At work there are two stalls in the men's room, and one of them has a door that never closes. No matter what you do, it will always open on you.
That made me think about something. I remembered in high school, none of the stalls in the men's room had doors. I was the kid who never went to the bathroom at school. The main reason was that I really didn't want to go to that horrorshow of a bathroom. I also didn't want to have to take a shit because of the lack of doors. I went through a lot of indignities, including the horrible shower room after PE, but one thing I couldn't (and still can't) do is shit in front of others. I know no one is looking. No one wants to see that. At the same time, I don't want the mere risk of someone looking at me while I strain and grunt and sometimes do gymnastics to get a shit out of me. Shitting is a very private thing for me.
Do you know why there were no doors on the stalls? The faculty and staff were deathly afraid that someone might be sneaking a smoke in there. Can't have that, now, can we? It's like it's the end of the fucking world if a kid smoked a cigarette in the bathroom. Thankfully the smokers had plenty of other places to indulge themselves. But honestly? If you can't tell whether or not someone is smoking behind a closed toilet stall? You might not be all that bright, anyway.
So as I thought about those old days, I also thought about these new days. A lot of stuff has changed since I was a kid. I have to wonder if this is one of them. Like, do kids still destroy other people's property just for the sheer hell of it? Do kids still fire bottle rockets at each other? And do they have to deal with the indignity of shitting in front of their peers?
I'd wager not. In this day and age when adults actually do care about kids' feelings (or at the very least they to pretend to), there's no way there are doorless stalls in high school bathrooms.
Right?
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