I AM SMART

The office building in which I work is relatively new and, as with most new construction, it is ‘green.’ As a result, the bathrooms are equipped with low-flow high efficiency toilets. Translation: the single flush is history. Unfortunately, so is the dual-flush on most of our toilets. Toilet gossip travels just as fast as any other office gossip and we all quickly learned that stall number two was the only dual-flush toilet , the rest of them were triple-, sometimes quadruple-flush.

When I ventured into stall number two today and shut the stall door, I was not entirely surprised by the 8.5 x11 rainbow Word Art message, “YOU ARE SMART.” that was taped on the door. “Hmmm,” I thought. “Someone must have put that here because this stall occupies the only true high efficiency toilet.” Then I thought some more, “probably not,” and I decided to check all of the stalls. “YOU ARE SPECIAL.” “YOU ARE FUN.” “YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.” And, on the handicapped stall door, “MAKE A DIFFERENCE.” “Make a difference?” I thought to myself, “In the loo? How?” I’m sure Sarah Silverman would agree, the loo is for making a doody, not a difference.

As I was leaving the bathroom I noticed one last 8.5×11 sign, a Plato quote, which was taped to the wall next to the exit, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” The only hard battle I was fighting at that time was indigestion – these signs were killing me.

I was dying to know if the men’s bathroom had similar ‘motivational’ sayings, so I immediately found a group of male coworkers and solicited their help. They all assured me there wouldn’t be any such thing in the men’s bathroom, “Men don’t do those things,” ROFL said with great confidence. Good Choices agreed to assess the situation for me. I patiently waited outside the door, anxious to learn of his findings. “Nope, nothing. Not a one,” Good Choices informed me as he exited the bathroom. “Really?” I replied. “Yep. I wish we had them in the men’s bathroom,” Good Choices stated. “I would love to see little notes like that when I’m doing my business.”

I wondered what might motivate someone to post these sayings inside the bathroom stalls and even Googled “motivational bathroom quotes,” in an attempt to have a better understanding. I was surprised to learn there are some motivational bathroom quotes out there – but none of those that I saw today. According to one website, motivational bathroom quotes keep spirits high and help one to maintain a ‘can do’ attitude. When I’m in the ‘can’ I’m not focusing on the ‘can do.’

However, after reading some bathroom quotes from celebrities – Ani DiFranco, Erma Bombeck, Bob Hope and Alicia Keyes – I decided to come up with my own motivational bathroom quote, “When I’m feeling down and blue, I go to the loo, stall #2. I AM SMART.”