If I Ever Meet Steve, I Will Pass Along the Message

So last night we were at the pub, hanging out with some old friends and some new ones - always fun - when I discovered that someone had written "fuck you Steve" on one of the bathroom stalls. Which got me to thinking - what is the point? Will the mysterious Steve ever see this little message? It is unlikely, unless he spends inordinate amounts of time hanging out in the women's washroom, in which case, I guess I could understand the sentiment. I can't even understand how cathartic it could have possibly have been, as ballpoint pen flows so easily on a clean painted surface. So, I started wondering about who this Steve was, and the anonymous girl who was so upset with him she felt the need to vent her spleen on a bathroom wall. Did he break her heart? Irritate her with some intractable position on the literary importance of Tomson Highway? Skip out on his bar tab?

These thoughts skittered around my head until a half remembered story about a guy who was doing a travel book about public washrooms around the world vaguely came to the surface of my consciousness. If indeed, there ever was such a book, I would have liked it to include the women's washroom from Cafe Wim, during the mid 1990's. This washroom wasn't covered with the usual epithets and lovestuck declarations most washrooms are. This one, much to the chagrin of the owners I am sure, had every available inch of writable space covered with poetry, and long drawn out discussions about philosophy and the meaning of art, conducted entirely by strangers. People would write their poetry, others would deconstruct it, and long debates would be waged, all within the confines of this one small space, all happening between people who would perhaps pass each other in the hall, or sit next to each other in the small cafe, but never sign their names. A couple of years ago, Cafe Wim closed it's doors, and the space it used to gracefully occupy is now an aggressively upscale restaurant/martini bar. I met my husband at that cafe, so many years ago, and I must say, that although the menu was over priced, the owners kinda crazy, the service purposefully slow and the coffee really bad - I am so sad it is gone.