Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Bathroom Stalls

So I'm still unemployed which means that I have endless time to watch the Michael Jackson funeral coverage and rearrange our bookshelves to my heart's content.

This morning as I was doing both of these tasks, I randomly remembered something I saw on one of the many pit stops that we made on our drive from Denver to Tucson.

I need to preface this by saying that I love tacky roadside stops. The more souvenirs the better, even though there is a high likelihood that I saw the same souvenirs at the last stop. I can endlessly wander through the aisles and look at the cheap turquoise jewelry, the Native American blankets, magnets in the shape of states, postcards with silly sayings on them about cowboys and hunters, lollipops with scorpions in them, t-shirts with the American flag or wolves ... Don't you just want to be there right now? Can't you just smell the old hot dogs basking under the hot lamp, see the pork rinds neatly clipped onto the corner of the snack aisle, and hear the swamp cooler humming in the background??

Anyways, so at this particular stop, I got out of my hot sticky car and pranced into the gas station so I could quickly do my business and have optimal time to browse through the junk before Brandon finished gassing up the truck and going potty. He's not so much into the souvenirs. He's more into the "Let's see how quickly we can get in and out of here" approach to roadside stops.

This stop actually caught me off guard because for once, there was actually something in the women's bathroom that totally caught my attention. Now, I know most of us can't help but notice the lovely scrawls people carve into bathroom stalls. These are usually very strong declarations people are compelled to immortalize on the dirty walls of No Where USA with names, dates, insults, crass sayings you pretend not to notice, and words of advice or philosophy.

This particular stall had the best phrase ever: "Toy Story 2 Was OK."

If there was ever a strong declaration that needed to be immortalized, that was it! I'm a little confused by the timing of the message, however. Toy Story 2 came out in 1999 and those particular bathroom stalls had clearly been repainted within the past few years. I've developed several ideas as to why someone between 2005-present would want the whole world to know that Toy Story 2 is mediocre at best but I will spare you my speculations and let you come up with your own.

Anyways, I chuckled all the way through my potty break. As I washed my hands, I thought "I need to tell Brandon!" Unfortunately, I was instantly distracted by the $7.99 eagle t-shirt rack and promptly forgot. Several hours later, however, at our next stop, the bathroom stalls actually had butcher paper on the walls so people could write their words of wisdom in an Easy Clean format. So guess what I wrote? "Toy Story 2 Was OK."

10 comments:

Natalia said...

i starred this post in my google reader...so good.

Cait said...

Well, if you live in the middle of no-where it is very likely that Toy Story II was recently in theatres. That is my theory

Cait said...

by the way your blog title is out of date.. Maybe you could title it "Alison and Brandon in the fugging hot city" but knowing you you'll come up with something more cheeky and hip. :)

Clay Allred said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Clay Allred said...

Ha ha! You made me laugh out loud at work.

Shelley said...

Great post. I kind of liked Toy Story 2 though. I, like you also am enthralled by tacky souvenirs and only recently have quelled my habit of purchasing a tacky magnet for Ann -- she has enough.

Leslie said...

i wish you got an eagle shirt, and one for me too.

David Rogers said...

you are so clever, entertaining and charming in your writing!

You Are My Fave said...

That will now be my phrase of choice when I'm defacing something.

Judi Sunshine said...

It's from a Demetri Martin bit! I found your blog looking to see if there was a shirt that said "Toy Story 2 was okay!" Nice to meet you!