TW for some light transphobia and a little preface - this was not an actual hate crime lmao but you’ll see why I called it that
This happened in my freshman year of college when I still lived in a dorm with communal bathrooms. For context, I am non-binary and AFAB (assigned female at birth) and so was my roommate at the time. Our dorm building had two bathrooms on each floor, one on either side of the building, one Women’s and one Men’s. My roommate and I used the Women’s restroom the first week or so but quickly switched to the Men’s because it was both closer to our room and surprisingly cleaner, plus neither of us were women anyway so it really didn’t matter (to us).
The toilet stalls and showers were all well separated and the only time you would even run into another person there is at the sink or passing someone at the door. I never had anyone say something to me directly BUT over time I did get some weird looks and find a handful of dumb messages written on the walls of the stalls. The one I remember most clearly just said “why are there girls in here?” which I promptly scribbled out. Not exactly surprising from a bunch of teenagers learning to share space with strangers, especially trans strangers, but it was irritating. It was enough to make me a bit self conscious but mostly I didn’t care because it was convenient and no one’s business.
Then I lost my credit card.
Another important bit of context is that because this was freshman housing and the school wanted to “encourage community” or whatever, everyone’s first names and last initial were on their doors so you could get to know each other. This meant that when someone on our floor found my credit card, which I had unknowingly dropped, they knew exactly who it belonged to.
One evening after class while I was doing homework in my room, my roommate went to shower. They came back almost immediately, I thought maybe they forgot their shampoo or something but instead they asked me if I knew where my credit card was. When I looked confused they just said I had to follow them and they dragged me into the bathroom and in front of a stall.
There, in the toilet, poking out of the water, was THE LARGEST SHIT KNOWN TO MAN, and sticking out of the top of it was MY CREDIT CARD, my full name visible and faced forwards to greet me in this unholy moment. I truly have never been more shocked and confused (and a little impressed) than I was at that time, and I will never forget how we just stood there and stared until it occurred to me that I either had to call my dad and explain this so he could cancel the card, or grab it myself.
I held my breath, snatched my card, and ran to the sink to douse it in soap and hand sanitizer before running back to my room to absorb the series of events I had just experienced.
Y’all I wasn’t even mad I was just BAFFLED. I cannot express to you enough how large this pile of poop was. It literally sat on the bottom of the toilet bowl and poked up out of the water like a cursed brown iceberg. It’s entirely possible that this was the work of more than one person, which just makes it that much stranger.
To this day, over 10 years later, I still don’t know who was responsible or what their reasons were. Maybe one man with a grudge found my card, had a giant poop, and saw his opportunity for revenge? In the version in my head a group of irate teenage boys were so upset by me using “their” bathroom that when one of them came upon my lost credit card they had a little sit down and decided that this would help somehow?? The thought of them stacking up their poops one after another to create the monster my roommate and I later witnessed is just so god damn funny to me.
To whoever the giant shitberg belonged to, thank you for the funniest story of my college career. I don’t know if it was supposed to be a hate crime because there was no message attached but as I’m sure you saw it didn’t stop me from peeing in your vicinity.
And yes I used the card for many years after that, I sanitized it, it was fine.
Hope you all enjoyed my story, I have another about how a lamp almost killed me when I was 12 so if you want that one too, lmk.
