I gotta pee . . . do you see a restroom anywhere?

Don’t you just hate it when you see a sign on a restaurant door; “Restrooms are for customers only?” It’s like a screw you slap in the face. Such exclusion wouldn’t be too bad if there were alternatives, but in the US those are few and far between.

Walk the streets of New York City and try to find a clean available restroom. Your basic option is walking into a hotel as if you own the place, find the conference center and there will be the restrooms. Starbucks is usually a good bet as is McDonalds, but in some places even McDonalds has taken to putting a code on your receipt which you need to access the toilet. Restaurants are unfriendly places because the lack of public restrooms drives too many people to them.

And why are there so few restrooms? Because people destroy them and use them for a shelter. We Americans take pride in many things, but being pee friendly cannot be one of them. When you do find a place to go there is no guarantee it’s a place you want to go. Americans are slobs and that is reflected in our restrooms.

Lest you think it is always that way, it’s not.

In Italy restaurants must allow anyone to use the restroom. In small villages throughout England you find open, clean restrooms at parking lots. In Moscow just outside Red Square there are rows of attended, clean Porta-Potty’s. In Paris there are toilets on the street that clean themselves after use.

There is one big difference in Europe, you pay for accessible clean restrooms, you even pay in some restaurants. Generally we are talking about fifty cents euro, but who cares? That is a small price to pay for a necessity. You also get entertainment in the restroom. As they are cleaned continuously and as the person cleaning them is generally a women, it is indeed entertaining to be standing at a urinal to discover a woman standing behind you scrubbing the floor. The first experience generates an instant doubt for your sanity … is this really the men’s room. After that, you just stand closer to the facility.

How can such a supposedly advanced society like the US have such a “just hold it” attitude? Some major highways in the US have closed restrooms because of budget cuts or they are closed after a certain hour because officials are concerned people will be mugged if they remain open. Try driving up I95 from NY to Massachusetts late at night.

As you enter Rhode Island the welcome station and toilets greet you with barriers blocking the entrance. On I195 if the restroom is open, it’s closed at 7:00 and some are only open “in season.” I don’t know about you, but I tend to go year round and sometimes even after seven at night.

I had an elderly friend well known in his community. One day he was driving and had to go. It was a heavily wooded area part of a large recreation area, but no restrooms available. He pulled off the road and went into the woods beyond view of the road. A cop saw his car, followed him and cited him for public lewdness. The man was humiliated in a court appearance reported in the local paper.

We should be ashamed not only for our lack of restroom facilities, but our inability to resect property and behave in a civil manner in a restroom. Who else but Americans need written instructions on using a restroom? Don’t put this in that, don’t forget to flush and my very favorite . . . wash your hands! Which by the way some 40% of people don’t . . . let’s shake on that.

Rise up America, there is no place to sit down!

In most of the rest of the world WC stands for Water Closet or toilet; not in the US. Take a look at this one in New Jersey, here WC stands for bus stop and place where you dump shopping carts because you are too lazy to put them where they belong.