Thursday, February 21, 2008

Pulic Bathrooms and Variances Thereof



When I'm out and about running errands, eating, lurking in video stores for discount DVD's and what not, I am most definitely the person to ask where the nearest bathroom is. I have come to realize cash registers emit a frequency that agitates my bladder upon entrance to any store which requires any sort of browsing, lurking or waiting around.

Usually when I go out to eat it's on the way home or I go to someone's house to slouch around and make really witty comments or, on some occasions, sit silently and end up dozing off because of a very boring movie having been shoved in for viewing "pleasure." Thus, I don't usually take usage of restaurants' facilities. In general, I'm not a fan of public bathrooms unless I really have no option. Let's face it. People are disgusting and they act more disgusting in public than they do in their own home for some reason. Possibly because they know there are people being paid to clean up after their non-flushing, drippy, toilet paper throwing, non-hand washing asses. "Oh! I can weigh myself and get a personal message and free lottery numbers on this scale, though! Score!" Yeah, that's one contraption this gal ain't touching.

However, in the last couple of days I have used a couple of public restrooms and one of them was at Red Lobster. I drank a lot of iced tea and had to make water before I left the premises. I was in the smallest stall in the universe which, to make matters worse, opened inward, so I had to scale the top of the door and swing over the door and land on the back of tank. Luckily, I was wearing my Kaf Kaf flip flops with great foot grip, sold only at your local Greeley head shop and just as comfy as your $70 Berkenstocks (not that I don't own a pair of those, mind you, but they aren't that geared for scaling bathroom stalls). Once in and utilizing the loo, I notice the drain in the floor located to the right of my foot. There seems to be an inordinate amount of fuzz, like lint and dust bunnies, as well as tips of straw wrappers that oddly didn't seem to match the type I received with my iced tea, and other odds and ends. Now this wouldn't seem so odd except the bathroom smelled of roses. I even commented on this to my Mom in the next stall. We enjoy critiquing bathrooms through the stalls. Sometimes other bathroom goers will chime in as well. Sometimes. Also the floor was immaculate so it wasn't as though we were in some sort of seedy rest stop with crap drifting all over the floor into the drain. I made an observation about this to my Mom who could not see the drain but she was busy having problems getting her fair squares out of the dispenser and there was some sort of pounding noise going on. I didn't want to get involved, not being the handy sort. At worst she has gotten to the stage where she carries napkins in her purse and I wasn't worried about her.

Then, today I was at Kmart getting a new rug for my dining room and some kitchen towels because somehow I have none. I have no idea where they went. They seem to go the way of my socks--one use only! This annoys me because I enjoy kitchen things so immensely more than socks. Kmart is weird to me and I think it smells a bit like stink bugs. I don't understand the people who do the buying for the clothes department. I'm not exactly sure who is going to believe that a woman wearing a quasi-camo shirt with the word "ARMY" spelled out in rhinestones in a brush script font is actually in the Armed Forces but that person is not me. Nor am I going to fork over $14.99 for it. I thought it was hideous when Kathy Ireland was involved with Kmart but they seem to have driven even her off and well, I don't know who is her heiress to the women't clothes department but they seem to either live in the jungle or sell real estate.

Yes, we are on our way to the bathroom. But so is all this crap as the bathroom is located wayyyyy in the back in the layaway department. I loathe Wal-Mart but at least they have bathrooms both in front and back of the store. Fuckers. They're evil and brilliant. At some level. Kind of like Martha Stewart. How did they not team up? How is her wagon still hitched to Kmart's dim star?

Meanwhile, wayyyyy back at the bathroom, I once again find myself staring at a floor drain. In this case, I have sort of had to wade through paper towels, odd items drifting around the floor, making sure to keep my hands at my side as I peer into the stalls to find a toilet that has managed to be flushed, oddly difficult in today's discount shopping world, and enjoy entering a roomy stall that opens outward. As I'm tapping my foot and waiting for things to happen (I get stage fright sometimes) I notice how immaculate their drain is. It appears that they might even take a toothbrush to it or get the ShopVac out. Screw the rest of the bathroom. The drain is where it's at.

This all seems so odd.

In a place that smells oddly like urine and Fig Newtons, the drain is immaculate, while the rest of the bathroom looks like hell blew through on a roadtrip to well, hell and threw all its snack wrappers out the window in this very spot. On the other hand, a rosy scented eatery with flowers or whatever was in the vase on the sink counter, was filled with filth and grime.

It just goes to show you how you can't judge a person by how they look. You have to look at their bathroom to really tell.

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