Public Restrooms Get The Royal Flush: a hypothetical play-by-play
*Disclaimer: Do not continue reading if potty talk grosses you out or if public restrooms in general make you squeamish. I am 100% comfortable with discussing topics of this or similar nature – but that's just me – so if you're not, then don't bother with this blog. I will not be held responsible for the reactions of others and could not care less about making people feel uncomfortable.
That said.
There are countless occasions on which I have entered a public restroom to be assaulted by a slew of unsanitary atrocities. As common and predictable as these encounters are, I never fail to scowl at them or the fact that after all these years, nothing has been done about them.
On that note, if you ever spot a half-crazed girl in a public restroom bent possessively over a sink, furiously scrubbing her hands and grumbling, "I'm going to write a blog about this!" - chances are, that girl is me. In fact, if you ever spot a half-crazed girl anywhere grumbling "I'm going to write a blog about this!" - chances are, that is also me.
Let's review the process of this wonderful "privilege" of Western civilization, shall we?
1. Entering the restroom
Easy enough. Of course, if I wanted to get really technical/anal, I could point out that by coming in contact with the doorknob, you are already contracting bacteria - but the same theory applies everywhere, so this is not particular to restrooms. However, some potential annoyances upon your initial entry include (but are not limited to) sticky or slippery floors, foul odors, and the realization that you've just walked into a single person restroom, causing you to obsessive-compulsively lock the door several times and leaving you with the nagging fear of being walked in on. Even if you are sure that the door is securely fastened, you still can't be convinced that there aren't certain people out there that would pull a Jackie Chan on it, and this tends to make relaxing your Kegels rather difficult. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
2. Choosing a stall
This decision has proved to be both challenging and critical. If you don't pick the right one, you could be faced with one or more of a series of problems. Lately, however, it seems that there is no "right" stall at all, ever. Right off the bat, you can't locate a stall where the door has a working (or sometimes even simply existent) lock. If you are lucky enough to find one, it is most likely jammed and you will no doubt break a sweat just trying to get the lock in place. Once this is accomplished, you allow yourself to breathe.
Note: The next few steps are perhaps only relatable to women, but men should read them anyway, because it may help in answering the everlasting question, "What in the name of all that is good and holy is taking my wife/girlfriend/sister so long in there??"
3. Protecting your assets
Assuming the toilet you have chosen even has a seat (I will never forget the one I got stuck with upon landing in Colombia - not only was there no seat, leaving me no option but to squat as best as I could without falling in, I somehow managed to lock myself in my stall and had to belly-crawl my way out on the grimiest floor my little blue eyes had ever seen), you scan the area for a paper liner, but find nothing. Rolling your eyes, you resourcefully rip off strips of toilet paper to line the seat with and growl when you realize that the toilet's previous user was either a man in the wrong bathroom or a woman with no class, and no matter how many strips of toilet paper you stack, your butt is still going to get wet somehow. You rise above the occasion and decide that you have to just suck it up. Noticing that the seat is askew, you carefully sit down at an odd angle to 1. avoid the urine spots, and 2. avoid jerking the unstable seat.
4. The flush
It should be so simple, so smooth, and yet this is never, ever the case. What a predicament when a woman goes to push the lever, only to find that nothing happens. I say women because 1. While I haven't actually asked one, I'm willing to bet that men don't really care if their [public] toilet is working or not. I am pretty well convinced that even if the thing started overflowing out onto the floor, the most reaction a man would have is a shrug and a "Hey, it's not my problem." And if another man walked in right after and discovered the mess? He'd probably laugh. 2. Periods!! Yes, the topic we all love to discuss in detail (heh). I won't, however, go into detail here, out of respect for women and, sure, consideration for men. I don't after all think this needs much explanation anyway.
Let's suppose God has mercy on you and said toilet does, thankfully, flush. There is always one of two ways this will happen. Either the vortex of water will get sucked down into the foreboding hole with such force and at such speed that, unless you are able to escape your stall with superhuman skills, you will inevitably get sprayed, or...the toilet is not completely broken but its sucking action, well, sucks, and all that paper you used to line your seat is now clogging the necessary orifice to drain the bowl. If the latter happens, you flush the toilet several more times, whimpering as the paper refuses to disappear and instead does nothing but shred a little more each time.
5. Leaving a stall
Again, this should be a simple open-and-exit process. However, as previously mentioned, there is a very great possibility that you will have to fight your way out of your stall, as I did in Colombia. I highly recommend you buy yourself a messenger bag (or, for all you Posh Spices out there, one of those larger-than-life Dolce & Gabbana bags will do) and stash a personal tool kit in there in case of emergencies. Sure, it might be heavy (although I'm willing to bet most of your purses are at least as heavy), and you might raise a few eyebrows when you set off the sensor at Target and out comes the hammer and screwdriver you just happen to be carrying around – but when you finally do reach the bathroom and, as fate would have it, you get trapped in your stall, all of this will be worth it.
