I happened to be in a home improvement store - I had wandered through several other uninteresting stores by this time - and noticed that there seemed to be an unusual amount of activity near the public restrooms. While this could have just been a busy Saturday where people had to really take a piss - I chose to believe that it was something more profound then that, and sat down to watch the free CSI mystery that was unfolding.

The first clue that struck me as an oddity was the fact that there were multiple store employees gathered by the entrance to the public rest area. Keeping in mind that this entrance was both to the gentlemen and ladies facilities so I was unsure as to where they were pointing at this time. There were three employees standing in a small cluster quietly, but very animatedly conversing about something that I could not overhear from my vantage point. At one juncture there seemed to be a proclamation from the in charge employee to which the other to both threw up their arms emphatically as if they were signaling an incomplete catch in a football game. To which the employee in charge decided to move the conversation to the help desk and involve a phone call to what I could only assume was the manager.

At this point I noticed a man in his mid twenties walking towards the bathroom and thought that surely this would provide some glimmer of insight as to what the issue was the employees had been talking about which clearly involved the bathroom at this store. I patiently waited for his brain to process the fact that he had just polished off a twenty ounce soda and needed to visit he urinal immediately before he pissed himself. Within a few moments he got the "oh shit, have to pee" face an off he went merrily trotting into the mens facility.

Now if you are not a man I do not expect you to fully realize how short of a time it actually takes to piss in a urinal. While I know some ladies have done this - that is another story for another day. Needless to say - if you have to go, and you're a guy - it realistically takes less then a minute to get in, pull out and deliver. This mid twenties hipster was in there for less then 15 seconds and came out with a look on his face like he had just seen the horse show in Tijuana.

Well fuck - now I was hooked. What could be in there? I had to find out, its not like I had anything else to do that was more important then a bathroom crime scene investigation of a public rest area - and besides, now I had to piss myself. So off I went, walking briskly and with purpose to an unknown but surely horrifying and yet oddly entertaining calamity that awaited me around the first bend of the bathroom.

As I neared the bathroom I braced myself for what I might find but as I got inside I found myself disappointing. There seemed to be nothing of interest. Surely nothing that would make a man run in fear, or force employees to call management for a disaster preparedness plan. By now I had to piss like a race horse does when your not looking (but secretly you are) at his junk. As I pulled up to the urinal and unleashed the dragon - I noticed a faint oder wafting towards me from a previously unseen urinal that was placed around the backside of the entrance to the room. As I continued my unleashing of the dragon the oder became much more pronounced and attacked my senses with a full bodied assault. I leaned a little to the right in an attempt to see my attacker, and sure enough there is was. A huge pile left in the unsuspecting urinal of the corner - and it had a hat!

In my haste to see more of this completely awesome and revolting work of man art I forgot to watch where I was aiming and managed to piss on the wall, and as such splashed back on myself. Son of a bitch! Now I had piss on me, the wall, and a crap with a hat in the other urinal. Wtf. And as luck would have it, I now heard the employees back at the entrance to the bathroom discussing their plan of attack in muffled tones.

There was only one option in a scenario such as this. I must take a look at the crap art left in the urinal and then run away.

I folded back up everything and tucked it away behind the splash marks that were even now starting to dry on my pants and moved quickly the hidden urinal where I found what could only have been an east African elephant dump. This massive piece was such that it was to the bottom rim of the urinal base plate, to which someone had in a flash of brilliance placed a tooth pick sticking straight up and then a mini party hat on top of that.

Pure, unadulterated, genius.

Now that I had seen the unknown and completely awesome - but still revolting pile with a top hat - I had to make an exit. As I walked out from the bathroom, the three employees stopped their conversation and looked awkwardly but knowingly at me in a silent nod as to what I had just seen. As I looked back solemnly and nodded in acceptance that we had all witnessed greatness I noticed one of them was not looking at me, but instead at my pants - which had piss spots all over them. I shrugged, and said "Fuck it, when a man dumps in a urinal and puts a hat on it - that is a day I can piss myself and not care"

As I exited the store I was perplexed by the complexity of what I had just seen. Questions began to consume my brain. Had the artist dropped his pants and sat in the urinal bowl to take the shit? Did they take the shit in a stall and then somehow maneuver the payload to the urinal? If they had sat in the urinal and crapped it out - what was the thought process when someone else walked in to use the bathroom. Were they just like "Oh hi - don't mind me i'm crapping in the urinal because it provides me a ball wash at the same time"?

Things to ponder on your next visit to a public rest room - could you crap in a urinal?

Would you give it a top hat?

Things you should take away from this post:

1) Shitting in a urinal is a lot harder then it appears at first thought.
2) Always, and I mean always dress your urinal shits up in some sort of outfit.
3) Pay attention to your angle of piss at a urinal - it will splash back on you with no remorse.
4) Attempting to launch a projectile shit from stall to urinal requires some physics training.

One suggestion that I usually tell my clients when I'm setting up e-com sites for them is to create a seperate checking account for your online transactions - and transfer the money out of that account once it is accounted for. This way if that account info gets leaked by bad security etc, your main accounts are still somewhat hidden from prying eyes.

Bottom line from what i've seen / used - dwolla is a decent service, that will continue to gain market share barring some crazy catastrophe or hacking.