If the visitor's bureau ever decides to add this to the list of tourist activities, I would be a highly qualified candidate for tour guide. I know bathrooms, not only in the city I live, but in cities all across the state and most of the Midwest. I was not always such a bathroom connoisseur, but my oldest child has helped me to hone this skill.
He never has to go before we leave home, or even as soon as we enter the store. Those moments of desperate urgency hit right about the time I have just gone through the frozen section of the supermarket, and now have a cart full of rapidly melting peas.
When it was just us two, a quick trip to the bathroom was easy, but add a second child, and you have chaos. I cannot, of course, take a shopping cart full of merchandise into the restroom, so I must now engage in that critical thinking and problem solving my high school Algebra teacher warned me I would need some day. Here are my options:
1) Unbuckle the baby and take her into the restroom with us, while I pray that some overzealous store clerk doesn't confiscate my cart.
2) Allow my son to enter the restroom alone. Not gonna happen. I watch Law and Order.
3) Pull the cart as close to the entrance to the bathroom as possible while balancing on one foot, and holding the door open with the other. Continue to maintain eye contact with stall door, and ask son every 30 seconds if he is finished yet. (Occasionally, another restroom patron will answer.)
I can tell you this from my experience. Bed, Bath, and Beyond tops my list, due to a pleasant floral scent that must come from somewhere in the Beyond section. Department store restrooms are hit and miss, while Wal-mart makes me cringe and pray that he only has to pee. Otherwise, I will be holding him two inches above the toilet, trying not to think about what incurable diseases might lurk on the seat below.
At the very bottom are the gas station restrooms that require one to ask for a key before entering. If you have to lock up your restroom, that is never a good sign, and in my experience, most of these have not been cleaned since some time during the Reagan administration. I also do not relish answering questions about the condom machines hanging half-hazardly from the wall. Someday he's going to get wise to me and realize there really isn't a market for balloons in gas station bathrooms.
We went to Sea World this summer, which offers dolphins, sharks, stingrays, and dancing sea lions. My husband carefully mapped out our day, noting all of the attractions we didn't want to miss. I looked over his shoulder and silently wondered what scent the liquid soap was and whether they had paper towels or hand dryers. How long do you think we can keep the baby in diapers?
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