It's gettin' hot in (this) herrrrrr (airless box)

So there's this chain of restaurants in the city called Vynl, and their claim to fame is that they're music-themed. They use old record sleeves to hold their menus, their drinks are vaguely punny and music related (read: the Fiona Apple-tini, the Pearis Hilton, the Purple Rain), and their decor tends to generally remind one of a disco ball. There's one in Hell's Kitchen and one in Chelsea, the main difference being that the latter is only marginally gayer.

Anyway, the best thing about these restaurants is that each bathroom is unisex and dedicated to a different musical artist. The bathroom is usually playing the music of the artist, there's a huge tile mosaic on the wall depicting the artist, and sometimes - if you're lucky - there is a doll or some other sort of miniature version of the artist. The first time I went to Vynl, I had the pleasure of using the Justin Timberlake bathroom. And as I'm sure you might have guessed, I find few things more pleasurable than having Justin watch over me while I pee. However, he may have actually been one-upped recently, when I had the thrill of walking into the bathroom and discovering this.

That's right. It's a huge science-project-style diorama devoted to Nelly. Except this diorama is better than any diorama you ever feebly created in middle school, because it contains the following: a doll of Nelly - complete with tattoos, doo rag, cheek band-aid, baggy sweatpants, and huge necklace that reads "#1" - some life-size blingbling necklaces draped behind the doll, and a large glass number one. In case you can't see all these things, I made sure to get a close-up shot. Duh.

Do you remember Nelly? Of course you do. How could anyone not? (Just in case you don't, click here, here, here or here.) He basically defined the 2000-2003 period in American pop culture. Or at least in my version of it. I am not ashamed to say that I owned his album Nellyville, and listening to Hot in Herre and Pimp Juice swiftly recalls the summer before my junior year of high school, when I blasted that album on repeat while I drove to and from dance team practices.

As per usual, I don't know why I love these things so much. But as I was peeing and staring in awe at the Nelly-rama directly across from me,  some lyrics from Pimp Juice seemed to stand out in my head.

Bitches got the pimp juice too,
Come to think about it, dirty, they got more than we do...
They got mo' juice in they talk, got mo' juice in they walk,
They got mo' juice in they pants,
Ooh goddamn!

This post ended up containing a lot more pee than I originally planned. Sorry about that. I just can't slow my roll.*

*And apparently neither can Nelly, because he's allegedly coming out with another album next year. Oh, I look forward to that shit. You know I do.