Note: Do not apply the tool kit idea in such countries as Colombia. Should such a trapping occur, just do what I did, wash your hands really well, and change into a new set of clothes. That or be taken hostage by a pack of guerrillas who will drag you to the jungle at gunpoint, hold you for ransom, and then kill you anyway.
6. Washing your hands
This one is always interesting, as unlike in the rest of the steps, you never quite know what to expect. There are typically three scenarios here. You might have to manually turn knobs or levers in order to get the water running at the sink, which is fine unless they're unmarked and you're left wondering which way to turn them in order to get the temperature you want. You might be faced with an automatic, which is also fine and often preferred, except that in most cases the motion detector cannot sense anything more than two inches away, so unless you have both hands shoved directly under the detector (if you can even locate it, and even then sometimes it doesn't matter), the water will come out in short spurts and it will take you much longer than necessary to complete a thorough wash. Also, you have no say in the temperature. Lastly – and this one really gets me – you could get stuck with the kind of faucet that must be pushed constantly in order for water to come out, which means holding it down with one hand while wimpily flexing the other hand under the water, and then switching on and off until you feel relatively clean. I would love to meet the genius who came up with this one.
7. Drying your hands
Whatever happened to good old paper towels? Well, they're back now, but for a while they all but disappeared and those stupid hair-dryer-on-a-wall contraptions were popping up all over the place. You'd probably have better luck at drying your hands faster by stepping outside and waiting for the sun to evaporate the droplets resting on your hands. Along with that, I've heard plenty of people say that all those dryers serve to do is spit out recycled bacteria. Fortunately, someone in the hand-drying business wisened up and brought back the paper towels, some of the dispensers now automatic. I would love to meet this person as well so I can crown them with laurel and hand-feed them grapes.
8. Exiting the restroom
This is the best part of all. No, not because you're finally free from the nightmare known as public restrooms (at least until the next time you're out and have to pee), but because as soon as you put your hand on that doorknob to leave, you have just sabotaged all your efforts to preserve personal hygiene. The irony of it kills me every time.
Bottom line: I have found no other way to deal with the public restroom issue than to just chalk it up to another of life's evil necessaries.
That said.
There are countless occasions on which I have entered a public restroom to be assaulted by a slew of unsanitary atrocities. As common and predictable as these encounters are, I never fail to scowl at them or the fact that after all these years, nothing has been done about them.
On that note, if you ever spot a half-crazed girl in a public restroom bent possessively over a sink, furiously scrubbing her hands and grumbling, "I'm going to write a blog about this!" - chances are, that girl is me. In fact, if you ever spot a half-crazed girl anywhere grumbling "I'm going to write a blog about this!" - chances are, that is also me.
Let's review the process of this wonderful "privilege" of Western civilization, shall we?
1. Entering the restroom
Easy enough. Of course, if I wanted to get really technical/anal, I could point out that by coming in contact with the doorknob, you are already contracting bacteria - but the same theory applies everywhere, so this is not particular to restrooms. However, some potential annoyances upon your initial entry include (but are not limited to) sticky or slippery floors, foul odors, and the realization that you've just walked into a single person restroom, causing you to obsessive-compulsively lock the door several times and leaving you with the nagging fear of being walked in on. Even if you are sure that the door is securely fastened, you still can't be convinced that there aren't certain people out there that would pull a Jackie Chan on it, and this tends to make relaxing your Kegels rather difficult. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
2. Choosing a stall
This decision has proved to be both challenging and critical. If you don't pick the right one, you could be faced with one or more of a series of problems. Lately, however, it seems that there is no "right" stall at all, ever. Right off the bat, you can't locate a stall where the door has a working (or sometimes even simply existent) lock. If you are lucky enough to find one, it is most likely jammed and you will no doubt break a sweat just trying to get the lock in place. Once this is accomplished, you allow yourself to breathe.
Note: The next few steps are perhaps only relatable to women, but men should read them anyway, because it may help in answering the everlasting question, "What in the name of all that is good and holy is taking my wife/girlfriend/sister so long in there??"
3. Protecting your assets
Assuming the toilet you have chosen even has a seat (I will never forget the one I got stuck with upon landing in Colombia - not only was there no seat, leaving me no option but to squat as best as I could without falling in, I somehow managed to lock myself in my stall and had to belly-crawl my way out on the grimiest floor my little blue eyes had ever seen), you scan the area for a paper liner, but find nothing. Rolling your eyes, you resourcefully rip off strips of toilet paper to line the seat with and growl when you realize that the toilet's previous user was either a man in the wrong bathroom or a woman with no class, and no matter how many strips of toilet paper you stack, your butt is still going to get wet somehow. You rise above the occasion and decide that you have to just suck it up. Noticing that the seat is askew, you carefully sit down at an odd angle to 1. avoid the urine spots, and 2. avoid jerking the unstable seat.
