Demolition Man
By Peter John Gardner
A bathroom is a safe zone where you take care of your most private business, and when you bring that room into a public area, it creates nothing but awkward and embarassing situations. I find public restrooms to be uncomfortable places, and it has nothing to do with germaphobia or homophobia because I possess neither. Weird shit goes on in restrooms when you've got your penis in your hand. No matter how mundane the scenario is under normal circumstances, if it happens in a bathroom, it becomes awkward.
Here's my first example. Indian River Mall in Vero Beach, Florida. I was working at Wave's Music at the time (which would eventually become FYE), and I left the store for a bathroom break. As I stood there at the urinal doing my duty, I felt a warm breath on the back of my neck.
"Heeeeeeey man....you looking for bud?"
Now under different circumstances, I might have taken him up on the offer, but something about a guy offering me pot while I'm taking a leak in a public restroom felt fundamentally wrong. I politely declined and shifted my feet a little to show that I wasn't comfortable with him being that close to me as I was peeing. Crazy shit goes on in bathrooms. A guy once started singing "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" to me while we were peeing. I've also had a guy come up and start fixing my hair while whizzing. Another guy asked me why my urine was so yellow.
In "Demolition Man", Stallone plays a cop again, but this time there are consequences for him blowing a ton of shit up just to arrest one guy. Along with his arch enemy Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes in full on Dennis Rodman mode), Stallone is cryogenetically frozen for his crimes. When Phoenix escapes from his parole hearing (he was genetically modified by the bad guys during his frozen sleep), the police of the future, who are about as threatening as high school hall monitors, have no other choice but to wake up Stallone in order to catch Phoenix. Well, I'm sure there were other options but then there wouldn't be a movie.
The movie itself is fun. Sandra Bullock shows that she can be adorable when she's not doing cheeseball romantic comedies, Denis Leary plays a character that's not too far removed from his standup act, and there's a great running gag where the characters keep getting fined whenever someone uses profanity.
Back to bathroom talk. Shortly after thawing out, Stallone makes his first trip to restroom of the future. When he comes out, he informs the police that they're out of toliet paper, and there are just three shells sitting there.
"He doesn't know how to use the shells!" chortles the always annoying Rob Schneider. Way to make Stallone feel awkward, Deuce Bigalow. For the life of me, I can't figure out the shells either. Three shells to wipe your ass with? Somehow this is more sanitary than disposable toliet paper? In the future, are we going to be scraping dingleberries from our butts with clam shells? I don't blame Stallone for his confusion, but to be publicly humiliated for not knowing proper restroom procedure is downright mean.
Here is another story of bathroom awkwardness. In my senior year of college at UCF, I think I bonded with a professor over a fart.
I was walking from the library to the student union to get some food when my bladder started to remind me of the two bottles of Aquafina that I drank earlier. So, like most rational people in that situation, I went to go for a leak. I'm standing there, taking the piss of a lifetime, when my US history professor strolls in, takes position at the urinal next to mine, and exchanges greetings with me. Now, I don't know about you, but there are few things in this world that I find more awkward than standing next to your teacher while the both of you have your dicks in your hand.
Anyway, so we're peeing, and just as I was about to finish up, I heard what sounded like a *PHWONK*. Yes. he farted. Right next to me. It wasn't really a stinky one, but it sure was loud.
I didn't know what to do. He cleared his throat, and then I just lost it. I started laughing so hard that the last remaining drops of my pee hurt on the way out.
What happened next surprised me. He started laughing too! It was an embarrassed laugh, but still a "fart laugh" nevertheless. Now that we both felt comfortable among his flatulence, I felt compelled to compliment his fart.
"Good one, sir."
"Um...thanks Mr. Gardner. See you on Thursday."
And that was it. It's a good thing that it was the end of the semester because I really couldn't take that guy seriously anymore.
