The Cowboy and I have traveled through about 30 states and about a dozen countries in the last couple years, and guess what! As luck would have it, I needed to use the bathroom a few times. When I calmly ask, “Don’t we need to stop for gas?” he knows that it means, “Stop at the next gas station or I’m jumping out of the car.” My plumbing is 77 years old and works, but if you consider the quality and dependability of a 77-year-old commode or sink, well, I don’t have to go into details, but think plumbing disaster.
On our trip across the U.S. by pickup towing a U-Haul, I probably used a hundred different restrooms and saw posters in each one reading: “We have pride in our restrooms, please tell us if you find something wrong.” Next to it was another sign read, “Please wash thoroughly with soap and hot water and carefully dry your hands while you are whistling a happy tune, yada, yada, yada.” I decided to start a rating system and am thinking of patenting the idea. It’s pretty simple, everyone gets a beginning score of 100 points, a perfect score, and I deduct five points for every infraction. Anything less than a “C” (75 points) would receive a “Shame on You” citation. Here’s my top 18 list:
· Broken handrails in handicapped area.
· Burned out lightbulbs.
· Cold water only.
· Graffiti.
· Men in the ladies’ restroom, and vice-versa, of course, some of this has to do with the restroom signs for males and females. After all, who knows that a cow with no horns means female and a cow with horns is men, you get my drift. Even though such restroom signs may be cute for those locals, I am from the Intermountain west and we need plain talk, words, not pictures of people with corncob pipes or lack thereof.
· No hooks or broken hooks for hanging my purse or coat on. Do I want to put them on the wet floor or hold them on my lap while keeping my epidermis from touching the wet seat.
· No mirror, oh well, the truck has plenty, besides my hair is probably a mess anyway.
· No soap or broken dispenser might go along with no paper towels, and the broken faucet so, what the heck, should I carry that bottle of hand sanitizer that became popular during Covid?
· No toilet paper.
· No toilet seat. (Who inspects these toilets anyway?
· No tap water.
· Overflowing toilets (Really? You didn’t notice?)
· Overflowing wastebaskets.
· Paper dispensers without paper and/or the infernal blowing machines that scare the pea-wadding out of me and don’t dry my hands anyway.
· Stall doors that don’t latch or even better, stall doors that don’t shut or are missing.
· Standing water in sinks, usually discolored with wads of towels.
· Unflushed toilets.
· Wet floors.
I realize that public bathrooms are difficult to maintain and often cleaned during the wee hours of the morning, but gas stations pump gas 24 hours a day. The employees manage to reset prices, empty the outside trash bins, and clean up gas spills with no difficulty. They have time to put up useless signs, restock empty shelves, eat donuts, and (occasionally) rebrew the coffee, so how hard is it to check the bathrooms every hour or after ten people have gone in? Perhaps it has something to do with the cell phone that is permanently glued to their left hand; after all, it is hard to run a mop or change toilet paper rolls with only one hand.
My philosophy is if I come out of the bathroom feeling dirtier than when I entered, somebody should know. I just don’t know who and the few times I have complained yield responses similar to the stupid telephone canned answer, “Your opinion is important to us blah, blah, blah…” So, I rant on to the cowboy, who says, ok, next time we can do a college stop, you know, like we did way back when, pull off at a high speed turn off, head up the entry ramp, kick the front end of the truck around and open the pax door and do your business.
“What kind of a lady do you think I am, not on your life!” As we head on down the road, my mind wanders to other mysteries of life, like how to fold fitted sheets, how come my best jeans keep getting tighter, and if I am so smart, why am I not rich?
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