When you buy your ticket to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, you are given a little clip-on metal badge with an "M" on it to wear. Most people choose to wear it on their collar. At the end of your visit, there is a bin where you are supposed to deposit your badge so that it can be recycled. While not at all mandatory, it's certainly expected, so when I was unable to contribute my badge to the recycling bin on Saturday, it was a bit uncomfortable.

The reason I couldn't contribute was that I had lost my badge. In the restroom. In the urinal. It just fell off, and it wasn't even one of those urinals with a plastic grate to cover up the urinal cake, so it fell right into the water, and I wasn't about to fish it out. I also was afraid to flush it, that it could become stuck in the plumbing and cause an overflow. So I left it and tried my hardest to act casual as I hurried out of the restroom. Fortunately, no security guards ejected my badgeless self from the museum for the rest of the day, but all those judging eyes on me as I didn't recycle felt like punishment enough. Metropolitan Museum of Art, I hereby apologise to you for both not recycling my badge as well as potentially damaging your plumbing system. I swear it was an accident.

All this talk of urinals does remind me of my favourite urinal ever: 

If a Dutch sidewalk cafe can have a beautiful glased urinal like this, why does a place as arty as the Met have the traditional white porcelain model?