I was recently at a fancy wedding, and within an hour, the bathroom was utter chaos. Because, bad citizens and sisters that we are, that's what we do. Here, a few misdemeanors we'd really like to excise from public bathrooms.
7. Boys - read: not little boys, not boys who need supervision, but boys old enough to leer - in the ladies' room. Says Hortense, "Find a family restroom now, or find a family therapist later, know what I'm sayin?"
6. Wet toilet paper. Says Tatiana, "I just hate life whenever some thoughtless prick has got all the toilet paper wet, like by leaving the roll in a floor puddle." Clawing a dry hunk off is not an appealing option.
5. Toilet paper, everywhere. Where does it come from? When a toilet won't flush, is it considered some kind of tacit signal to drop an entire roll's worth of paper in the bowl and drape the remainder over the sides and floor, just so no one will try to use it? Is it a "seat-covering" run amok? Is it to cover evidence? And why does this happen so much? In any given ladies' room, at any given time, at least one stall will be out of commission due to t.p.
4.T.P. Sabotage. Says Margaret, "it's irritating when someone makes eye contact with you as they're walking out of the stall, sees you go in, and still fails to say 'btw, there's no toilet paper.' Talk about a solidarity fail! Are they too refined to say "toilet paper?" Do they go by the hazing system, rationalizing that if they suffer, you should too? Where does the madness end?
3. Not flushing. Would it kill collective womanhood to make sure everything's gone away? I'm not saying it's a scenic view, but think of it as a public service; maybe your at-home facilities are completely reliable, but not all toilets are created equal. (Anyone who's grown up in a house with dud plumbing is neurotic about this, as I know all too well.) Often a stall will be considered "out of order" for hours before a cleaner or someone has the gumption to actually flush the toilet, proving nothing's wrong. As Anna points out, no toilet paper in evidence - in either toilet or stall - makes this even grosser.
2. Used Pads/Tampons shoved behind seat/paper dispenser. Periods? Great. Strangers' used sanitary products? A bridge too far. As Margaret adds, "sometimes there's no trash bin in the stall, which is annoying too, but in that case I think wrapping it in toilet paper and carrying it to the garbage next to the sinks is a more sanitary option." Tatiana also calls out those tampons "wrapped and dropped on the wet floor so they make red ink blots."
1. Pee on the seat. Let's make that "liquid," actually. Says Dodai, "blood or urine on the seat is basically like saying FUCK YOU." We get it: you don't want to touch the seat. We're glad you're so sanitary, you've screwed the rest of us. As Megan puts it, "how hard is it to kick the seat up with your shoe and hover over the bowl?"