When I was a wee lad, I attended a local Catholic grammar school (K-8.) You’d expect all the usual trappings for a Catholic grammar school and you’d be right, really. This was a near-Chicago suburban school, though, and space was an issue so the basement – which was pretty big – served as our gym area. (Poles were really hard to work around when we played dodgeball.)
The basement also had a wetbar, small dining area, and of course bathrooms. I don’t remember when I first got to use the men’s room downstairs at my school, but I do remember the horror of seeing the urinals. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what we had to pee into.
One of those, and you might think, “Ah, not bad. Awkward, but not the worst.” Now imagine 8 of them next to each other without dividers. Now imagine a school filled with 3rd through 8th grade boys. Yeah. The mixture of awkwardness, hormones, and pure childhood ignorance was almost too much to handle.
I’m certain that I’ve never dealt with a worse urinal. Although, to be fair, this is a school that had all of the doors removed in all of the men’s room stalls – on every floor.
Posted in Childhood Memories, Everyday Life