Ongoing investigations and other mysteries

As you may or may not recall, all the way back in May, I reported on the graffiti issue of the women's bathroom at the Carnegie Library. Not long after that, this sign popped up in the lobby:

(This is where an amateur would say something smug like "Well, well, well", but as a professional, I'll just move on and let that speak for itself.)

All summer long, library patrons had to schlep themselves and their full bladders up to the second floor bathrooms. This is an example of how sometimes life is hard. However, life got even harder as the first floor bathrooms weren't open until AFTER the August 15 deadline. Somehow citizens kept from rioting and I can confirm that the library has not been turned into book burning pit.

Let's be honest, I'm not entirely sure most people know what books are, much less go to the library, so here are some visual evidence of the improvements.

As you can see, the walls are now this slate rock grey and the doors are black with little white flecks. I'm not sure exactly sure what the grey rock stuff is made of, but it makes the bathroom feel like a doctor's office. (This might be shocking news, but I am not an interior designer, so don't look here for technical terms.)

Will this cut down on graffiti? Or will people turn elsewhere and scribble on the walls of other parts of the library? As those on the television news have said while holding giant microphones: "We will keep you updated on the situation as it unfolds."

But that wasn't the only change for library patrons. Meet the new parking meter.

The first time I used this parking meter, it elicited two emotions which can best be described as !!! and ???. They accept credit cards (!!!) but not dollar bills (???). With a credit card, time blocks must be purchased in hour increments (????). Most maddening of all, the car license plate number must be entered first (????????), preventing individuals from giving their passes to a stranger if there is extra time left, thus killing good citizenship. 

As you can see, it's quite an emotional experience.

However, not as emotional as the notes left for the mayor on the previous meter:

No word on whether the individual born in 1955 lived to see the new meters. This story is still developing.

And finally, I'm not saying that I'm a library journalist, but if questioned, I would say that I prefer the term "librarnalist" (emphasis on the "rar").

How to Replace a Broken Toilet Seat

First, break it. Doesn't matter how. Being drunk helps. You won't remember the details and until confronted with the reality, you'll think it was a weird dream.

Don't replace it right away. There are more important things: brunches to attend, commas to delete, Say Yes to the Dress to watch. The detached lid is as cumbersome as a Novocaine-injected tongue, always in the way, but you put up with it. You even get used to the wobbliness after a couple of days. But upcoming house guests are a good motivator to fix it.

There two options: Call the landlord or do it yourself. The landlord is a nice guy, but you have a feeling that he worries about you a bit, the building's token Single Lady. Mr. Roeper also has a tendency of not saying when he's dropping by and you'd rather not hear him buzzing your door while stepping out of the shower. It wouldn't be the first time.

Plus, when you mention to your most handy-dandiest friend that it broke, in an off-handed way loaded with meaning, he replied "That's really easy to fix."

At Target, when the redshirt asks what size you need, say "Toilet-sized." When he doesn't laugh, just pick one, any one, then take it and your dumb joke home.

Start unscrewing the nuts holding the bolt part of the seat in place. A wrench would be helpful, but you probably don't have one. We evolved to have five fingers for several reasons and here is one of them. Your mind will wander as your fingers move in circles.

You can't remember your parents ever replacing toilet seats. If they did it, it must have been at night, when they did other secret adult stuff that you had to learn on your own, like filing taxes and walking in heels. Or you may have been too busy watching cartoons (a possibility). In college, one of the maintenance crew fixed a broken seat in your dorm bathroom. He teased you for your 12-inch TV and the next week knocked on your door with a massive television he found nestled next to the dumpster. It was constructed during Reagan's presidency and still worked. Even though you can picture him- a bald Paul Bunyan with a hearty laugh who loved to tell dirty jokes- you can't remember his name. This makes you sad.

Quite some time will have passed with minimal progress. Frustration grows.

Enter the wishing stage. Wish you hadn't broken it. Wish you were sitting anywhere but this dusty bathroom floor. Wish you weren't sweating. Wish you weren't so proud. Wish you weren't alone. Wish you hadn't wished that. Wish wish wish wish. Turn turn turn turn.

Stop. Realize the entire time, you have been turning the screws the wrong way. The plastic is warped, but you can pull out the old seat, fit the new one in through the holes, and a minute or two later, the new seat is screwed into place, as if it was always there.

Stand up. Open the lid. Shut the lid. Open it, shut it. Wash your hands, please.

Have a beer, have a glass of cheap wine, have a tumbler of melting ice and sharp gin. Even a plastic mug of Kool-Aid will work in a pinch. The most important part is to stand a little taller.

(Thanks to the How-To Issue for the inspiration.)

Battle In The Bathroom: The People Vs. The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

For years, there has been a war in the women's bathroom of the Carnegie Library, main branch. Women, girls, ladies, chicks, gals, whatever we're being called these days, have been writing, drawing, ranting, scribbling, scrawling, doodling and defacing the walls of the bathroom. These walls have been painted on a weekly basis back to basic shades of beige or pea soup green. Unlike the New York City Clean Train Movement, the spotless walls have not slowed down the scribblers in the slightest.

About a year ago or so, the library began posting a single 8 x 11" paper in each stall, asking people to write on the paper instead of the walls. Few obliged, but more mocked the paper, writing on the wall right beside it. Others ranted that asking people not to write on walls is a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech.

What's the big deal? Who cares? Why does this matter?

One, the library system is not rolling in money. Two and a half years ago, multiple branches were voted to close by the board and it was only by adding a referendum this past November which allocates a small percentage of property taxes to the library system that those branches were able to stay open. Late fees were raised and other services have been cut. Repainting the stalls and dealing with this crap kills up valuable money and time. The words and drawings are also sometimes inappropriate in an all-ages library, if you know what I mean.

Two, the library recently changed tatics. They painted the stalls black.

Unfortunately for them, silver Sharpies exist.

 

The black is not popular.

Three, I'm torn on this issue. I love the library and I hate to see it defaced. It's senseless. If these people were so concerned with free speech, they'd get on a computer and start a blog or hell, even a tumblr if they're too lazy to type. On the other hand, I kind of love it.

The stuff they write ranges from passionate and thoughtful to immature and dumb to nonsensical and insane. They write quotes, song lyrics, poems. They have conversations.

And even though blogging works for me, I understand how it wouldn't for someone else. I've written before about how the internet is much less anonymous than it was 10 or 15 years ago. Everything has become yourfullname.com or facebook/therealwhateveryournameis when at one time that was really discouraged. Writing on a wall would feel much freer in comparison.

The only true solution to this problem would be stainless steel stalls, like the ones in the Squirrel Hill library. They have a few scratches, but are otherwise flawless. They could also do what's done in some bathrooms at CMU, which are "Share and Support" walls with notes written on paper and taped up including space for people to leave their advice back.

Curiously, this problem is almost exclusively in the second and fourth stalls. Evens, not the odds.

The situation in the men's bathroom is a mystery, as I am not permitted inside.