One of the best things about Walmart by far are their public restrooms. These are a virtual haven for bathroom tourists such as myself who like to spend time in public bathrooms in order to get the most out of life. I do believe in getting the most out of life. This is a thing.
I am part of a club that meets in a local Baltimore Walmart men's room to read magazines independently of each other and while sitting in different stalls. It is clean country living at its finest. Just like cops are New York's finest (if you were unaware, make sure a notebook and sharpened pencil are available to you at all times to write down new bits of learning you may receive on everything2 website). This is quite something to behold. Being a hobbyist of the type I am (and you are my friend so you lovingly support everything I do and say with proclivities up the wazoo), I love having these kinds of options.
But there are important things to note if you want to read magazines independently of other people in separate stalls according to the gender assigned to you at birth by Jesus and three of his disciples (the ones who went into that line of work after the cross thing):
- Not everyone in the Walmart bathroom stalls is a person who is hip to the game. Some people may get "weirded out" (internet kiddie slang) if you begin discussing an article you are reading currently in Better Homes and Gardens while they are pushing loose a turtled turd. If someone responds aggressively, don't persist unless you are handy with your fists.
- A lot of Walmarts have people working there who aren't too keen on people using the bathrooms there for these purposes. If one of them comes into the bathroom and begins thumping against the stall doors (metal) with a mop handle (wood), stop talking to your neighbors about exciting developments in Popular Mechanics magazine. If you hear them say, "You get shit on it, you buy it," then you know your goose is cooked.
- The holidays are a very busy time in Walmart bathrooms as men sneak off with magazines to read them in the bathroom (or merely look at pictures - but only merely). You may need to make reservations, but every Walmart bathroom magazine reading club has different contact information. Check with your local branch office (which you will find locally).
- Make sure you actually have to experience a bowel movement when you go to the Walmart bathrooms. Sam Walton, bless his heart, had one last wish and that was to do away with people reading magazines in his bathrooms. So, he invented with his own gumption a detector for shit in the stalls when they are flushed, and a toilet stall door locks securely until that toilet is flushed. Basically, you either shit or you get a punishment from Sam Walton (sometimes delivered personally while he was still alive via closed fist). What I do is use a broom handle at home whenever I feel I need to have a bowel movement (there is a pulsing, uncomfortable feeling you may be familiar with) to force the excrement way the fuck back up inside my body as far as it will go, at times actually sitting on the broom handle and with all my weight forcing inch after inch of the broom handle up inside me.
- Your choice of reading material should be sensible. Don't bring girlie magazines in there with you. What can happen is that you achieve an erection while your unit and pre-assembled parts are dangling down near the water's edge. Your erecting penis may get caught between the seat and the empty area between the seat and the toilet water that serves no practical purpose. It is a painful experience. Avoid.
- Talk in a manly voice when discussing articles with other stall residents. No one wants to be "in the hole" with someone who isn't very manly. This is a manly practice (not for the faint hearted or losers).
- Bring the magazine back to the rack where you found it (unless you want to buy it - and you don't have to unless you get shit on it).
Furthermore, this is real. You need to know and understand the needs of people different than you, such as Walmart toilet stall magazine reading enthusiasts. We are all across America and Canada and I know a guy in Thailand.
If you need to take a "movement" in a Walmart bathroom, consider barging very aggressively into the hairdresser shop next door (the small, independentl owned one that is going under) and demand to use their private bathroom. If they buck, shit on the floor. It will serve them right. I think so.
There are other experiences you can have in a Walmart that aren't "listed on the menu." It is a place to have adventures with your friends. You can have adventures in the style of the world famous detectives The Hardy Boys and their friends Chet and good looking kid. How can you find these adventures? You have to know where to look.
- Take two different sized bags of Cheetos to the register and pretend you have no idea they are two different sizes of the same product, or that a larger size was available in case that many were actually to be consumed in a timely fashion. As you well know, Cheetos and other potato-based products are not good after the bag has been open more than 36 hours and must be thrown out or given to the poor (although that only encourages them).
- Fake Shoe Shine booth in the middle of one of the aisles no one goes down, like the one with the giraffe lamps.
- Produce a urinal cake that has been well used (from the men's room) when asked to pay for Cheetos or other products at the register. They will pass you through.
- Pretend to be Indiana Jones or an Indiana Jones-like character, such as Henry from Regarding Henry, and wander around the garden department in safari gear yelling about being trapped in a refrigerator during a nuclear blast (jerky movements are optional but I am seriously all in favor of them in every and all context).
- I grab huge handfuls of meat from the cold meats section, perfectly good steaks, chicken, and ham bones and throw them in the back of the shelves with the off-brand potato chips on them. I go back days later to see if you can smell the putrid rot and get a chuckle out of what I've done.
- Ask repeatedly at the check cashing window to cash a check, then act like you are waiting, and produce no check. Become frustrated and actively grab the clerk with your left hand, partially collapsing the breathing part of the human throat in the process, while repeating calmly your request to cash the check.
- Building models in the men's room stalls. This is something I have been developing lately by taking models and glue and going to the men's room stalls and putting together models in there and then throwing them in the back of the shelves with the off-brand potato chips so they know what kind of person they are dealing with.
- Develop your own activities based on your interests and your level of intellect.
Take your time in having an adventure at Walmart. Learn the lay of the land and you can have these kinds of adventures real soon and in real time.