life that you have left. What you crave is that human connection, that place you can go where everyone knows your name, a home filled with words of encouragement. But where can you find this magical land? Well, lucky for you, there’s at least one located in every building, (designated by law) and all you need to do is follow nature’s call and head for the bathroom.
What you’ll find there is strange, but true: yes, there will be dirty stalls, unflushed toilets and wads of half-used paper towels littering the ground, but more importantly, there will, without a doubt, be bathroom graffiti.
There’s nothing quite like sitting down on the porcelain throne and finding the exact words of wisdom you needed to get through that 34-page research paper on the subtle nuances between the color blue and light blue used during Pablo Picasso’s blue period in one of his many paintings that could aptly be entitled “Blue.” And under the mental fatigue of one such paper, there it was, a simple idea that broke from the dark brown walls of my bathroom stall like a light from heaven, if light were the scribbles of a dark, black permanent marker: “My Advice: Don’t Force It.”
Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Come on David, that phrase could have been written by any old Joe Schmo with a whole assortment of different activities in mind!” But I implore you to look deeper: why else would it have been written slightly above my eyesight and in a library’s bathroom no less — it was a sign that I was fated to see, understand and spread to the four corners of the earth.
Thank you, guardian angel for taking the form of some random college student with a large amount of pent-up angst and frustration, probably stealing that marker from some friend and expressing yourself artistically. You have provided a great service.
Of course, sometimes you run the risk of encountering some truly saucy messages such as “Hail Satan” or “Call me Wexler,” but most of the time it’s exactly the advice you need, the essential recharge your brain requires before conquering its next big obstacle.
It’s kind of like a hodgepodge of fortune cookies conveniently located on the public bathroom walls, only there’s no overpriced Chinese food, stale “fortune cookie” flavor and if you don’t like your first fortune, you can always just choose another stall. And now that I’ve unlocked this revolutionary source of peace, how can we spread word and alert the global masses? I propose a two-pronged plan of attack. First, we need to start offering more water — it should be everywhere, and it should be free. I want to see water fountains in classrooms, sprinklers in the Sahara desert, the lines at the single water dispenser in the entirety of the George Sherman Union should wrap across the globe! We need to insure that bathrooms are kept in high demand. Secondly, I suggest an ad campaign featuring Christopher Walken saying, “I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is more permanent markers!” — if you feel like singing, draw, if you feel like writing, draw, if you feel like doing nothing, go use the bathroom and draw. If you feel like drinking, well, drink water and then draw! I can’t emphasize the importance of perfecting your graffiti art enough. In the words of one stall, “A clean wall is a Sin.” Not just anyone can draw surrealist appendages of the human body on walls and make it change the world.
And that’s what we’re doing, really, changing the world, one Wexler at a time.
David Fontana is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences and a Fall 2012 columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at fontad5@bu.edu.
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