Things That Burn My Biscuits: Public Bathroom Edition

I feel tense. A familiar pressure rumbles in my bowels. No, it's not the fact that I just ate a hamburger from Waffle House and then half my weight in donut holes .Well, it's kind of that. But it's also that I haven't vented all of the minor, irrational frustrations that every day life has to offer me. I've just let them fester and swell, and now I'm all bloaty and cranky. So you, unfortunate reader, are about to be on the receiving end of a trivial crapstorm I like to call Things That Burn My Biscuits. And in keeping with this paragraph's uncomfortable allusions, this will be the Public Bathroom Edition.

A good public restroom should do three basic things: 1) Allow you to relieve bodily waste, 2) Minimize awkwardness, and 3) Not give you the ebola virus. Sometimes it's very easy to guess when a public restroom is not going to fulfill some or all of these requirements before going in. For example, if you have to request a special key from the Circle K cashier, and it's attached to a hubcap, you can reasonably guess that you are about to stumble upon an active heroin den with an out-of-order commode. If you're lucky you will be mugged for the hubcap before you accidentally become witness to more heinous crimes.

But at least you know what you're getting into before hand. My complaints have to do with respectable establishments who enjoy punishing you for ordering that venti at Starbucks knowing good and well you wouldn't be home for another three hours. They purposefully ignore the Three Basic Public Bathroom Requirements (I just made that a thing. Let's push this amendment through Congress). These elements are the biggest perpetrators:

The Stall Doors

If you pick a random bathroom and take a survey of the stall doors, 4 out of every 5 of them will not close because the door exceeds the frame. However, that last randomly selected door will not properly close because the frame exceeds the door, forcing the occupant to make intermittent eye contact with the mirror images of everyone using the sinks. If you do find a door that is properly measured (statistically, you have a better chance of finding an albino sasquatch), the sliding lock will be approximately four inches higher than the catch.

Holy crap! It's an albino sasqu-...oh wait, that's just Gregg Allman.

How hard is it to correctly measure and install a door? I mean, I could probably never do it, which is why no smart person would ever pay me to do so. But someone's job was to install that door, and they took a look at it afterward and thought, “No one should have given me tools. I am bad at my job. Hey look, breaktime!”

The Entrance

Some public restrooms don't even wait until you get in the door before they make you regret your body's stupid natural processes. Some bathrooms don't utilize a courtesy wall. This is a wall that greets you immediately upon entering that you have to walk around to get to the actual bathroom, thus blocking the view of everyone walking by as someone else opens the door. And people look when doors open. “What's behind that door currently opening?” everyone wonders. “Is it a secret room with a chocolate syrup pool? Is it a room filled with wall-to-wall trampolines? Gosh, I hope it's a room filled with wall-to-wall trampolines.” All of these thoughts take a split second. That's just long enough for someone to glance over and see an old man at a urinal who may or may not be smiling at them. The only way I know to assure privacy in this type of bathroom is to strike up an agreement with everyone else in the restroom that no one else leaves or opens the door, and if anyone tries to come in they are to be attacked ferociously with whatever bathroom utensil can best be wielded for bludgeoning. Basically, I am advocating holding hostages and using violence, because that's how much I like my privacy.

Have you ever beaten someone unconscious in a grocery store bathroom with a toilet brush?

Uhhhh....me either. Just, um, forget I asked.

The Faucets

So you've done your business and now you're ready to wash your hands, or at the very least run water over them to give others the appearance that you are not a disgusting wildebeest teaming with contagions. But alas, the faucet spout only extends beyond the frame of the sink by a couple of centimeters, causing you to contort your hands, trying to get every inch of them under the stream. Why?! Why is the water trickling down the back of the sink!? Because the same guy who installed the stall doors also installed the faucet, probably.

This man. This is the man I blame.

I like for there to be plenty of room for my hands when I'm washing them. Ideally I'd be standing in the middle of a large meadow with an isolated stream of water flowing miraculously down from the heavens. I'd flail my arms around wildly while sarcastically exclaiming “WHERE'S THE BACK OF THE SINK NOW, HUH?” Sadly, this is not a valid option while using a public restroom, nor is it even a sane desire. I would settle for a faucet that extended no less than three inches from the sink wall.

Runner up in this category belongs to the sinks at most Wal-Marts. They are fine sinks, with the faucets providing adequate hand washing room. The problem is that they are motion sensored, but to trigger them you have to stick your hands past the faucet spout. The water promptly sprays your wrists, and the instant you try to move your hands back into the stream, the sensors turn off and the water stops. This results in about 5 minutes of me trying to be quicker than the faucet before I give up and rinse my hands with my own bitter tears of rage.

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Whew! I feel much better now. Thanks for letting me vent for a moment. I'm really not this petty in person, I promise. And if you've ever been in a store and opened a bathroom door only to have me threaten you with a plunger or thrown Ajax cleaner in your eyes, I'm very sorry. It's just that public bathrooms make me a little crazy sometimes. I'm sure you understand.