Coe Library's Third-Floor Bathroom

Nestled deep within the sleepy little town of Laramie, Wyoming and unbeknownst to many, is an honest to goodness university. Within the hallowed walls of, by Laramie standards, near ancient architecture; rests one of the key features of any educational system's ancillary learning tools: the library. Standing fully erect at a whopping - again, by Laramie standards - four stories high, Coe Library is a vast complex containing everything from dusty manuscripts to research material to the latest periodical. Interweaving modern and now somewhat antiquated notions of research and study methods, the library itself, is fully connected to the Internet and even offers free wireless Internet - although you have to be an enrolled student to enjoy it.
Despite being the Mecca of matriculation and student gathering, the library has woefully undergone a declination of visitors whose intention is to sit back and stay a while. What with the Wyoming Student Union not 20 yards from Coe's steel-framed, glass front doors; the library has certain areas, which, to the untrained eye, go gloriously unused and utterly unappreciated. This entire building, which has, for the most part, been dedicated to offering students a near inexhaustible supply of reading material, which for many men may instill a deep, almost primal urge to engage in a leisure activity, which is also where they get the majority of their reading done. Most importantly Coe Library also has a dedicated staff of professional custodians whose duty is met by unbridled enthusiasm for providing a safe-haven for those who wish to take part in Laramie, Wyoming's best-kept secret: the men's bathroom on the third-floor of Coe Library.
Like the fabled Pavlovian response dogs may have to hearing a can opener, many men, myself included, become enthralled with the notion of sitting down to read in an area few would dare interrupt. However, doing this in public is a sketchy proposition and typically results in an unusually noisy and odiferous intrusion, shattering the calm one so carefully cultivated. Here on Coe Library's third-floor, the men's restroom - or lavatory, if one would choose to call it that - there seems to be an astonishingly small amount of foot-traffic. Tucked neatly away, high above campus, the bathroom is situated in the same area as all the others, owing to a shared wet-wall, which does nothing to explain why so few capitalize on its serenity. Obviously, the students know it is there, yet they choose not to use it; here's why: on the first floor of the library is the main foyer, which bleeds into the research and help-desk area. Every one who walks in immediately begins utilizing the electronic card-catalogue, the Internet or the help-desk. Once there, they locate the material they are interested in, retrieve it and either then return to the first floor to make copies or check it out and leave - this also says nothing for those who fastidiously find their material in electronic form. Through the incorporation of technology, students spend an exponentially smaller amount of time retrieving what they need, which, in turn, causes them to spend less time in the library - specifically the third-floor and because time is shorter, their waste management needs are also smaller, thereby making said bathroom, in fact, the best kept secret in Laramie.
Yes, it's a bathroom, but it's a bathroom that is relatively unused by anyone, anytime you might want to use it. It provides privacy, which on a campus of thousands, especially in the main student library is a rare treat. When and if one is ever looking to find a space that can be theirs, especially in a place that so clearly is not, one simply cannot scoff at the idea of a bathroom. It must be noted that the concept of a bathroom, itself, is one where a person can achieve a modicum of privacy and solitude. Hey, it's no ice fortress in Antarctica, but most of us look terrible in tights anyway.
It's located on the third floor, which is coincidentally loaded with all of the best reading material in the building. Home to all of the plays, poetry and other great writings that have been written from hundreds of years ago to the latest blockbuster written this year. My first reading of Dante's Inferno was coincidentally on the third floor after visiting the Taco Bell in the student union. The bathroom itself is nothing too special, two stalls, two urinals and two sinks. The stalls are traditionally marked in the kind of pseudo-sexual and graphically sexual descriptions of fellow students, both male and female who have come through the university all these many years. There is name calling, some witty, some not so inspired - probably a business or law major. There are phone numbers long discontinued, but why would you want to talk to someone who did that, anyway? The best part, however, is the trick urinal, for anyone who happens to be in there when and if someone else so rudely interrupts the seclusion. The far left urinal, the closest one to the first stall, is the safety zone. The one closest to the sinks, if someone has so foolishly decided to use it, will overflow, onto the user's shoes, if you flush the one you're occupying. Joyful little additions like that make spending time in here more than worthwhile.
Because it is in an older building and for anyone to assume no one visits it, would be stupid, the bathroom itself is in a small state of disrepair. However, it wouldn't be much of a secret if people, other than custodians were constantly in and out simply to maintain the thing, now would it? All this aside, it is the small suspension of disbelief, which truly enhances the environment. That aspect, the idea of it being undiscovered is what makes it so special. It has that private clubhouse feel. It is the couch cushion fort one used to build during his or her youth. It is a haven away from home. A place one feels a connection to, but no ownership of. It is something that could be taken away at any moment, which enriches the time one has to enjoy it.