An incomplete list of restroom experiences, all drawn from recent experience:
1) A bathroom where the urinal is so high that I, a man of 5’8”, can barely fit my diddle over the lower edge of the thing, and if I can’t, what are short guys supposed to do?
2) A bathroom stall where the door lock is broken and the light only works when the switch is pressed down, all of which requires me to practice door/light switch yoga while I do my número dos.
3) Lots of bathrooms without toilet paper. This is especially dispiriting when one has already ordered a bocadillo at a bar, only to find that the men’s room is out of toilet paper (and, one suspects, has never had any), leaving one without any good options. Probably the only thing worse than Contaminated Pants would be a Contaminated Hand, especially if one has to consume a meal after contaminating it, and have an already-incredulous-looking bartender eyeball one while one eats with only one’s left hand. One can only speculate about the women’s bathroom, which one suspects is stocked with toilet paper out of some sexist sense of decency, but one is too self-conscientious to peak in.
4) A restroom where the male/female symbols are half-rotted away so that the only way to tell which bathroom you’re entering is to wait for somebody to come out…and what if they got it wrong? Plus you look like a pervert expectantly staring at everybody coming out of the bathroom.
5) Lots of bathrooms where the lights automatically turn off after just a couple of minutes, meaning I have to press them several times for what I consider to be a normal-length throne session.
6) Lots of bathrooms without hand soap. I found this out the hard way once at a gym I used to go to, when I had already produced a duce and tidied up back there, only to find that there was no soap. So I did a workout with a Contaminated Hand, something I will never, in my heart of hearts, be able to forgive the owner for, no matter how many perfume-laced Hallmark cards he sends me.
