2001-11-25 - 2:00 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Oh! Darling", Beatles

Warning: This entry is not for the squeamish. It contains frank, graphic discussion of the inability of some human beings to properly use a rest room. In short, it's just plain gross, but I need to vent.

On the other hand, if you've ever been completely grossed out yourself and/or distressed by the conditions of a public rest room, and want to commiserate, read on.

I mean it. This is really, really gross. The sad thing is, I think most people have been there.

If you should ever be traveling on I-95 through Baltimore, are ready for a rest stop, and see the signs for the "Baltimore Travel Plaza", just keep going. Find another place to stop.

On our way home from NJ this evening, a few miles north of Baltimore city, I was seized with a sudden urgent need of a rest room.

I should have just stopped by the side of the road. It would have been more pleasant.

Instead, we knew there was this "Baltimore Travel Plaza" a few miles ahead, although we'd never been there before, so we pulled off the road and began trying to make our way to it. It's a good thing the plaza has a hotel on top of it, because the road signs are horrendous and make no sense. We found it only because it had the name of the place in blue neon at the top of the building.

We got there, parked in a quite full lot, and headed inside rather quickly since, as I said, it was urgent. I headed into the first stall, since I read somewhere once that everybody always skips the first stall since they figure everybody uses it, and it ends up being the least-used stall.

I turned around to close the door and there was no door.

I had a temporary moment of panic that none of the stalls would have doors. Fortunately, they did.

Unfortunately, as I headed down the rows, looking for a decent stall, and every one is unflushed, otherwise dirty, or out of order. Finally at the next to last stall I stopped -- the toilet has at least been flushed, so it's a possibility. I went in, reached into the dispenser for toilet paper to place on the seat, and there was none.

I was ready to cry at this point -- I was *not* feeling well -- and headed out looking for a stall with toilet paper. None of them had it, so I remembered I had tissues in my purse, and headed to the last stall, which looked cleaner than the first one I went into.

Unfortunately, the door wouldn't lock or even stay closed on that one.

So I moved back to the next-to-last stall, and took out my tissues, of which I had five, and had to waste two of them wiping off the seat.

Here is where it gets gross, people.

WHY DO WOMEN PEE ON THE SEAT?!?!?! WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK DO THEY THINK THEY'RE DOING?!?!

My guess is that they don't want to sit on the seat, so they squat, and they miss. Or maybe it's a mom holding a kid over the toilet. Okay, fine. But FUCKING CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF! FOR GODSAKES! DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I'VE HAD TO WIPE UP STRANGE WOMEN'S PEE ON PUBLIC RESTROOM SEATS!!!?!?!?! PICK UP SOME FUCKING TOILET PAPER AND WIPE IT UP!!!!!!

I am so furious about this phenomenon that I check to make sure the flushing toilet didn't spray water on the seat, and if it did, I wipe it up as a courtesy to the next patron. Don't want them thinking I peed on the seat, either.

So anyways, I gingerly wiped off the seat. I eyed my three remaining tissues and was afraid to waste two on covering the toilet seat for me to sit on. So I thought about hovering, and tried it, but that lasted about five seconds and I had to plop down on the bare toilet seat, trying not to think about germs.

Business completed, I got up, FLUSHED, and out of curiosity began searching for toilet paper. I went down the rows and every single stall was completely devoid of toilet paper. Except, of course, the first stall without a door.

Thoroughly grossed out at this point, I headed to the sinks. First one didn't work. Second one worked, and was blissfully hot, but in a row of six or seven soap dispensers, every one of them was empty. Well, almost empty. There was a little bit left in every one that the pump can't pump.

So I stood there rubbing my hands under warm water for a good minute or two, looking at myself blearily in the mirror. I spotted what I thought was my first gray hair, probably brought on by this very experience.

I wiped my hands on my sweatshirt, turned the faucet off with my elbow, and headed out the door only to nearly bump into Poindexter, who looked quite tense and said, "Let's get the fuck out of here." I had wanted to be comforted a little; he just wanted to leave.

Out in the truck, I told him my horrible story, and he said "That's what you get from a Greyhound bus stop. The men's room was horrible as well. I took one look and turned around and walked out."

(He knows about Greyhound bus stops, since he used to take "the dog" a lot in California. Somehow he never bothered to get his driver's license until he was 21, preferring instead to give friends gas money for letting him bum a ride or to take the bus if necessary, so he has a deep-seated hatred of public transportation in all forms.)

I told him about what I'd seen -- unflushed toilets, sanitary napkin wrappers littering the floor, no toilet paper, pee on the seat, etc. -- and he said the men's room was worse.

Apparently in the men's room, they don't just get pee on the seat. "Pee and shit everywhere," he said.

"Shit?" I said, incredulously. Apparently the seats aren't centered properly on the frame, and somehow... I don't know.

I'm just so disgusted. How does this happen?! How can people leave a mess in a public place and just walk away from it? WHO *ARE* THESE PEOPLE?! WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?! DO THEY DO THIS AT HOME?!?! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! THESE PEOPLE SHOULD BE SHOT!

Someday, if I ever actually enter a stall immediately after someone else and they have left a mess, I'm going to end up screaming at them in front of everyone.

So anyway, he drove the last hour home and I just sat there with clenched fists, feeling completely contaminated and afraid to touch anything. We got home and I washed my hands thoroughly, then chucked off all my clothes and went upstairs and took a shower. I washed my entire body three times. I still feel dirty today. Ugh.

I think I need to write a letter to Greyhound.

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