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[ TO PEE OR NOT TO PEE - A REPORT
ON GAS STATION BATHROOMS ] Douglas
Sassaman Perhaps the most disconcerting thing about driving across this great
country of ours is finding a toilet seat that I’d be willing to place my lily
white rear-end on. You know the
drill, eight hours of driving, clenched teeth; you take an exit ramp and pull
into a gas station. You ask the
station attendant (the pimple faced teenager behind the counter) in a harried
fashion where you can find the restroom.
“Round back,” he grunts. He
hands you a key attached to a two-by-four that thousands, perhaps millions,
of toilety hands have handled in the past.
In addition, your scheme to steal the bathroom key is now foiled. The door to the restroom is a battered and beaten
thing. You enter. It’s dim, dank, and smells like a gerbil
cage. You walk past the urinal with
the rust streaks and lone pink urinal chip that lost its last molecule of
fragrance sometime during the Carter administration. You hesitate. Then slowly you push back the stall door, it’s hinges protest,
cautiously you peer inside. The scene
evokes memories of your dorm bathroom in college. The toilet’s once gleaming porcelain is now stained the color
of a smoker’s lung. The black toilet
seat is in the down position and askew with droplets on it. Could be just water, you say to
yourself, but who are you kidding? A
hyena would have made less of a mess.
You ponder your options. Desperation drives you on. You consider
the bombardier position and decide it’s your best tactical option. You approach the toilet, but as you peer
over the rim the hair on your neck rises, your blood ceases to flow. In the bowl there’s Mr. Stinky doing the
backstroke. You gag reflexively and
quickly back away. Pilot to
bombardier, pilot to bombardier, ‘Cancel the bombing run! REPEAT!
Cancel the bombing run! Enemy
forces are in the area!’ You then turn around and run. Out the door, around to the front, through
an oil can display, and leap back into your car. You’re away in a cloud of dust and flying gravel. With clenched cheeks, teeth penetrating
the surface of your tongue, and a 2 x 4 in your back seat you continue down
the interstate considering your ever decreasing options. I may be a poopie prude, but is it too much to
ask to not have to approach every roadside toilet as if I was Indiana
Jones. I’ve been across the oceans to
other places where people take pride in their toilets, where stalls are happy
places, and where a man can unload his troubles without fear of staff infections,
gout, shingles, or old maid’s knee. This past summer as I drove a U-Haul across the
country I became so disenchanted with the state of the restrooms on our
interstates and so discomforted that I thought something really should be
done about it. Perhaps a grass roots
campaign, ‘From Bowl to Shining Bowl.’
The main thrust of the campaign could be to require pimple faced
counter attendants to go into the bathroom on occasion with tidy-bowl, comet,
and bleach in hand, and disperse them in a liberal fashion. Oh, and we should also ban low-flow
toilets. As I drove through Kansas listening to crop
reports I came up with a set of guidelines so that I could make a systematic
non-emotional decision on whether a given toilet was acceptable for use. Just remember BFDS (Bowl, Floor, Door,
Seat) and you’ll always come away unscathed, although you may have to retreat
to the woods. * The
BOWL must be free and clear of all impediments. If one preliminary flush
does not eliminate such
impediments then the toilet should NOT – under any circumstances – be
used. I prefer a toilet with a heavy
violent flow. * The
FLOOR of the stall should contain less than an eighth of an inch of raw
sewage. How many times have you been
less than vigilant and let your trousers sag between your ankles to your
infinite dismay. * No
stall DOOR – No business. I like a
sturdy reliable lock, and with minimum gapage between the door seams. However, as necessity dictates, sometimes
just having a door will do. * The
toilet SEAT should be devoid of all water droplets, foreign substances, and
be should be reasonably secure. After a shocking encounter in a stall outside of
Sewanee, Tennessee, it occurred to me that more needed to be done. A grass roots campaign is all well and
good, and toilet use strategies may save a few lives, but what we really
needed was a set of courtesy rules, much like those observed in a National
Park – pack out what you pack in (with one small difference), tread lightly,
don’t feed the bears (or in this case, truckers). From Sewanee to Ocala, Florida I pondered this
weighty issue until I finally narrowed it down to five easy rules. Rules I am confident will serve the
greater good of humanity. Learn them,
live them, pass them on to your family, friends, and associates. * No
bogers on the stall walls – toity tissue has many uses grasshopper. * Never,
ever, ever go into a stall unless you mean business. If a urinal is all your really need then a
urinal it is my friend. * Seat up
before you flush so as to minimize splash back (use foot if necessary) –
toilet water on the seat is a cardinal sin. * Minimum
impact usage – you’re in, you’re out, leaving only cloud of anthrax behind.
* FLUSH
(use foot if necessary). Who said one person can’t change the world? Copyright
2000 Douglas S. Sassaman Douglas
Sassaman is a freelance writer, aspiring novelist, and self-described
humorist (who some think should be self-committed). He writes the humor column, 'Life in the Cosmic-Burp' on the
web at http://CosmicBurp.com.
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