An open letter to the person who put the note on the stalls in the men’s bathroom at the office.

I’d like to start this out by saying I appreciate the sentiment.  Granted, some are of the opinion that water should be conserved as much as possible and apply the euphonic mantra, “if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.”  Not everyone seems to be amenable to that arrangement.  I, personally, find it disconcerting when I go to the restroom only to find that someone has not heeded the latter half of the aforementioned maxim.

So, you, fellow coworker, have taken it upon yourself to leave a friendly reminder to flush, taped to the door of each stall.  Your message reads the following:

Even if you are in

a rush

please

remember to

flush.

It seems your missive is presented as a rhyme, and, despite the layout, it looks to be a rhymed couplet.  However, your meter is off.  The first portion has eight syllables which my mind immediately breaks into four sets of two beats.  It reads:

Dut-duh (even)

Dut-duh (if you)

Dut-duh (are in)

Dut-duh (a rush)

But the second part there only contains six syllables.  You’re missing two syllables.  You’re two beats off (a nod to the Fugazi song from the inimitable Repeater album). 

As I sit on the toilet, pushing one out, I find myself distracted by the mistake in meter, so much so, that I have lost the message you are trying to convey.  My mind is so obsessed with this dysrhythmia that your words have been completely discounted, excluded from my evaluation of your verse.  Perhaps this is just a symptom of the amount of metal music I listen to.  With so many songs whose lyrics cover such serious and thought-provoking concepts such as swords, battle axes, wizards, demons, and dragons, I generally ignore lyrics.  (Perhaps this is a reason why I have an affinity for bands like Voivod and Vektor, who have eschewed screaming about the Lord of the Rings for Sci-fi motifs.  (sub-note here: it’s not always about D&D.  Sometimes the songs are about drinking beer, the volume of the music, and, occasionally, whales (or, vvhales if you’re trve))) Instead I hear the voice as just another instrumental component of the din.  (This approach keeps you from driving yourself mad trying to figure out the lyrics for Kvelertak songs if you didn’t realize they are screaming at you in Norwegian)  I derive my enjoyment of songs from the non-lyrical aspects which is why I find your gaffe so egregious and distracting.

Come to think of it, I spent so much time thinking about your message and what I would write in this blog post that I can’t remember if I flushed or not when I left the bathroom.  It looks like your message is having the opposite effect than your intentions. 

Excuse me while I go back to the bathroom to check.