I broke a nail the other day

I broke a nail the other day trying to avoid touching the door handle leading out of one of those washrooms where you try your best not to touch anything with your bare hands, or butt. I tried using just the tip of my finger but the door was too heavy and thus, broken nail. Overall the washroom was kept clean, but because of the location of this particular washroom, inside a sad mall at the edge of the down town eastside, sometimes you can find some, lets say, lost souls in there. And I don’t just mean the homeless women, prostitutes or drug addicts that may visit. I mean the graffiti artists who do their eloquent work on the walls of these said stalls. Where’d they all go?
Why do I call them lost souls? I call them lost souls not only because you just don’t find that much graffiti on the walls anymore, thus becoming surely a dieing if not lost art form, but because these souls to me seemed lost. They seem lost, so desperate that the only way to get help or relief from their miseries or painful self awareness, is to get their message out, to release their angst or anger onto that washroom stall wall or door -messages for the masses. Or at least those willing to use the stall. After all, they do have your undivided attention when you’re in there.

There was a time I would wonder, why the hell do people write on these walls, or any wall for that matter? But now I wonder what happened to all these word smiths and their declarations of “I was here”, or “east van rules” so nicely designed to fit into its cross, or that unreadable %&# scribbled tag I used to see all over town? Or even better, the stories of broken hearts, crappy song lyrics reflecting one’s broken heart, or the cursing angry rants directed at the whore who stole your boyfriend thus causing your broken heart ramblings, or the best yet the rant about you’re cheating loser ex-boyfriend, the said stolen boyfriend?? I miss reading these!

I’ll tell you where these lost souls and their desperate rants, raves and declarations have gone!
Here. On the internet. Blogging away. I am here now! But if they’re anything like me, their audience consists of a few family and friends, or some poor Joe who googled you by mistake. (Hi Joe!)
So I say to all those former washroom stall graffiti artists, nay superstar wordsmiths, get back to doing all your ranting, bitching, declaring your love/hate for whomever on those stall doors and walls! Give your audience something to read again while they’re doing their business in there! Because when you gotta go, you gotta go, and into that stall, no matter how icky, we’ll be, and we’ll read and wonder, why???