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I was 28 years old and bored out of my mind. Work was comfortable
and secure, I didn't do anything but try to look like I was working.
So I gave myself a vacation, if quitting can be called a vacation,
and decided to spice up my life with a road trip. Oh yeah, and
at every stop I would drop off a pair of fake dirty underwear
as part of my secret pet project, Operation Poopy Pants.
O.P.P., as it is known, wavers between performance art and anti-social
behavior. It involves smearing chocolate into used underwear to
simulate a skidmark for the sole purpose of being discovered by
the unsuspecting public. My hope is that it would at least give
people something to talk about at work.
The first few stops were a blur, rest areas in Pennsylvania
and Ohio. At a Denny's on the Ohio/Indiana border they found the
poopy pants and came out of the bathroom holding the trash bag
at arms length. Even the manager had a look of disgust on his
face as he held the door open so they could dispose of the bag
outside. He leaned away as if the bag itself was radioactive.
The bathrooms at the St. Louis Arch were located in the underground
visitors center where people from all over the world come to relieve
themselves, oh, and see the arch too. The problem was that part
of O.P.P. is to prove that I left the underwear by taking pictures.
If you have never surreptitiously taken pictures in a public restroom
it's quite a chore. Most bathrooms are too dark not to use your
flash, and the winding and subsequent click of your camera sounds
out of place in the halls of marble. Now try doing this in a busy
bathroom like the St. Louis Arch.
Click, Flash.
I had forgotten about the flash! It seemed as if the bustling
crowd moving through the bathroom had instantly frozen. Even I
stopped breathing. I could hear the guy in the next stall moving
around awkwardly. He was probably trying to see if I was taking
his picture. People tend to get angry over such things so I played
it safe and sat in the stall until a whole new crowd came in.
Unfortunatly that crowd also included a security guard. He followed
me out and made sure I left the premisis. For a city as clean
as St. Louis their bathrooms at both the arch and the St. Louis
Center Mall were a disgrace. But they were nothing compared to
the one in the Albertson's Supermarket just off of rt. 44 in Waynesville,
Mo.
I had already gone through all of my pre-soiled underwear so
it was time to streak a few pairs with chocolate. For some reason
I had brought Symphony's milk chocolate with almonds and toffee.
The store on the beginning of my trip didn't have plain, and I
prefer the coloration of the milk chocolate. Hershey's' has a
waxy dark look and the consistency doesn't strike me as very pleasant
for what I was doing.
The trunk of the car was open and I'm rubbing the chocolate into
the underwear. Every time someone walks by I pretend that I am
doing something normal, which is hard when your fingers are covered
in melting chocolate and you have a pair of briefs in your hand.
Then I came up with a better idea, every time someone walked by
I would look quizzically at the chocolate on my fingers and sniff
at it before hesitantly tasting it. They look away pretty fast.
Anyway, about the bathroom, I had to wait for the guy in the
stall to come out. I go in only to find that he has left me a
present floating like a garbage boat in the hot summer breeze.
I wanted to run the stench was so overpowering.
"What's this world coming to?" I asked no one in particular.
Flushing the toilet seemed to limit the odor to the level of sickening.
What the hell is so important about distributing fake shitty
underwear that I would quit my job, drive from coast to coast
just to subject myself to this? I must be crazy. I'm driving across
the country and all that I have seen is bathrooms. Bathrooms in
Mcdonald's and Burger King and Wal-Mart and K-Mart.
The men and women that made this country great, risking their
lives to make a difference for their fellow Americans, I wonder
what they would think of this cross country expedition? Here I
am, a potentially productive member of society so bored with life
in these United States that I find entertainment only in Operation
Poopy Pants.
I swallow my doubts about the mission with a cheese burger in
Renita Oklahoma at the worlds largest McDonalds. That's what the
sign says but there is also a worlds largest Mcdonalds in Orlando
Florida, another in Hansboro North Dakota, yet another in Howland
Ohio, still another in Barstow California, and one more in Moscow
Russia. I could have sworn there was one in Australia too.
Open the book of the worlds greatest accomplishments to page
38 and there it is, a marvel of human engineering, the worlds
largest McDonald's. Suddenly the burger isn't sitting so well.
I retire to the bathroom to commit a sacralige in this shrine
to capatalism.
Then it's just more of the same. Groom, OK. Exit 113 I staple
a pair to the wall of the abandoned truck stop. Another pair gets
left in the dark cramped quarters of the Dairy Queen across the
road. Then I'm in a Texaco gas station near the intersection of
70 and 285 in Roswell, NM. Then a Wendy's in Alamagordo.
Just down the road is beautiful White Sands National Park. These
bathrooms have only natural lighting so I have to wait for the
guy using the urinal to leave so I can use the flash. I'm washing
my hands and looking at him in the mirror when he suddenly looks
up catching me looking in his direction. I look away and hope
he doesn't think I'm cruising for sex. I just want to deliver
the the underwear and get into the park.
As soon as he leaves I jump into the nearest stall before someone
else can come in or he returns for a quick blow job. I snap the
picture and I'm gone. Some people don't like it when you watch
them going to the bathroom. Then again some people do.
It was a Burger King in Tuscon Arizona. Another pair of dirty
underwear, another bathroom. Opening the unlocked door revealed
two guys, both peeing into the same toilet. They look up at me
from watching each other urinate and give me a blank stare. I
forget about O.P.P. And pull the door shut. "You people can keep
this city."
In Phoenix its the Jack in the Box on Center St., and the first
floor bathrooms in the Phoenix Center Mall. I walked into that
bathroom and thought hooray! An empty bathroom. Until I decide
to take a picture. Then the school field trip decides to come
in. Since the last thing I need is accusations of taking pictures
of underage boys going to the bathroom, I wait. And wait, and
wait.
First they deplete the supplies of toilet paper and hand towels.
Then after they leave the water running from every faucet and
grow bored of trying to bother me in my stall they leave. Damn
delinquents.
The drive through Arizona is spectacular. Everywhere you look
is beautiful country, except in the bathroom of the Sedona visitors
center. Then in Flagstaff on historic Rt. 66 I leave a pair in
the Mobil gas station and another pair just down the road at the
Safeway.
When they say 'historic' it must mean a fast food restaurant
every couple of feet, cheaply painted shot glasses and refrigerator
magnets with the name of the place printed on them. This is the
flavor of America that we supposedly lost with the inception of
the interstate highway system? They deserve poopy pants.
From the soiled skivvies left in the Market Plaza General Store
in the Grand Canyon, it was once again a blur as I tried to rush
headlong towards the coast. The darkened bathrooms of gas stations
and fast food restaurant's all begin to look alike. A Texaco station
in Kimberly Idaho, places in La Grande, Pendelton, Portland and
McMinnville Oregon.
Then I'm on the coast dipping my toes in the water of the Pacific
ocean. Operation Poopy Pants wasn't the fulfillment of a life
long dream, it was just an excuse to quit my job. It was something
to relieve the boredom of modern life.
I haven't enriched anyone's life but my own.
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