Friday, January 14, 2011

Sprinkles

This sign was discovered in a bathroom in a Washington, D.C. district government facility. I would like to speculate as to the character of the person who wrote, and so lovingly typed, the message.


The writer is no doubt a woman, elderly, given to wearing hose in the wrong color for the season. She crochets covers for tissue boxes. Her rage at the world is barely contained, yet palpable, which is why she writes in capital letters. But she uses a pretty font, because she is a lady.

Men who tinkle, spatter, or sprinkle on toilet seats are still, at heart, gentlemen. At least in our dear writer's world. It is easy to Sprinkle when one is adjusting one's spats or doffing one's hat in the mirror in preparation for that meeting with Sally Goodheart. Gentlemen may be forgiven. Rakes and rogues may not.

Our beloved sign writer has taken the time and care to place small "enya" ˜ symbols surrounding the words "attention gentlemen." They look a little bit like swimming sperm. Maybe this means there is a bit of the Spaniard in the lady, or that she is a bit dirty? Or else very neat and fond of design.

One wonders.

After discussing the Sprinkles (why not use the more euphemistic term, "Jimmies"?), the writer obviously loses all control of her prose. The lack of punctuation after the word "cooperation" leads us to think that the lady has taken leave of her senses and has tottered off into a coma. What, not a comma? Not a period? What, nothing, not an M-Dash?

Clearly, mentioning "Sprinkles" has rendered our dear writer unfit for much more in life. She is now swooning in her assistive chair lift, and dreaming of the days when she danced with gentlemen. Gentlemen who would never deign to Sprinkle, gentlemen who carried her up over snowbanks and danced with her on the dark ice--as if they were ice-skating, in their slippers and party shoes, laughing, drunk, thanking the world for its cooperation.

4 comments:

Jack Silbert said...

Perhaps this is the same woman saluted in the Elvis Costello classic "Veronica"? Perhaps.

Whoever wrote this sign, I side with her/him 100%. For I often ask myself:
--Why oh why did the previous pooper not flush? Or flush more than once till all resi-doo was gone? Surely they can't all be rabid water conservers.
--Why oh why is there so often, sprinkles--YES! sprinkles--of urine on the toilet seat? There are perfectly good urinals for one's urination needs. The only time when one must need urinate into the traditional public toilet from a standing position is if all urinals are occupied (rarely the case for more than 12 seconds) or if one has....issues. Privacy issues, we'll call them.

Those with privacy issues, well, I don't wish to overly stereotype them, but, let's say i'd expect them to lift the seat (that's what gentlemen do) or at the very least, as suggested, give it a quick wipedown. Leave it as you found it. Thing 1, thing 2.

But no no no. Always a bowl full o' poo, always pee all around the seat. Improve your aim, animals! Where oh where is the decency? Society crumbles.

I hear things are worse on the ladies side and I shudder to consider how that might be possible.

Anonymous said...

This passage reminds me of Edith Wharton. Except for the urination aspect.

Anonymous said...

If I saw this, I would sprinkle directly on it. Or worse.

Anonymous said...

"If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat". The Tinkle Fairy's plea is reasonable. Yet something tells me that, were I she, repression of this judgment of mankind (that they leave urine for me to clean up) would be the only thing keeping me from dropping my hairdryer into the bathtub after a long, hard day at work. You know, I once dreamt of creating something called a "Herinal", which would facilitate the spread-eagle low-hover that most women prefer whilst minimizing pesky messes.