Steve Kupferman

Today, I Learned About An Alternative Use For Public Restrooms

I was at Lillian H. Smith Library today, using free wi-fi and hunting for recent issues of snooty magazines (woo New Yorker) on the periodicals racks.  After a time, I decided to visit the men's restroom.

I walked through the door and immediately knew something unusual and possibly amazing was going on, because instead of the normal library men's restroom sounds--about which the less said the better--there was music.  And not just any music.  These were some funky jams.  The hook went like this:

"Every day is Saturday night / But I can't wait for Sunday morning"

Apparently the song is by K-OS.  Here you go, Internet, I found you a YouTube link.  Open it in another tab and then try to picture yourself in a place with hand soap and urinals.

And who was listening to this song about a hip-hop artist's misgivings over his life of constant self-indulgence?  A disheveled dude eating greasy Chinese takeout from a styrofoam box over the library's restroom sink.

The song was coming from a boombox about the size of a baked potato--the kind they sell for two dollars in every tourist schlockateria in Chinatown.  The guy had his coat all crumpled up on top of the sink next to his food.  Between bites, he'd dance and sing along.

I considered telling one of the librarians at the circulation desk about the guy eating dinner in the upstairs restroom, but ultimately I decided not to.  Why ruin everybody's evening?

Today, I saw a man get himself verbally pantsed in a coffee shop.

It was incredible.

I was sitting with my laptop in the back room of my main coffee hangout in Kensington Market, when a group of people wandered in and took a table across the room, a few feet in front of me.  There was a thirty-ish guy, who had his back to me, and a twenty-five-ish girl.  The third and final person in the party was a blond girl who was in her late twenties.  She was pretty attractive, and she was doing most of the talking.  It was a small room, and I couldn't help overhearing some of what she was saying; I gathered that she was back from a trip and catching up with her two friends.  I tuned out their conversation, for the most part, and kept my head behind my laptop screen.

About ten minutes later a guy walked in with a coffee, and I could immediately tell there was something odd about him.  I'm not sure what gave me that impression.  Maybe it was the fact that he was bundled up in a ratty brown coat, so huge and puffy that it could almost have doubled as a meatball costume in somebody's school play.  Or maybe it was the way he invaded my laptop-guy-in-coffee-shop personal space bubble for just a split second too long.  In any case, there was something about him that was a little more intrusive than usual, even for Kensington Market, which is home to a lot of gregarious people.

He sat down to my right and started drinking his coffee, with his big meatball coat still on and zipped.  I dove back down behind my screen and tried to interest myself in my work.

I'd spent about sixty seconds in laptop-land before the guy made his first conversational gambit.  The blond girl had been talking about her studies, and the guy made what seemed like a friendly probe for information.  "You make up your own research question?" he asked her.  "Wow."

"Yeah," she said, temporarily diverting her attention from her friends.  "That's true of any PhD program.  The idea is that you make an original contribution to the field."  This seemed to satisfy the guy and he went back to sipping his coffee.  Blond girl went back to talking with her friends.

A few minutes later, the guy interjected again with a question about where blond girl was going to school.  Again, she diverted her attention and answered him politely: "I go to Harvard."  The guy chatted a little more with her and her friends, and then, at the first opportunity, they politely froze the guy out and went back to chatting amongst themselves.

It was starting to get excruciating being in the same room as this interplay, because it was incredibly clear that the meatball coat guy was very, very interested in the attractive blond girl.  It wasn't really clear where, exactly, he thought his charm offensive was going to lead, but he wasn't giving up.

Finally, about five minutes later, he went too far.  He made another interjection, and the way the blond girl handled it could not have been more perfect.  She was polite, but completely devastating.

"Listen," she said.  "Would you like to join us?"

"No, that's okay," said the guy, already embarrassed.  "But thanks for the offer."

"Because you have two options," continued the girl.  "You can either join us, or stop interrupting.  I don't mind telling you about myself, but I haven't seen these guys in a long time, and when you do what you're doing, it's rude.  I mean, do you want to see my resumé?"

The guy sputtered a few more thank yous and apologies, but the blond girl didn't say anything else.  When it was clear there was no way for him to save face, the guy picked up his coffee and left.

At this point my face was about two inches from my laptop screen.  I wasn't risking eye contact with anyone.