You have known the feeling. You've been drinking and tailgating and drinking all day on campus before the game, you’ve had a good time, kick-off isn’t for a few hours, you drink some more and you have some more 12-layer bean dip that you should have backed-off of twenty-nine scooped Fritos ago. Then all of a sudden nature hits you like a 290 lbs. linebacker, right in the gut. You’ve got to micturate, my friends. Badly. Or much worse, you’ve got a #2 growing inside you that will increase exponentially in intensity right about the moment that you realize your portapotty wait time is going to put you on the toilet sometime during the next Olympics.
Once you finally get to the door, it will smell worse than any other bathroom you have ever borne witness to. Inside, there will be visible excrement resting obscenely on the walls somewhere and urine will be present everywhere. There might be toilet paper but it will be drenched in pee. Vomit may or may not be present, but if it is present 60% of the time it will be dripping from the ceiling. Coeds come out of these unisex stalls sobbing. Even the greasiest, fattest, reddest neck'd member of the (insert fanbase of opposing team here) are hesitant to use these portable johns.
Oklahoma State University is no exception. Did you know it costs the OSU athletic dept. $20,000 per portajohn per HOME GAME!! It must, because OSU only sprang for, like, 30 of these suckers for the whole 50,000+ fan tailgating scene. Then early Saturday A.M. THEY LOCK DOWN EVERY BUILDING ON CAMPUS TIGHTER THAN $700 PUSSY. Even OSU's Edmon Low Library is shuttered. As no other facilities are available, tailgaters are forced to either forgo a three hour hell march towards a gross, reeking portajohn, or risk going to jail for peeing somewhere outside. Somebody is laughing during the ensuing campus-wide urinary shutdown this creates, but it isn’t tailgating fans. We’re mostly just holding our crotches in a mile long line going: ‘EHHH...Shhhhhhhit..EEEEhhhhaaaeeHHHH...ffffuuuuuccck!’
(Continued after the jump. No wait time for this sh*t!...)
The catastrophic mess of the rented restrooms on any tailgating scene can be mathematically deciphered by the following equation: CMI = ad / b
CMI (Catastrophic Mess Index)= ad (Ass demand) / b (Number of usable, unlocked bathrooms on campus during home games)
For example: Ass demand in Stillwater on gameday is probably at around 50,000 butts. Taking into consideration those who tailgate, but don’t have a ticket, and those who have a ticket, but don’t tailgate, this is probably a fair "ass assessment". 50,000/30 = a CMI of 1666.66. Now, you don’t have to be a mathematician to understand that CMI can be reduced if component b is increased. If OSU increased the 30 portapottys OSU tailgaters currently have to 40, CMI levels would drop significantly!
Another way to fight CMI, as well as, you know, Hepatitis, is to follow a code of conduct that promotes cleanliness, cooperation, and coordination. Any of these might be a lot to ask of 50,000 fans perpetually, almost loyally, drinking themselves into a stupor all day for a football game. However, with some rules to live by, good portajohn habits can be easy to obtain for even the most wasted of tailgaters:
Parliamentary Portapottary Procedure:
Following these simple guidelines can also help to reduce the messes of these bathrooms.
1. Do your business as quickly and cleanly as possible, then get out.
This is really the golden rule. As long as this rule is followed, most other issues can be averted. First, be considerate and clean up any messes you make yourself as best you can. Unless she has the regrettable profession of cleaning portable toilets, your mother does not work here. Second, don't camp out in there. It’s not as if you’ll want to linger around in a portable bathroom, but please fix your makeup, drink stolen beer underage, or send text messages elsewhere.
2. If you are a visiting fan, don’t mess up the home team's portapottys out of spite.
This is a good way to get your ass kicked by the entire tailgating fanbase of the home team. Nobody needs 50,000+ people tapdancing on their head, but God help you if you brought your team color spray paint and sprayed "(insert mascot name) is Stupid" on the inside of the john, or if you intentionally sprayed diarrhea on the floor. Yachoff's advice is: 'Don’t do it'. Vandalism is serious crime.
3. If you think your business may take awhile, announce your intentions as quietly and demurely as possible to the people behind you so they can take appropriate action.
You have a God-given right to take as much time in the portapotty as your business necessitates; regrettably the people in line behind you will invariably lose sight of this right until it is their turn to use the stall. The folks behind you will never fully sympathize with the fact that the egg, baked bean, and ‘Nacho Cheesier’ Dorritios burrito/six pack of Mickey’s Malt Liquor that you had for breakfast is treating your bowels so cruelly and that your business will require extra time. They should at least respect your advance warning, however, as it will let them know to look for alternative options even though there will not be any save public urination, which is always a dicey proposition. Letting the line know your predicament before hand will not be a popular announcement, but it can help alleviate the insults and empty beer cans angry fans will throw your way when you finally emerge from the portajohn, sweaty and 3 full pounds lighter.
4. Normal line etiquette is strictly enforced. No cutting, no holding places. No exceptions.
Do we really have to go back to Kindergarten? You can't just walk up to a buddy in the line, start talking to him, and act like you were there all along to try and finagle your way into the toilet quicker. We've all been hip to that boondoggle since the ripe ol' age of 7. Also, you can't leave the line, go back to the tailgate, do a kegstand, have some more bean dip, come back, and take the same spot in line. You must go to the back of the line. Immature behaviors like these are really infuriating when you are holding back the floodgate of 5 Keystone Lights. As Coach Gundy might say: 'Who are the kids, here? You kidding me?' Speaking of children:
5. At portapottys, unattended children, children who are not toilet trained, or just downright irritating children can be confiscated, and/or seized.
As the line to the bathroom at a college football game is not anywhere near an appropriate babysitter for a child, unattended children, children who are not toilet trained and make a ungodly mess, or children that the members of the line unanimously agree that they just don't like, can at any time be seized by the line as sovereign property. Because this rule has been written down on the internet all of this is now technically legal, but will remain a hot-button issue ethically for seasons to come. Just keep a watch over your brats, this guy will be.
6. Try to leave the Portapotty a little cleaner than you found it, or, failing that, remember to put the seat down.
We've all heard Tim Allen's Joke Act entire career based on the premise that men are insensitive jerks because they are too thoughtless to put the toilet seat down for their ladies. Or transversely, that women are constantly nagging shrews because they jump all over men for something so seemingly trivial. The truth is somewhere in the center. The tailgating community should be mindful of the other thousands of people who also have the misfortune of having to use a mobile plastic toilet that won't ever flush. We live in a society, people. A little bit of common courtesy goes a long way. See you in line in 16 days.