4. The flush
It should be so simple, so smooth, and yet this is never, ever the case. What a predicament when a woman goes to push the lever, only to find that nothing happens. I say women because 1. While I haven't actually asked one, I'm willing to bet that men don't really care if their [public] toilet is working or not. I am pretty well convinced that even if the thing started overflowing out onto the floor, the most reaction a man would have is a shrug and a "Hey, it's not my problem." And if another man walked in right after and discovered the mess? He'd probably laugh. 2. Periods!! Yes, the topic we all love to discuss in detail (heh). I won't, however, go into detail here, out of respect for women and, sure, consideration for men. I don't after all think this needs much explanation anyway.
Let's suppose God has mercy on you and said toilet does, thankfully, flush. There is always one of two ways this will happen. Either the vortex of water will get sucked down into the foreboding hole with such force and at such speed that, unless you are able to escape your stall with superhuman skills, you will inevitably get sprayed, or...the toilet is not completely broken but its sucking action, well, sucks, and all that paper you used to line your seat is now clogging the necessary orifice to drain the bowl. If the latter happens, you flush the toilet several more times, whimpering as the paper refuses to disappear and instead does nothing but shred a little more each time.
5. Leaving a stall
Again, this should be a simple open-and-exit process. However, as previously mentioned, there is a very great possibility that you will have to fight your way out of your stall, as I did in Colombia. I highly recommend you buy yourself a messenger bag (or, for all you Posh Spices out there, one of those larger-than-life Dolce & Gabbana bags will do) and stash a personal tool kit in there in case of emergencies. Sure, it might be heavy (although I'm willing to bet most of your purses are at least as heavy), and you might raise a few eyebrows when you set off the sensor at Target and out comes the hammer and screwdriver you just happen to be carrying around – but when you finally do reach the bathroom and, as fate would have it, you get trapped in your stall, all of this will be worth it.
Note: Do not apply the tool kit idea in such countries as Colombia. Should such a trapping occur, just do what I did, wash your hands really well, and change into a new set of clothes. That or be taken hostage by a pack of guerrillas who will drag you to the jungle at gunpoint, hold you for ransom, and then kill you anyway.
6. Washing your hands
This one is always interesting, as unlike in the rest of the steps, you never quite know what to expect. There are typically three scenarios here. You might have to manually turn knobs or levers in order to get the water running at the sink, which is fine unless they're unmarked and you're left wondering which way to turn them in order to get the temperature you want. You might be faced with an automatic, which is also fine and often preferred, except that in most cases the motion detector cannot sense anything more than two inches away, so unless you have both hands shoved directly under the detector (if you can even locate it, and even then sometimes it doesn't matter), the water will come out in short spurts and it will take you much longer than necessary to complete a thorough wash. Also, you have no say in the temperature. Lastly – and this one really gets me – you could get stuck with the kind of faucet that must be pushed constantly in order for water to come out, which means holding it down with one hand while wimpily flexing the other hand under the water, and then switching on and off until you feel relatively clean. I would love to meet the genius who came up with this one.
7. Drying your hands
Whatever happened to good old paper towels? Well, they're back now, but for a while they all but disappeared and those stupid hair-dryer-on-a-wall contraptions were popping up all over the place. You'd probably have better luck at drying your hands faster by stepping outside and waiting for the sun to evaporate the droplets resting on your hands. Along with that, I've heard plenty of people say that all those dryers serve to do is spit out recycled bacteria. Fortunately, someone in the hand-drying business wisened up and brought back the paper towels, some of the dispensers now automatic. I would love to meet this person as well so I can crown them with laurel and hand-feed them grapes.
8. Exiting the restroom
This is the best part of all. No, not because you're finally free from the nightmare known as public restrooms (at least until the next time you're out and have to pee), but because as soon as you put your hand on that doorknob to leave, you have just sabotaged all your efforts to preserve personal hygiene. The irony of it kills me every time.
Bottom line: I have found no other way to deal with the public restroom issue than to just chalk it up to another of life's evil necessaries.
posted by audrey at
7:03 PM
2 Comments:
lol -audrey i loved read this post i was laughing b/c everything you were saying was SO True! I'm glad your a blogger now too :) Keep writing i love reading your posts! hope you are having a good saturday! love ya
Hey Audrey,
It surprises to me that the state of the public restrooms in my country is also at the same condition. :-D Globalisation...what happens in this part of the globe is what happens there :-P. The faucet is always broken, the door knobs are all wet, the dryer never dries the hand, the paper towels stick to your hand if you try wiping with them, the lights are not working when it gets dark, the floors are slippery, the stalls never lock or once locked doesn't open :-)...you have covered it all.
Anyways, thanks for some of the tips that you shared...will be useful :-)
Cheers!!
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