Mall men’s rooms used to mean something. When I turned 13 in 1993, the only sure way for a closeted suburban teen to see another man’s parts was to go to Waldenbooks at the mall, find a Playgirl not wrapped in plastic, hide it between the pages of the Pulp Fiction screenplay Waldenbooks had for sale, ever-so-quietly tear out the best page in the concealed magazine, fold the page several times, pocket the dirty little square, and walk to the mall restroom to—if not enjoy, then at least exploit. At the mall where I used to do this, in Southern California, there was one stall with a door crack that looked out sideways across a row of urinals. You could look through the crack and occasionally see a tip. Or you could stand at a urinal and show your tip to whoever was looking out through the crack.
From 13 to 18, that was the extent of my sex life.
Now Waldenbooks doesn’t exist, the internet does, and someone’s doing a killer business in urinal dividers, at least as far as the Alderwood Mall is concerned…
