Flush These Thoughts

Warning: following topic is scatological and gross

Am thinking of an old saying, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness". A room with clothes strewn on the floor is unsightly; a kitchen stacked with dishes is a sad thing to see. But nothing is as gruesome as a dirty bathroom. The bathroom can be an attractive place of refuge, but that depends on a few things. Am considering some of the extremes I've seen in public restrooms:

- The model public restroom. I used to work at an engineering firm and the public men's room was so clean, you could have had a picnic on the floor. The facility was dated, built in the 1950's. The fixtures sparkled and shined; it usually smelled of Pinesol or Lysol. Maybe with a little bit of cherry deodorizer thrown in. The towel dispensers were fully stocked and the soap dispensers always full of pink liquid soap. The janitors must have had the room on an hourly maintenance schedule. Another such example is Crate & Barrel where they offer potpourri and aerosol spray freshener for your excreting experience.

- Now to the other extreme. There's that Texaco where the door doesn't close well and a second latch has been added. The combination of stale and fresh urine makes you wonder if maybe the management just uses urine as the cleaning agent. The toilet has greasy handprints and other fixtures are either falling off the wall or missing. Your dilemma is that the next rest stop is 100 miles up the road. You can probably line the toilet seat and make do. But yuck. The service station operates at a low profit margin with few employees, so maybe you can cut them some slack. You say, "My bad for not going at the last stop".

- In the middle -- places like your workplace, Fryes, Target, Wendy's. They have a schedule posted on the wall of when they come by. A guy named Jim checked it at 10 this morning. So why is one toilet overflowing and the other is a disgusting mess? Toilet tissue on the floor, sometimes sewage material too plainly visible. I've sometimes wondered about who leaves a stall so nasty. Talking about cases where it's more than a backed-up commode -- a case of slovenly, gross ineptitude. Have conjured one of these categories:

a) A small, immature child -- sometimes children (boys) think of bad potty habits as a form of potty humor
b) The elderly -- perhaps someone has such bad gout or arthritis they just can't reach the flush handle or the toilet paper that missed the bowl
c) The disabled -- mentally or physically -- they can't navigate the particular configuration of toilet, toilet paper and a flush handle

Now, that can explain McDonalds or CVS Pharmacy. It does little to explain why my workplace has the same disgusting phenomena on a frequent basis. Not that I have, but if I did have some type of accident, I'd clean it up. There's not all that much that separates man from the animals -- humans at least in theory, should not treat fecal matter lightly. We don't want to be full of it, we don't want it to hit the fan -- and we don't want to see it or sit in it! S**t happens, but let's handle it appropriately. I sympathize with women, who have little choice but to sit for every bathroom occasion. Women should carry handy-wipes and spray Lysol in their purses. Do that, or risk a Hellish restroom visit. In Paris, my Mother had to use a filthy unisex bathroom with no toilet seat -- you had to sit directly on the fixture. Didn't ask, but hope she had that handi-pak of Kleenex tissues on hand.

Is everyone sufficiently grossed out? I have a lot more to say, but that last cup of coffee has kicked in. Must visit the facility. Am hoping that it's clean and has plenty of towels. Don't make me call building services.