To Pee or Not to Pee--That is the Question

I feel compelled to say a few words concerning public restrooms, about which there is so much to be annoyed.

Let me begin with the ladies' room at an upscale restaurant where the uniformed “attendant” sits in a comfortable chair all day not reading anything in order to be on her toes when I come in to indulge in a private moment. I then rinse my fingers, give her a smile, and opt for a duty free paper towel—despite the fact that she offers me a freshly laundered terrycloth square that will cost me money to use.  If, I hear you ask, preferring  a paper towel is a social faux pas, why even make it available? To reveal just what a cheap, déclassé clod you are, of course. Don't you know anything?

There is always—not a saucer, which invites change—a brandy snifter containing a dollar bill, strategically placed for maximum embarrassment should I opt not to contribute.

Now I know this woman has had a hard life.  She grew up in Columbia, where thieves would snatch her dentures if they could realize a profit. But here she is, with or without documentation, “working” in the USA—meaning she gets to sit all day in a clean environment wearing a uniform for which she has not paid, to panhandle me when I have to forgodsakes pee.  Give me a break.

            In about 1855, when I went to Europe with a college tour, I discovered that public toilet facilities in Italy (a civilized society that should have known better) and France (which did, but didn’t give a damn) were often little more than reeking holes in a wet cement floor. These became popular well before women wore slacks, which, before letting fly, had to be removed in order for one’s feet to be placed in the appropriate footprints—to the right and left of the pee hole. If their aim was Gallic (or Italic), they didn’t spray their ankles. 

Mine wasn’t, therefore I did.

            Somewhere in an old journal I kept a collection of European public toilet paper. The Germans may have given it away for free, but in the (a-hem) end I’d gladly pay for something better. Reynolds markets the same thing in this country as “wax paper.”  In my second most compromising position (right after the gynecology chair), I tried valiantly to employ this product as a wipe—only to find it creatively and malevolently non-absorbent. From then on, I always carried tissues in my purse.

            Part of my resentment about public facilities, whatever the country, stems from high school, when I had a temporary friend whose father had made millions. Since my father had not, this was a mark in her favor with me, a person always curious about how “they” lived.  She had a room with a pink telephone, a back yard with a swimming pool, and a cavernous house with a private screening room.  Mummy and Daddy possessed all the right memberships and occasionally included me in their family jaunts “to the club for buffet night.”  Nothing wrong with that. 

What was wrong, I would soon discover, was that her father made his millions by locking desperate mothers with toddlers, over-beered teens, and weary travelers out of the toilet unless they paid for the privilege. Yes, this man invented “Nickelock” (later “dimelock” and now, if it still exists, probably “dollarlock.”) Nobody in that family—my friend especially—had ever considered the basic inhumanity of this device.Remembering the times I crawled beneath the door because I couldn’t afford to pee, I dropped her like a stone.

            Every women using a public toilet assumes that at any given moment someone will reach over (or under) the door to swipe her purse while she’s in that “Ahhhhhh, thank God” stage of urination.  Thoughtfully, some male (who no doubt never peed while clutching his purse protectively) designed special purse hooks that prevent an easy snatch. But they are always anchored so high on the door that the emergency tissues in my purse can’t be reached while assuming the classic hover-squat mandated by my mother. (“Imagine the HIV, the leprosy, the genital warts you could bring home to this family!”)

            The most offensive public facility has to be the Port-o-let, which never has toilet paper and smells so vile that wetting one’s pants quickly becomes, um, the solution of choice.

            I, who grew up amid a bevy of brothers, have never envied males in any other way. But I must admit that when nature calls, their anatomical design makes life a lot easier. 

[Scroll down to Blog Archive for additional posts.]