memory from the cage

I grew up in Pittsburgh. I never lived in Squirrel Hill, but I spent a lot of time there. It was my favorite part of town. Plenty of important associations relating to construction of culture, diet, identity down there on Forbes and on Murray. Big place in my life.

I haven’t spent much time in Pittsburgh as an adult. I was there for professional/creative purposes back in 2013 and 2014. I was staying in the East End both times, but not exactly in Squirrel Hill. Nonetheless, I ended up at the Squirrel Cage on one of those visits, right in the heart of the neighborhood. It was probably a Friday night, not too late but not early. I would’ve been off beer by then, maybe I was DD. We had a solid hang at the bar, which it was assumed I knew well as I’d grown up there (I moved away when I was 14, and I didn’t regularly drink alcohol til I was 18, or frequent bars til I was 21). It was foreign to me, as was bar culture in Pittsburgh. I think it’s fair to say Pennsylvania has a bar culture that’s robust and distinct from other states, and maybe Pittsburgh specifically so within that.

Anyway, as a long travel day often is, it was a weird day vis a vis shitting. You get into town and you start meeting up with people and doing stuff and you might not take care to defecate with the speed or attention you would if you were at home. So I had some tokens saved up. I went to the bathroom of the Squirrel Cage to shit.

There was a urinal right when you walked in and a little swinging door to a toilet. The swinging door didn’t lock, but the outside door to the bathroom did. I paused and evaluated the options:
a.) don’t lock the door and essentially be shitting with the door open, anyone can walk in on me
b.) lock the door and possibly start a small queue, no one will walk in on me

I went with b. Apparently that was a bold choice for the patrons of the Squirrel Cage. Pretty quickly after I started, someone came to open the door, saw it was locked, and let out a “huh?”. A couple more people gathered, all of them trying to do a quick piss, presumably, and all of them baffled by the door. “What’s happening in there?” “What’s going on?” “Why’s the door locked?” “I need to piss” “I don’t understand” etc.

I don’t think of myself as being a “words are precious, only talk when you have something to say” kind of person. I like idle talking, I like all the things you measure or articulate with words that are, strictly speaking, unnecessary, that are extra. But these were just comically so. All of these grown men couldn’t figure out that someone was probably shitting in the bathroom. I mean, there are lots of different reasons/activities that could result in a locked door, but shitting is just a really basic and central reason there’s a door in the first place. Their befuddlement was simultaneously very entertaining and a little threatening.

It wasn’t a long shit. I was quick, washed my hands, got out and didn’t look back. No drama at the end, just puzzles in the middle.

There’s related stories to this. I can think of NYC bars that are like this where there’s capacity for multiple people in the men’s room, not just in urinal form, but if someone’s gonna shit, or moreover, not piss, it’s really capacity of one. That’s a totally fine model for a bathroom, but it’s vexing for drunk men with full bladders. I have also witnessed the “I’m so drunk I’m going to shit in this tiny room, staring at you while you’re at the urinal” move. I don’t like it, but I respect it I guess. Ultimately, I’m not a bar person.