South Station

               Finally, The Secret Shitter has come back to… South Station, on my never ending adventure to find the perfect bathroom I decided that I would try my hand at another MBTA train station, as you know from the North Station review, that didn’t end up too well for my anus. However maybe my luck has finally turned for the better, as I dare enter the bathrooms at South Station.

Photo: The Secret Shitter

               Now South Station is a meeting hub for the southern Commuter Rail line which services as far south as Providence Rhode Island. It is also a connection for the MBTA’s Red line train, and Silver line bus service. It also serves as a bus hub into Boston, and has Amtrak connections as well. So as you can imagine, this station is a very busy one.

               The bathroom itself is not hard to find. As you walk in through the main doors, you will enter a threshold where the food court is located. Upon entering this threshold, if you turn your attention to your immediate right, you will find the men’s room right there.

               Now once you get into the bathroom you will be met with a dazzling array of six stalls to choose from. What comes to my mind appeared in something similar in a book I read recently, The Tibetan Book of the Dead (TBOTD). Supposedly in the TBOTD when you are faced with choosing the next realm of rebirth you are shown six lights, each varying with color denoting the different realms one could be born into. Some are of the God realm, the Anti-God realm, the Human Realm, the Animal Realm, the Realm of the Anguished Spirits, and the Hell Realm.  Choosing a toilet in South Station is very similar in fashion, one might find itself in a heavenly toilet, or you could stumble into a venerable toilet hell. I guess your past actions of food consumption will guide you into which realm you will be using.

               As you might guess this bathroom is not the quietest spot to drive the poo-train to Browntown. Even at night this place was fucking busy as hell. There was a constant symphony of toilets flushing almost every second I was in there. There was also the unmistakable hum of air dryers, and sinks being used. If you are skittish about your Yiddish, I would suggest looking elsewhere to take a shit. Honestly, I am just being real with you; this place is not for the faint of heart.

Photo: The Secret Shitter

               Now I will say the bathroom was kind of cleaner than I thought at first glance. The bathroom had some minor issues like; toilet paper on the floor, and some unidentified water seeping and oozing around, but nothing can prepare you for the heinous smell which is in this facility. It smelt like the bathroom of a thousand shits, and pisses. I mean this is some serious bad stuff right here.

               As I said before the bathroom was large, and the stalls were no different. They were rectangular in fashion, and sort of wider than normal. However at first I was unable to fully concentrate due to the fact that the latch would not lock all the way on the door and the coat hanger was broken off on the door. The light grey floors looked pretty clean, so I wasn’t hesitant in laying my bag down beside me. I was more concerned with some commuter popping open the door and exposing me, pants around my ankles to some onlookers. But I will say the grey floors and the silver stall dividers totally made the bathroom appear smaller, and roomier than you first might think.

               Now normally I really do not go into great detail about the shit I take. I am usually just doing a casual poo, and I snap some pics of the inside of the stall and take some notes, on a stock note taking app on my phone. However my notes from this poo were mostly concentrated on the shit itself. I didn’t think that I had to shit that badly, and to be quite honest I wouldn’t even be able to recall what I ate that day. My mind just simply doesn’t work like that. I am usually a big picture kind of guy and am usually just able to recall snippets of things. But boy howdy, did this shit fucking stink. It started innocently enough, a little log here, a little log there, and some tiny high-pitched farts echoed from the third stall. I think it was pushing those poos out of the way, that in essence I took that little Dutch Boy’s thumb from the proverbial hole in my anus’ dam. What was released next could only be described as a hate crime against toilets. The amount of shit that came out of my one hundred and twenty pound body was enormous. So big in fact that when the assault was finally over, the poo reached heights above water. I literally created a shit mountain that almost touched my asshole. It was so large it was almost kissing my anus. Now the sheer height of my shit was not the only monster lurking in this venue. When I tell you the smell could have gagged a gaggle of small geese, it was so bad in fact I had to lift my own shirt up over my nose. The stench was heavy and thick. It was almost reminiscent of a hazy fog. I could hear the casuals praying to their Gods for mercy. I honestly must tell you that this smell was so thick it could have somehow attach itself to peoples clothing. The poor motherfuckers on the Silver Line heading to Logan Airport must have been mortified by the fog that was surrounding me. I felt like Pigpen from the Peanuts comics on my long commute home.

Photo: The Secret Shitter

               After a shit that nasty, I shuddered to think of what kind of sandpaper-like toilet paper awaited my anus. To my udder shock, the toilet paper was actually really nice! It was of the two ply plush variety, and it had little bumps in it to give it that extra soft touch. It was like I really entered into the Realm of the Gods. I believe my shitting karma finally gave me a big break here. This paper felt as though it was sent by the Gods, handcrafted for my sore behind.

               Now this toilet is no stranger to the anal danger. It took every last bit of shit down with one mighty powerful flush. I was in shock and awe. Now upon getting up and grabbing my belongings I did mention earlier that the bathroom was atypically clean, nothing totally out of the ordinary that one wouldn’t expect in such a large bathroom. However, something in the corner of the toilet caught my eye. There was a fucking pair of rolled up socks just chilling out there for all to see. I know that I should have taken my shoes and socks off in a feeble attempt to try to mask the smell of the butt-fog which was emanating from my stall. However I digress.

               I went to go and try to rid my hands of the poo remains that might be left over. I noticed that the front façade of one of the sinks was cracked and falling down. Inside of that sink was a small lake of clogged up water from countless hands over the course of the day. Everything was automatic in the hand washing station. To my delight, there were no paper towels, but a Dyson Airblade hand dryer! If you are unfamiliar with these apparatus’ they have small oval openings in the middle of the until that you place your hands into open-palm style, and pull up and down while jets of air hit you from two sides.

Photo: The Secret Shitter

               So now that you know all about my awful monstrous dump, we can go on to The Secret Shitter’s Five Star Review.

Number of Stalls: 6

Toilet Paper Quality: 3

Stall Comfort: 2.5

Busyness: 5

Décor: 2

Cleanliness: 2

Accessibility: 4

Overall Rating: 2.5

              

I am giving the South Station Shitter a commendable (for the MBTA) 2.5. I went and did the poo-do at night, so I am taking that into account here. If I were to base this off of my entire experience, than I would probably give it a 3 to 3.5. However I know in the morning rush hours that this bathroom is going to get more smashed than a $2 hooker. I mean it was kind of clean, but things were broken inside. One

sink was completely clogged, and the façade was falling off of it. Another shocking thing that I found was that upon first inspection, the restroom seemed to be fairly clean. I did find a pair of rolled up socks hidden in the corner of the toilet. There was also a man who seemed to be changing in the next stall, maybe the socks rolled out of his duffle bag? I don’t have the answers to these things. I am going to assume that the bathrooms here will resemble the one that I found in North Station at the height of rush hour. Although this bathroom has way more stalls, it still doesn’t make up for some peoples lack of hygiene. So with this review in the books, we turn the page, hopefully to something a little better.

Photo: The Secret Shitter