Toilet Etiquette
Upon the fine art of pooping in public potties.
There are few things as reprehensibly unavoidable as the necessity of using public restrooms. If you choose wisely, the restroom can be moderately clean with an adequate supply of toilet paper. Unfortunately, there are some circumstances where it is absolutely necessary to use less than desirable public restrooms. Wal-Mart and amusement park bathrooms immediately come to mind when I think of the worst public restrooms (unless you're lucky enough to find a Wal-Mart that is less than 2 weeks old, that is). When you find one of these poor restrooms, you make do with the circumstances as best you can - cringing in the stall, not touching anything, and thoroughly scrubbing your hands afterwards.
[Isn't it lucky that Wal-Mart sells antibacterial hand sanitizer gel within a few feet of their super center front bathrooms? Have I struck upon a clever marketing ploy by Wal-Mart? Not only do they save money by not cleaning their bathrooms, but they also make a ton of money from all the people traumatized by the thought of using their public bathroom without surgery-room-like sterilizing of the hands and arms afterwards. Clever, clever Wal-Mart.]
Hello topic.
And as if the indignity of using these restrooms is not bad enough because of the condition of the restroom itself, you must use these deplorable bathrooms with other people within inches of you. And these aren't just people, these are rude people with no thought to anyone's comfort but their own.
Parents are amazingly bad offenders in public restrooms. They allow their children to run wild around the restroom while they themselves are tucked safely away behind the metal door of the stall. Even worse, they allow their children to peak under and around the stall partitions at other people. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time doing anything at all that I'm supposed to do in the stall when a 4 year old is blinking at me from under the stall door. Clearing your throat doesn't work; the offending parent is probably 5 stalls down and won't hear that over the squalls of the baby being changed near the sinks. And telling the brat to go away doesn't work either. At least it didn't work with the particular kid who bedeviled me in this manner a week ago.
My solution was to speak loudly, without yelling, "I'd appreciate it if someone would keep their little boy from looking under the door of this stall." When this produced no parent to drag him away, I added, "He's wearing a Red Sox shirt." Since the likelihood was slim that there were two such boys wearing Red Sox shirts at this particular Wal-Mart in rural Georgia (just after a Braves loss, no less - did she want her car keyed?), I felt sure that this description would produce a parent. It did. Then, the parent proceeded to lecture me (standing outside my stall door) on the error of being rude to someone who was just using the bathroom and didn't want to leave her child out in the store alone. You know, it's not a good idea to leave your child alone in a store. But there is a long, long mile between doing leaving your child alone in the store and keeping control of your child when you are forced to take him into the bathroom with you. I didn't point this out to the mother. Somehow, I don't think she would have seen the distinction.
People who have no sense of personal space are also a problem in public restrooms. At work, all of the different companies on each floor share a men's and a women's bathroom. There are four stalls on this bathroom. Mostly, I can go into the bathroom and be assured that I'll be the only person in there. But there is one woman, I don't know who she is – she works for another company - I do know that she wears white pumps. But this one woman will, when faced with a choice between an empty stall without an occupied stall nearby and an empty stall next to the stall I'm in, will every time choose the stall I am in. For crying out loud, there were two other stalls, also empty, that were not next to the one I was currently occupying! But every time, White Pumps will choose the one next to mine. I've asked around, and she does this often to other people in my office, too. She simply doesn't understand that, when faced with a choice, she should always choose an empty stall that does not have someone in an adjacent stall. I can only conclude that she has no sense of personal boundaries and is one of those people who moves way, way too close to you when you talk.
Then there are the people who like to talk to you through the stalls. There is a woman on my floor at work who will start talking to you as soon as she enters the restroom. The first time she did it, I was confused. Was she talking on a cell phone? Was she talking to someone else? A quick peek at her feet verified that she was indeed alone and we were the only two people in the restroom. I have no idea who she is. I probably wouldn't recognize her if I didn't hear her voice, but I know that she has a chihuahua, a great dane, a cockapoo, a Ford Escort POS, and a lover with a black rose tattoo on his butt that she thinks is "sexy as all get out." (I won't reveal what else she said about this lover. Oh my.)
Why do people talk on cell phones in the bathroom? Is no place safe? My mother and aunt like to talk while they are in the bathroom, which drives me crazy. And my mother will try to lie about it, too ("Oh no, honey, I'm in the kitchen running water."), until I hear the flush. Argh. I hate it. Also, ew. "Can you hear me now?" Some things, I'd rather not hear.
You know, I like to think that there is at least one place in my home where I will not be subjected to the constant pressure of having to answer the phone (cell included). And I like to think that place is the bathroom. Apparently, other people have no such boundaries.
