Porta Potty Acumen

Sometimes at really friendly festivals, people in front of you in the Porta Potty lineup will stand there and wait for an empty stall for the longest time even though you can see that while 8 of the 10 are red:occupied, one of them is green:vacant and one of them is ¼ green:vacant and ¾ red:occupied. But you don’t point either of them out to the person in front of you and you don’t go for the fully-green:vacant. Instead you leave the fully-green:vacant to them, for whenever they clue in, and you go for the green:vacant/red:occupied mix.

You knock on the door and nobody answers so you pull on the handle and the door opens. You are not ready for what’s next. Inside, it smells like cinnamon and not shit. There are no toilet paper wads in the hole, no urine streaks on the floor, or the seat, or even the back of the urinal. It’s an oasis. A Hilton amongst Motel 6’s. A first class upgrade from coach. It seems the politeness of the festival-goers has left this single unit untouched, untested, and unfathomable for the entire weekend festival up until the moment you walk in at 3 o’clock in the afternoon on the last day.

Before you walk out, you squirt the first-ever pumps of sanitizer from the full dispenser and while you rub it in, it dawns on you that after you exit, and someone else walks in behind you, this secret delight will surprise at least the next two people, and then it will succumb to the overuse and begin it’s decline into decimation.

You’re not ready to share it, are you? You turn the handle and make the outside go green:vacant, and then you turn it back ¾ of a rotation and step out. The first guy to see you come out will make a move towards it, see the mixed colours and hesitate, then get back in line. Turn back and count in from the right side. 1,2,3,4! Now go back to your blanket and decide which of your friends you like best.

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