Bathroom Tours

I’ve seen many a nasty public bathroom in my time, and this last road trip didn’t let me down.

 google images

Our first stop, an hour and a half after leaving the house, was at a rest stop. Not my favorite, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.

I patiently waited my turn, observing women wearing heels, dresses, pajamas, and one pair of genie pants. People wear weird stuff to travel. Once I made it through the door, I couldn’t help but notice the squares of toilet paper littering the floor. I mentally noted that somebody had made a real mess in there.

The very first stall opened up. I entered, noted there were no seat liners and grabbed for toilet paper to line the seat. (This wasn’t a hover trip, if you know what I mean.)  I grabbed. One square ripped off in my fingers. That stuff was as thin and see-through a bridal veil. I tried again. Another square. And again. One square and it tore. Finally I finger walked that roll of TP until I got enough off to create a hardly acceptable barrier between my skin and the seat.

As I turned to sit, someone activated the hand dryer, which happens to aim down at the floor. The air stream hit and created a wind tunnel across the floor, effectively coming under the stall wall and lifting that carefully placed toilet paper right off the seat and depositing it into the toilet. I swore under my breath or maybe out loud and re-created my physical barrier.

Once finally seated, I repeated my fight with the toilet paper roll to get enough to take care of business with.

 This has nothing to do with my story, but I thought it was funny. I digress.

Our next stop, at an outlet mall, included another stop in the restroom. This being the kind of public restroom I can actually stomach to use, if I don’t let myself think about all the people who have used it before me. Nicely tiled floors and walls, automatic soap, water and paper towels, and those louvered doors set five feet from the actual toilet bowl so you can fully turn around in the stall and not hit your knees when you sit. There was even a basket built into the tiled wall for purses and bags. And when I pulled lightly on that toilet paper roll? The thing spooled off enough paper to wipe an elephant’s butt.

It was still a public bathroom, but at least I didn’t feel the need to take a shower when I left.

Several casino bathroom pit-stops during our stay varied between smelling like a wet cigarette and the opulence that says, “We will do anything to keep you in the casino spending your hard earned money, including providing you with this amazing bathroom.” (We didn't spend much time IN the casinos except to use the bathrooms. The car shows Hubs and my dad were drooling over were outside in the parking lot.)

But the icing on the cake was the rest stop on the way home.

I entered the bathroom to find it, surprisingly... clean. It even smelled like fresh cleaner. Bonus: I was the only one there. I lined the seat in case of accidental contact and proceeded with my standard squat-hover-pee. And then I saw it. I’m sure it was a brown recluse, a black widow, or even a baby tarantula. Doesn’t matter, it had eight legs and a psychopathic mindset as it skittled that way, then skattled this way, all the while coming closer to breaching the invisible lines that outlined my stall. I couldn’t kick it or step on it, as I was in mid-squat and mid-pee. So I did the only thing possible. I swallowed my scream and carefully pulled off a few squares of tissue, wadded them into a ball and threw the ball at Mr. Eight Legs.

more google images

Pure brilliance, I tell you. He skedaddled the opposite direction. Of course, now he was out of sight, which almost freaked me out more. As I exited, I saw him crawling under the door of the next stall. I washed my hands, one eye peeled for his reappearance and flew out the door without even bothering to dry them. Then I crossed my legs made it home by not drinking any more fluids for the rest of the trip.

***Ally
Tweet