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It has the power to drown out both sound and smell. The hand dryer is my friend, my little white noise machine. I start longing for the sound of the hand dryer. The guy to my right is doing some serious toe-curling. The guy in the stall to my left is popping pills. Seven minutes in, my feet start to tingle and go numb, like they’re made out of Nerf. It’s 5:05 p.m., just in time for the commuter rush. I wipe it down thoroughly and take up my position. Lucky me, there are no floaters and only limited pee splash on the seat. I’m left with the one that doesn’t flush. At the food-court bathroom, all the good stalls are taken. I take one on the Wednesday after the Labor Day holiday-more than enough time for lonely dudes to get horned-up, I figure. You want instant gratification? There’s no instant gratification here. Can’t they respect for what they do?” He toughs it out in that stall. A moment later, the guy who takes the stall next to mine says: Then I hear the sound of spit hitting urinal water. Like the guy at the urinal across from me on a Saturday night: “Damn. Just look down.Ī large black comb wrapped in what appears to be used TP, a Miller Lite can three-quarters empty, a plastic bottle of Smirnoff premium “triple distilled” vodka (one swig left), one bag of cheddar-flavored Goldfish (unopened!), one pair of jeans (dirty), one stubbed cig, a Häagen-Dazs soda cup (empty), one giant TP donut, and one turd smear. In Union Station’s stalls, there are tons of excuses to get handsy. I noticed him only because I’m assigned to camp out there. Chances are he didn’t succeed that night, and he seems like an experienced cruiser. No matter how much you want to hook up, the odds are just daunting. This ain’t like the attendance for that last workforce protections subcommittee hearing. And half the stalls were closed down for their daily scrubbing. on a Wednesday, the Gate A stalls receive 22 visitors, a lot of them still wearing Hill laminates around their necks. on this night, 28 men go to the Gate A restroom.Įven when Union Station appears dead, the bathroom is not. Until we Americans invent a teleporter or solve the traffic problem, 32 million people will continue to pass through Union Station each year.įrom 7:30 to 7:40 p.m. They believe in Amtrak’s “All Aboard” slogan and cheesy train names like the California Zephyr, the Texas Eagle, and the Empire Builder. People still like to ride trains, despite the cost and the Acela debacle and the fact that the bagel with cream cheese is a stale bagel with cream cheese. It’s possible he’s working off his Sbarro. Maybe he’s waiting to pick up his girlfriend. Maybe he’s killing time before boarding the 8:30 Regional to New York. He stares at the bathroom, goes back inside and parks it at his original urinal. He could stare at the floor-to-ceiling rack of Harry Potter books or back at the bathroom’s comings and goings. This time, Backpack Boy stands 5 feet from me, inside Hudson News. And then he disappears back into the Gate A men’s room.Ī minute or two passes before he is back outside pausing among the tourists, commuters, and homeless crowding the concourse.