I like to go to my special place.

Nobody wants anything from me there. Nobody wants to complain. Nobody wants my advice. Nobody cares what facial expressions I’m making. Nobody even wants to talk to me there.

That’s because my special place is a place where privacy is demanded. It’s because my special place is all about a toilet, a bathroom really, or a special stall in a special bathroom.

I think everybody’s got a special place on campus. Iowa Staters need special places to leave their marks.

We need special places so we don’t feel washed up in 25,000 other frizzy-head college students, many of which only breathe through their mouths. (Not necessarily a bad thing if you’re going to visit my special place while it’s occupied).

Some special places are dry and general like the Campanile, the steps of Beadshear, out front of Parks Library, Gold Star Hall in the Union or the M-Shop.

These are all good special places, but my special place is more individual. My special place is somewhat hidden from the world, and it’s fraught with history, or at least I think it is. And I should know. I spend some time there everyday.

It’s special time. It’s a special place.

My special place is kind of hard to find. It’s real close to my office, which is good because….well, it’s just good. To get there you’d have to wander around Hamilton Hall, keeping Room 104 in mind.

It’s not really a room. It’s more like a broom closet that had just enough space for a toilet. You’ve even got to walk through four consecutive doors (I mean this quite literally) to get there.

But once you’re there, once you’re seated on the traditional white porcelain thrown with the 1950s throwback black plastic rim and exposed shinny silver pipes behind you….stand back.

It’s special all right. Real special.

You can just tell that an elite group of journalism students have sat in that very spot, thinking the very things I think. I’ll bet some of them even thought of my special place as their special places, too. Wow. I’m teeming with nostalgia.

There’s the marred wooden door to the only stall, my stall, in the little bathroom. There’s a brown tiled floor and real brick walls, not those sissy plastic or metal cubical dividers in the new-age campus bathrooms.

Over-commercialization? No way. It’s pure academic tradition in my special place. There’s no graffiti, no flashy spaces for advertisements, not even a spot to hang your coat. The creaky wood door does just fine.

And when you close the stall door to my special place, there’s no fluorescent lights to make you feel exposed to all the world in your moment of weakness. In fact, there’s no light at all. Come to think of it, it does get kind of dark in there.

But that’s part of the mystique. And once you’re done doing your (you know), your business, you can always open the stall door a crack to let some light sneak in so you can read the Daily.

I do most of my post-publication review of your student newspaper in my special place. I have a special time with a special newspaper every day in my special place.

I do other things there, too, (Dirty minds can stop wandering.) like think about life. If you haven’t tried doing some self-reflection in the bathroom, you really ought to. It’s even better when the bathroom and your special place are one and the same.

It’s amazing how clear things look when you know you’re in a place where people wouldn’t dare disturb you without a really, really good reason.

Sure, my special place has some drawbacks. It’s university law, for example, that my little broom-closet bathroom always smells like goat, and the toilet paper is none too soft, either.

But you can’t make a place truly special unless you’re willing to weather a few storms.

So I take the good with the bad, because I’ve spent the last several years forming a deeper union with my special place. She and I (And I refer to her as a she only because I want to) are pretty tight.

I heard grumblings a few months ago that the powers that be just might close off my special place in favor of broom storage, or worse yet — remodeling. But I threatened to picket and I think they got the message.

You just don’t mess with a guy’s special place.

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Chris Miller is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Marshalltown. He is editor in chief of the Daily.