By Nick Perry

It’s 4:30 PM on a Saturday and I’m sitting in my lonely little room listening to house music and enjoying a soft beverage when I happen to notice in the corner of my eye the newest piece of flair on my wall. It’s a poster with a crayon-like drawing of a windmill and a bold, yellow “WIND NOW!” riding along the chalky blue sky. I don’t really feel so strongly about windmills that I indiscriminately plaster my walls with environmental slogans and invite all my friends to the Support Wind Energy 2010 Facebook group, but I did go to Earth Day 2010 in Washington, DC. I brought back this poster along with a greatly invigorated ego.

I planned to write about this as soon as I got back. But I didn’t. It’s been some time, and some of the details might be a little hazy, but you most likely weren’t there, so shut up and just accept what I tell you.

About 45 Obies and three or four other tree-huggers left at 4:00 AM on Sunday, April 25 on a wonderfully intact and tolerably uncomfortable Precious Cargo coach bus for the capital of the world. You might think I would be out of my element with a bunch of hippie environmentalists, and you’re totally right. But, turns out, not a whole lot of Oberlin folk really worry so much about climate legislation that they would go down to DC for a day to partake in some government-fried green education at Earth Day. Don’t think that I’m someone who would, I just went to see some family and The Roots, which was the same reasoning for about 85% of the bus, but still, don’t people claim to care here? I mean, I don’t really, there are plenty of other people to do it for me, but isn’t the Lewis Center, like, the balls of Environmental Studies and all? Maybe Earth Day is lame in the environmentalist community, I’m not sure.  Does that make me weird for wanting to go? Does Harkie opinion of me really matter?

After 7 miserable hours of awkward sleeping positions and the Nutty Professor 2 we pulled into RFK Stadium and got dropped off three miles from our destination. Some mysterious benefactor (Barack Obama?) gave us all Metro passes and everybody split off in their own direction.

I wish I could tell you what everybody did on their trip to DC because I’m just about positive most didn’t really go to Earth Day. There were probably some museum trips and home-cooked meals, but I can only tell you what I did. It doesn’t really suck that much, I swear, but if you expect some kind of Hangover-esque adventure, you should just stop reading. (Don’t really stop, but just remember that I suggested you do it.)

I hobbled to the rusted door of the bathroom, shoving my boxers back into the most uncomfortable pair of pants I have. (They’re Banana Republic black jeans if you’re into the fashion thing.) Bounding out the door, I thanked the nice Metro security officer who opened the employee bathroom for me only minutes after telling me to never grab him again. It absolutely wasn’t anything more than a light brush of the arm, but he turned out to be a good dude.

I felt about 3 grilled cheeses lighter and was uncommonly spritely. I wanted to see me some Earth protesters. But, unfortunately, that would have to wait because a friend’s father was in town and he had offered to take our five-person crew to lunch.

We went to a small Vietnamese restaurant in Georgetown and had a few good streaks of contrived conversation with the man–a reluctantly friendly, and apparently pretty renowned economist. He was–and still is, I think–on a book tour promoting his contribution to the financial crisis canon.

It was glaringly evident that he was not entirely pleased to be seeing his daughter for the first  time in months with four of her guy friends munching down next to him on food that he paid for. He asked us the routine questions for the first half hour, learning of our homes, majors and qualms with Stevie food, but when lunch came he just checked out. He had a lovely conversation with his daughter which never got any weirder than wondering why she came with four guys that were not her boyfriend, and every once in awhile one of us would chip in with some agreement and things just sort of winded down when everybody finished. He got up and walked off to the bathroom literally seconds before I was slammed with an intense plunge in my rectum.

To my dismay, he had already gone in the bathroom so I laid back against the wall and tried to compose myself enough to not make him uncomfortable when he came out. Just when I was about to give up and grab the doorknob of the women’s it disappears and he saunters out wiping his hands on his pants, like he was completely unaware that he had just left a women’s bathroom. I wish this could get more interesting, I really do, but I don’t want to sully the name of a guy who uses it to make a living. It turns out the men’s bathroom door was severely stuck and I actually blew in the women’s toilet, too. I know, way less exciting than you expected, but I was forced to ask a few questions.

First, do women’s bathrooms have weaker toilets than men’s? Like, as a toilet, you couldn’t expect any kind of pipe damage from a girl, right? I’m pretty sure you need way less water to clear a girl poop, too, so it could be environmentally practical. I’m totally serious about this question, and I want an answer, so please give me one. And if it isn’t done this way, then somebody make it happen! We’re saving the fucking Earth!

Second, if I was to bump into a lady in a ladies’ bathroom what would I have to say to not get maced on the spot? I don’t frequent women’s bathrooms, but I’m pretty sure my friend’s dad is totally in the clear for using the ladies’ room. Granted, it was only a one person so he wouldn’t see anyone in there, but if he had ran into a young Vietnamese waitress on the way out that might have been weird, right? What if a guy is at a crowded, indoor concert venue and gets the mud butt, and there’s a line out the door for the men’s room, but at the women’s–which I realize would never happen, but hypothetically. Is it okay for that man to explode his bowels in a fit of rage and shame in the women’s bathroom, or would the ladies not tolerate it? I’m thinking they might accept it, but then put a sign on the stall door to steer clear. And maybe on the stall next to it, too.