Study shows less than 3% of calls from bathroom stall graffiti result in a 'good time'

by Sam Annticks
What started as a doctoral thesis in 1976 has finally culminated in the longest effort by one person to receive a Ph.D from a major university.
Albert Schreiber said he got his inspiration while using a rest area bathroom on his way to a bicentennial celebration in New York City.
"So, I'm in this bathroom, and I look on the wall and I see the words 'for a good time call' and then a phone number," Schreiber said in his doctoral defense. "I was young, dumb, and you know the rest. I was a graduate student, and just trying to really have a great Bicentennial summer. So I wrote down the number and I called it from a pay phone at the rest area."
Schreiber got anything but a good time.
"It was really embarrassing and awkward," he said. "This guy answers the phone, and I asked for the female name that was written on the stall. The guy said that that was the name of his adult daughter who had moved out two years earlier, because she kept receiving harassing phone calls."
Schreiber said he apologized and disconnected. Being a good citizen, he returned to the restroom and tried to remove the graffiti from the wall.
"Back in those days, they still had soap dispensers that produced that soap that was like comet, essentially soapy sand," Schreiber said.  "So I got a couple paper towels got them wet and covered them with the soap."
While he was trying to scrub the stuff off the wall, he noticed something.
"It was written with a ballpoint pen and so it was very difficult to get off," he said.  "While I was trying to erase the one phone number, I noticed there were several others written all over the bathroom walls. I jotted down those numbers and called them as well."
Of the 27 phone calls he made, he had juat one conversation that he deemed to be 'fun,' or a 'good time.'
That one time, he spoke to a woman who said that she gets lots of calls because she had dumped a boyfriend for being "too frisky."
"I was running out of nickels, and I had to get back on the road," Schreiberr said. "But I knew this is what I wanted to pursue after I got my MA."
Once he got his graduate degree in Sociological Anthropological Physical Education, he immediately pursued a doctorate in Anthropological Communication, deeming that bathroom graffiti was the equivalent of "modern cave art."
"I have been in just about every bathroom in this great nation," Schreiber said. "Additionally, I have visited several thousand in Canada and several dozen in Mexico."
He said that what he has learned is that "the vast majority of times you read something written on a bathroom wall, it does not result in a good time."
"More than nine times out of ten, I found the phone number to belong to a school teacher, an ex-girlfriend or some person who was the victim of a vicious prank," Schreiber said. "Occasionally I would get ahold of someone that was actually interested in talking. In most cases that person had written their own phone number on the wall just to find someone to talk to."
According to Schreiber, bathroom graffiti is starting to disappear, partially because restroom stalls are much less private than they used to be.
"Also great effort has been made to make it harder to write on the walls," Schreiber  said.  "However,  the advent of the 'Sharpie(tm)' marker has sort of tipped the battle back in the favor of the graffiti artists."
However now that someone can place a phone call from inside the stall using a cell phone, it has died down a lot, Schreiber said.
"The whole thing really spiked in 1982 with the release of the song 867-5309/Jenny by Tommy Tutone," Schreiber said.
"More often than not, that was a number that turned up in a lot of bathroom stalls. I called that number in a lot of different area codes, but most of the time it was disconnected.
"Occasionally it connected me to an elderly person, or a bakery."
This didn't stop Schreiber from trying.
"Although, one time I did get a 'Jenny,' " he said. "We talked for a long time, and even met at a Denny's for coffee. However, I wasn't really her type, so nothing really happened. But it was a good time."
Schreiber will receive his doctorate this June. At 64 years of age, he is one of the oldest, longest-tenured full time students at Cornell University.
"On a positive note, once I get my Ph.D, I can probably get a real job," Schreiber said. "To be honest, working graveyard shift as an assistant shift lead at Taco Bell just isn't paying the bills."