An Englishman in New England

<great vengeance and furious anger>

Dear Person Who Designed Every Public Toilet Stall In The Western World,

You unspeakable fuck. Don't laugh, I mean it - you are a Fuck.

Your handiwork is among the most critical and visible on the face of the planet - everyone has at least once in their lifetime been surrounded by it, stared at it, and in some instances even ingeniously written their nemesis' phone number with the tagline "For a great blowjob, call Hank" (sorry, Hank). Many of my own personal life philosphies have been delivered to me via the medium you designed. . .and I'll admit, some splendid blowjobs too (thanks, Hank).

Why then, did you feel the need to ensure that when I am engaged in one of the more private bodily expulsions, I can see next to me another man's crumpled trousers and skidstained underwear dancing around his hairy calves? Did you think it was funny to force strangers to be able to hear each other's every breath, every grunt, passage of gas, buttock adjustment and occasional mumbling? Was the "make the walls a ruddy great foot-and-a-half off the ground" design consideration over your head, carelessly passed down from on high by the great toilet-stall tycoons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in a bid to scrape a few extra bucks into their corpulent bank accounts?

Don't try to pass the buck - I'll take on the tycoons in another post, thankyouverymuch. Whether this abortion of a design was your idea or not, you are the inflictor of the punishment, therefore I expect you to fix it. And because I am so self-righteously angry (and every televangelist and God-fearing prole knows you can't be "self-righteous" without being "right", right?), I am going to dictate the necessary changes. Or you will burn in Hell. And I'll key your car, oh trust me, I'll key that sucker good.

- Walls touch the floor. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS!

- That goes double for doors - impatient fuckers will simply need more patience; they do NOT need to be able to watch my feet as they shift nervously and turn inward with the strain of defecation.

- Soundproofing. Specifically these stalls must be proof against the sound of poo coming out of someone else when I'm trying to poo myself - it's like a disgusting fecal version of 'Simon Says'. Don't ask me for the mechanics, just do it.

- Wet wipes to stop the attack of the Cling-ons.

- Musak. Helps us really feel it when we say "This music is shit!"

- Butlers. English ones. And they must all be blind, either from birth, or you can do it in the job interview, I don't care.

- Non-stain bowls; anal roadkill smeared around the bowl from an unsuccessful flush is just not cricket.