Dear Mr Handprint Restroom Guy

For those of you who don't know me very well, I'm a "stall man" in the bathroom. Okay perhaps you didn't need to know that ... but now you do. Believe me I'm still sparing you from the true strangeness that is "me".

Speaking of strange, and speaking of bathroom stalls, for several weeks now, in my very favorite bathroom stall at work there has been the following handprint on the wall - if you have trouble seeing it, count yourself lucky. But there IS a handprint on the wall. It is about this image/print I will write today.

This photo raises a multitude of questions for me. And yes before you start this DOES mean I snuck into the bathroom with my camera phone and snapped a picture JUST for this post. Okay? Bang you got me. Now on to my questions. The biggest two questions I have are probably much like your questions as you read this:

Why is this STILL there? Why has it not yet been cleaned?

I would gladly clean this myself if but only to scrub the image from my mind as it disappears from the wall. However I have no access to cleaning products here at work. But I desperately wish this handprint gone. For there are other questions it's continued presence creates in my ever-busy brain. Which brings me to the title of my post.

Dear Mr Handprint Restroom Guy,

I have many questions for you based on your handprint's location alone. It is a considerable distance from where one would place their feet in a stall, for their "business" to be done, to the wall in front of you. Do you have some strange childhood issue that creates in you a desire to be nearly horizontal when you make wee-wee? Were you unbearably too tired to stand while you did this and in fact had to lean? If that were the case, isn't that actually MORE work, not less physical exertion?

I could go on.

And then the handprint itself.

What in the name of all that is holy is that anyway? Too faint for grease. Too smooth looking (although believe me I haven't touched it) for mud or dirt. How did you create such a perfect handprint anyway? Depending on the substance of the grime, I may now have a fuller understanding of why that hand was so far from you as you made potty. Perhaps I would have made a similar decision were the substance likely to, as this appears, leave a permanent stain.

And now the obvious question. Are you so freakishly large this was somehow necessary? Do you in fact have to just toss things out there, like so much tackle, and fish them out later? Then that would mean standing directly over the bowl would avoid uncomfortable bends in the wrong places. Is this then a flow issue of some kind?

And then the more down-to-earth questions.

This is an OFFICE. Where in HERE of all places did you find such an atrocity with which to adorn your left hand? I commonly shake hands here when I meet someone. Did I shake yours later that dark day? How would I know? Did you even notice this print you left behind? Your smudgy legacy of grime spurning an entire blog post from me in an attempt to rid myself of these feelings. Feelings of revulsion coupled with the sardonic humor of knowing I get to share this subject with my readers. Acknowledging the gross out factor was my only motivation for this letter to you after all.

So hats off to you Mr Handprint.
And gloves on.

You have left your mark on me in ways which I'm sure you've never dreamed. Forget the Hollywood stars, immortalizing great achievements in film and entertainment. Give me not the glamour and publicity of throngs of fans, screaming my name. Give me in fact the anonymity of the Handprint guy, changing the world, one smudge of grime at a time. For yours is a mark more permanent than the shiniest star on the walk of fame. A grime for all time and a stain of pain.

Yours truly,
Rob Horton

Thats it from me. I'm off to wash my hands ... again.