Stop 1: Gas Stations/Public Bathrooms

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Gas station bathrooms and public restrooms remain one of the few toilets still available to the general public. Café and shop bathrooms may be open to customers, but there is a certain expectation to look clean and to purchase food before asking to use the restroom. Such expectations prevent these places from being truly public spaces, as more counterculture individuals may feel uncomfortable interacting in this environment. Because of its status as unbiased, gas station and pubic restroom latrinalia are often tags or names. Those involved in the street art scene tag to show that they were there, or leave encripted messages for other taggers. Latrinalia also intrinsically equalizes graffiti in terms of talent and accessibility, because average people can scratch their name into the walls with only a pocket knife. The privacy of such an act lowers the chances of consequence and teenagers happily carve their names wherever there is space.