Public Restrooms and Me

I did a little thinking concerning public restrooms recently. Sometimes I dwell on unpleasant things so when I have to encounter them in reality I am prepared. I really don't like using public restrooms.

For some reason taking a whiz in a men's room is not as daunting a prospect as taking a crap. I'm not sure why that is. If I'm at work, or out in public and I suddenly realize I have to take a crap, I immediately begin to assess the situation. I ask myself, Can I hold it until I get home, home to my own toilet? If I can't wait that long, the next question is, Where is the nearest clean, seldom-used facility? If I have to take a whiz I don't ask myself these questions. When I whiz I'm just standing up at a urinal. Usually that's all there is to it. Maybe there is a slight tinkling sound of pee trickling down the drain. But there's seldom any fart sounds. I release very little in the way of embarrassing foul odors while whizzing. Perhaps most importantly, no part of my epidermis is touching any potentially vile surfaces. It's just whizzing, zipping up, and possibly washing my hands.

It's different when I have to dip a terd, pinch a loaf, drop the brownies in the pool, to name a few euphemisms. Crapping requires that I find an empty stall and that its toilet has been flushed. I then have to drop my pants below my knees and either cover the toilet seat with paper, or have my butt hover over the toilet seat. I usually find that arranging the paper atop the toilet seat to be too troublesome, so more often than not I hover. I think hovering is the cleaner way to do it anyway. It's like the difference between having sex using a condom, or abstaining. The condom might do the job, but nothing is as safe as abstention.

I've never quite figured out if toilet stalls designated for persons in wheelchairs are like handicapped parking spots, that is, reserved especially for them. I conducted a little survey on this question and most people believe that handicapped toilet stalls are available for everyone, including the able-bodied. I would hate to get cited for using a toilet stall illegally. Speaking of the handicapped. In men's restrooms there is often a single, lower urinal at the end of a line of urinals. This is a relatively new phenomenon. When I first saw one six or eight years ago I thought it was for midgets and dwarves. When I mulled that over for a minute or two I decided that was a little too silly a notion so I figured it must be for little boys. But now I think lower urinals are mostly for the handicapped. I am still not positive however.

If there's someone in the restroom, I get a little self-conscious with the non-verbal noises I make while in the toilet stall. The farting sounds, the terds splashing into the water, even the sound of the toilet paper dispenser makes me a little ill-at-ease. Depending on my recent diet, I sometimes feel the need to apologize for the stink too. I think that Taco Bell is indirectly destroying the ozone. I probably wouldn't have these concerns for grotesque smells and noises if I were ever in the military. So I can't be identified, I usually wait until everyone is out of the restroom before I exit the stall. Waiting until the restroom has emptied has a secondary advantage; with no one there, I don't have to wash my hands.