Poetry Not Suiting the Occasion

This is my 1300th post for this blog. That sure was a lot about nothing! So, to continue the tradition:

Sometimes a poem has good intentions but misses the point.

Back when I was at Waterman Street Grammar School in the late 1940s I remember the kids restrooms were in the dark huge scary basement. The boys were on one side and the girls were on the other side. In between were scary dark corridors.

In the boys’ restroom was a long trough that the boys would urinate onto a cement wall which the pee would flow down into a trough. The more talented boys would have pissing contests to see how high up on the wall they could go. Archie was the leader. Archie was the shy type that when called upon to read something aloud, his face would turn red. But he didn’t mind whipping it out and pissing up the side of a cement wall.

There was also a row of stalls for bowel movements. The doors were removed. I remember in one stall, I think the 2nd one from the urinal trough, was a little handwritten plagiarized poem:

Here I sit broken hearted,
I paid a nickel,
And only farted.

That poem tells a lot. For instance it tells the price of things those days. A nickel for the use of a stall. I don’t think you have to pay anything now, I think charging was ruled unconstitutional. But before it was declared unconstitutional I think you had to fork over a quarter or maybe even more.

And the fact the little boy, grammar school age, probably thought the same neat poem was witty and fitted the occasion for any bathroom stall, even ones that don’t have doors.