A decidedly non-geek thread

[Phayder92889]

I'm a bathroom graffitti person, but I don't do the standard idiot stuff like "BAND X SUCKS/ROCKS/ETC."

My latest one was a short note to the janitors at my high school. I'm leaving for other places this summer, and I realized that I'd left nothing of any real consequence, outside my poems and haikus I left on the bathroom walls.

So I wrote this:


Dear Mr. Janitor:
Feel free to remove and erase all the hate and ugliness that people love to leave up here,
but please leave the forlorn and plaintive cries from the unknown and the unsung like me.
This is my last year here, and there's nothing to remember me by, except for these little notes on the walls.
Maybe I'll tell you about it someday, and maybe you'll laugh. Maybe you won't, but it won't matter.
I used wet-erase marker every time, because I thought of you and your job. Please remember me.

I've never been caught at it, either. I don't show up but once in my yearbook, and you have to be looking for me to find me. (Even then, it's tough.)

[LightB]

ohhkay....

what can I say. I didn't vandalize bathroom stalls with writing.

I drew pictures instead, and used permanent markers. I practiced all the time in my notebooks during class. I didn't want to be there so might as well do something I liked.

[Tundro Walker]

Worked at a shipping / dock company for a while as a teenager. The bathroom was notorious for not being clean, and having tons of graffitti from all the truck drivers and dock workers being slobs and vandals. However, we got a new dock manager who was ex-military (commanded a tank battalion during Vietnam of all things...), and he set it up so if he caught anyone either tossing trash on the ground, or graffitting the walls, they 1) had to repaint the entire bathroom, and 2) had to clean the bathroom for a week. For about a month, the cleaning service had it easy, because 4 guys were caught trashing the bathroom and got stuck with "BP" as it were (Bathroom Patrol). Some of the guys were stupid enough to think no one would figure out it was them who was writing on the walls. But, they wrote in travel logs all day. So, the dock manager just went in and matched up hand-writing, then had the first round of folks draw straws to see who the first cleaner would be. The slate was wiped clean after that, and then anyone caught further would get BP duty for the next week. Of course, like I said, 3 guys were still stupid enough to graffitti the walls or trash the bathroom. One got fired, because he did it twice (just as his way of speaking out against "the man" I guess.) But, after that first month, we had really clean, graffitt-free bathrooms from then on. Until, naturally, a new guy would show up. Even after the rules were explained to them, there'd be the occasional idiot who didn't take it serious, and sure enough, got stuck with BP. The 2nd new guy that happened to decided to quit, because he thought it was unfair. So, they said, fine, if you're going to quit, then we'll dock your final (and only) pay-check 20 bucks for the paint and supplies needed to clean the bathroom after you. Guy was ticked, and took it up with legal counsel (a friend of his...LOL, cheap-skate!), and the legal counsel told him to suck it up. (I guess his lawyer friend knew how much of a slob this guy was...LOL!)

[mech7]

wow this is pretty geek.. why not go out at night and do some real graffiti under bridges, trains etc..

[LightB]

wow this is pretty geek.. why not go out at night and do some real graffiti under bridges, trains etc..

Because it's ugly for one.

[smoker]

Because it's ugly for one.

think i would rather look at some colourful artistic graffiti than lumps of dull grey weather beaten concrete:D

[LightB]

think i would rather look at some colourful artistic graffiti than lumps of dull grey weather beaten concrete:D

Cool, where do you live? I'm going to paint a mural on your house. You have no say about the content though.

[mech7]

Because it's ugly for one.

Yes dirty rhymes on urinals look much prettier :)

[LightB]

Yes dirty rhymes on urinals look much prettier :)

I don't think so.

[Phayder92889]

I don't write anything offensive or all that 'wrong', just thought provoking.

I've penned out sections of the hacker's manifesto (The parts about "Damn kids, they're all alike") and such things.

Written down thoughts like "I came here to skip class and can't decide if unstructured boredom is more entertaining than structured boredom"

Scrawled small essays asking about whether we'll know when our world ends and another takes its place, or what the choices we make at this point really have any impact on the world in the future.