For firm evidence of our close lineage to the rest of the primate kingdom, journey into a nearby public restroom. Man’s baby steps away from the apes come clear in these tiled and divided bastions of excremental real estate. Need property? You have a cubicle-sized section of glistening tile floor and a hole in the ground?!
Bathrooms have come a long way since the hole-in-the-ground outhouse, dusted with lime and freshened by winter breezes, but the people using them have not.
On a recent visit to one such public venue I spied rich lines of smeared fecal matter along the walls of a holding area. The chimpanzee exhibit at the zoo? The work of enraged gorillas, balling up their own feces?
Neither.
This particular display was in an elementary school. Of course, “no one” knew anything about it—they rarely do in such situations—yet everyone seemed equally grossed-out and enthralled.
Over the next few weeks, the decorative finger-painting appeared again and again. Was this always the same person? Some pint-sized fecal ninja creeping in broad daylight, using ancient techniques of the Orient to conceal his identity and his wrongdoings?
Were these lemming-like copycat crimes of others who wanted to “paint” like all those monkeys at the zoo? When the elephants at the zoo paint, using pastels and brushes gripped in their trunks, this artwork is for sale in the specialty boutiques and as big-ticket items at zoo auctions. When the chimps or gorillas do it, why does it not attract the same interest?
For the true immersion experience, you must visit the public restroom in an airport. Consider yourself Jane Goodall in Gombe, doing the first on-site and in-person study of chimp behavior. Short of my college dorm bathroom–sledgehammered out of commission by a drunken sophomore–these are the quintessential places to study degenerate primates in action.
That bathroom, by the way, was also where a sophomore vomited in the stall next to me, then pierced the air with a war whoop cry of, “Yes, perfect score! All bodily fluids in this stall and the shower. Awesome.” I dared not ask in which stall he showered, though I carefully timed all of my visits to avoid his at all costs; lest I too become infected with some strange obsession to go forth and pollute.
A visit to the restroom in the airport can open your eyes to humanity’s wondrous and vivid connections to our ape ancestors. Men smirk at the long line of frustrated women snaking its way out of the ladies room, then turn that sloping corner into the men’s area and inhale the rich scent of dozens of successive bowel movements. Men stand at urinals, scratching backsides; old men loosen belts and drop pants, exposing ancient garters and knobby protrusions of knees.
The air is thick with splattery sounds. Noses pulse with the acrid odor of hundreds of simultaneously released colons. There is no line in this bathroom because it is a descent into sub-human existence. Man as we knew him has become extinct. Replaced by vague shadows of businessmen and truckers and fathers escaping children. All of them break wind with gusto, grunting in similar passions. There is no line because no one could willingly subject himself to this olfactory assault.
Communication, what little there is, reduced to grunts and nods. Modern cave paintings, scratched into classic blue-painted stalls, behind doors, above toilet paper dispensers. Epitaphs of brilliant men, dying and leaving a piece of himself behind. . There may even be evidence of man’s first journey into written language: “Here I sit…,” or “For BJ tap foot on….” Such rare finds are archaeological history, fodder for bathroom fables. Fuel for bedtime stories of fathers to sons. The (un)brief(ed) history of mankind
Still, witness small, ironic glimpses of manners. Entering an almost empty restroom might call for the classic “stall-cough.” Non-verbal language we all understand to mean, “Me here.” Never mind the horrid smell draping your nose and face–the smell you will wear on your flight to the next city; the one that will cause your seat-mate to wonder if you ever learned the proper wiping etiquette–is a subtle clue. This coincides with a prolific and juicy evacuation covered, briefly, by another cough. “Me here. Me-not-do. You-hear-things.”
This brings me back to the elementary school restroom. Late one April there was a disturbance in the 1st and 2nd grade wing. First and second grade boys enjoying their limited freedom and experimenting freely with materials on hand? No, this was slightly different.
Someone had used the urinal, suspended as it was, from the wall, for an entirely different form of (solid) evacuation. Consider the mechanics of this event: what small boy of 6 or 7 is tall enough to do this? How does one accomplish this without being caught? Perhaps most frightening—what if this was a completely logical maneuver for this boy, ending with him returning to class satisfied with a job well done?
I suppose we must start all burgeoning primates at young ages if they are to make the downward spiral toward de-evolution complete. There must be forward–in this case, downward–progress in any cycle of growth. What better place than the public restrooms of our nation’s elementary schools?