There are few things as reprehensibly unavoidable as the necessity of using public restrooms. If you choose wisely, the restroom can be moderately clean with an adequate supply of toilet paper. Unfortunately, there are some circumstances where it is absolutely necessary to use less than desirable public restrooms. Wal-Mart and amusement park bathrooms immediately come to mind when I think of the worst public restrooms (unless you're lucky enough to find a Wal-Mart that is less than 2 weeks old, that is). When you find one of these poor restrooms, you make do with the circumstances as best you can - cringing in the stall, not touching anything, and thoroughly scrubbing your hands afterwards.
[Isn't it lucky that Wal-Mart sells antibacterial hand sanitizer gel within a few feet of their super center front bathrooms? Have I struck upon a clever marketing ploy by Wal-Mart? Not only do they save money by not cleaning their bathrooms, but they also make a ton of money from all the people traumatized by the thought of using their public bathroom without surgery-room-like sterilizing of the hands and arms afterwards. Clever, clever Wal-Mart.]
Hello topic.
And as if the indignity of using these restrooms is not bad enough because of the condition of the restroom itself, you must use these deplorable bathrooms with other people within inches of you. And these aren't just people, these are rude people with no thought to anyone's comfort but their own.
Parents are amazingly bad offenders in public restrooms. They allow their children to run wild around the restroom while they themselves are tucked safely away behind the metal door of the stall. Even worse, they allow their children to peak under and around the stall partitions at other people. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time doing anything at all that I'm supposed to do in the stall when a 4 year old is blinking at me from under the stall door. Clearing your throat doesn't work; the offending parent is probably 5 stalls down and won't hear that over the squalls of the baby being changed near the sinks. And telling the brat to go away doesn't work either. At least it didn't work with the particular kid who bedeviled me in this manner a week ago.
My solution was to speak loudly, without yelling, "I'd appreciate it if someone would keep their little boy from looking under the door of this stall." When this produced no parent to drag him away, I added, "He's wearing a Red Sox shirt." Since the likelihood was slim that there were two such boys wearing Red Sox shirts at this particular Wal-Mart in rural Georgia (just after a Braves loss, no less - did she want her car keyed?), I felt sure that this description would produce a parent. It did. Then, the parent proceeded to lecture me (standing outside my stall door) on the error of being rude to someone who was just using the bathroom and didn't want to leave her child out in the store alone. You know, it's not a good idea to leave your child alone in a store. But there is a long, long mile between doing leaving your child alone in the store and keeping control of your child when you are forced to take him into the bathroom with you. I didn't point this out to the mother. Somehow, I don't think she would have seen the distinction.
People who have no sense of personal space are also a problem in public restrooms. At work, all of the different companies on each floor share a men's and a women's bathroom. There are four stalls on this bathroom. Mostly, I can go into the bathroom and be assured that I'll be the only person in there. But there is one woman, I don't know who she is – she works for another company - I do know that she wears white pumps. But this one woman will, when faced with a choice between an empty stall without an occupied stall nearby and an empty stall next to the stall I'm in, will every time choose the stall I am in. For crying out loud, there were two other stalls, also empty, that were not next to the one I was currently occupying! But every time, White Pumps will choose the one next to mine. I've asked around, and she does this often to other people in my office, too. She simply doesn't understand that, when faced with a choice, she should always choose an empty stall that does not have someone in an adjacent stall. I can only conclude that she has no sense of personal boundaries and is one of those people who moves way, way too close to you when you talk.
Then there are the people who like to talk to you through the stalls. There is a woman on my floor at work who will start talking to you as soon as she enters the restroom. The first time she did it, I was confused. Was she talking on a cell phone? Was she talking to someone else? A quick peek at her feet verified that she was indeed alone and we were the only two people in the restroom. I have no idea who she is. I probably wouldn't recognize her if I didn't hear her voice, but I know that she has a chihuahua, a great dane, a cockapoo, a Ford Escort POS, and a lover with a black rose tattoo on his butt that she thinks is "sexy as all get out." (I won't reveal what else she said about this lover. Oh my.)
Why do people talk on cell phones in the bathroom? Is no place safe? My mother and aunt like to talk while they are in the bathroom, which drives me crazy. And my mother will try to lie about it, too ("Oh no, honey, I'm in the kitchen running water."), until I hear the flush. Argh. I hate it. Also, ew. "Can you hear me now?" Some things, I'd rather not hear.
You know, I like to think that there is at least one place in my home where I will not be subjected to the constant pressure of having to answer the phone (cell included). And I like to think that place is the bathroom. Apparently, other people have no such boundaries.
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