I’ve seen a lot of public restrooms recently.

No, I haven’t been dealing with digestive issues, our family has just been traveling for the holidays. With two cross-country flights, multiple road trips and a preschooler who is just mastering potty-training, our family spent a lot of time in the necessary evil of the public restroom.  

Just as each member of my family had different perspectives on flying this season (Me: painful obligation to entertain children for 4 hour flight; Children: 4 hours of videos and chocolate bars), we also each have a different perspectives on the public restroom. Does your family share any of these? 

ME:

A public restroom is, to me, a regretfully mandatory venue with mysterious sludge on the floor. Yes, I’m that weird person who puts paper towel between myself and every surface in the bathroom as if just being in a restroom will inject me with the plague. It is completely irrational to others, but to me, a wholly understandable fear. I question every wet surface I see, I cover the toilet seat with so much toilet paper that it looks like I’m working on some papier-mâché project, and when I find a restroom with automatic soap dispensers, faucets and paper towel dispensers so I don’t have to touch anything, it is like I’ve found Utopia. 

THE HUBS:

I expected my husband to be OK with public bathrooms. He has a pretty high tolerance for mess (as evidenced by his side of the bedroom) and doesn’t easily get grossed out. But I was surprised to hear that, by his account, most Mens’ Rooms are disgusting.  Really? I mean, with the male anatomy being what it is, I kind of expected that guys could just do their business and move on, right? Wrong. Perhaps living up to the stereotype that “boys are yucky,” the Mens’ Room is apparently completely foul. It seems that the urinals are marginally acceptable but the stalls are another thing all together. Clearly, most men need to be potty-trained too. 

MAX: OUR POTTY-TRAINING 3-YEAR-OLD

For Max, who still sits down to use the potty, entering an airport restroom is like being forced to walk through the Gates of Hades. All those enormous toilets and simultaneous flushing sounds from multiple stalls…well, it is just too much for the little guy. There were numerous hysterical screams of “I DON’T HAVE TO GO POTTY!” despite having just consumed about 64 oz. of juice and other grabbing gestures to the contrary. The result is that we have to make multiple trips to the restroom with Max, only to find that when he gets into the stall, he refuses to go. This wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t have to line up each time and then struggle through the whole hand-washing ritual. Needless to say, there is a lot of spousal negotiation between my husband and me on this task (“Will you take him this time?”  “I’ll rub your feet if you can get him to pee.”).

Perhaps his life-scarring moment was when Max discovered toilets with the  ”automatic flush” motion-sensors. Did some sadist install those specifically to traumatize small children and aggravate their parents? And why does the flush have to sound like he’s blasting off from Cape Canaveral?  In one case, the noise was enough to convince Max to “hold it” all the way from Chicago to San Francisco despite roughly 17 trips to the bathroom. (I admit his ability to “hold it” for hours was impressive, if not completely unhealthy.) A friend finally gave me a tip: put a piece of sticky paper over the motion sensor and you (and your kid) are good to go.

ELLE: OUR 5-YEAR OLD

Perhaps the only one who doesn’t share the family’s phobia and cheerfully bounds into the public bathroom is Elle. She is eager to see what color the soap is or whether the place has been outfitted with one of those cool new turbo-charged hand-dryers. She puts her hands everywhere and seems unbothered by the overpowering stench of artificial air fresheners (“Hey Mommy, it smells like strawberries in here!”). She would happily jump onto the toilet seat if it weren’t for me frantically reminding her to use the toilet-seat cover. Hey, if the restroom is a necessary evil, I’m glad she has not inherited my restroom psychosis.

So there you have it. I wish I had more tips to deal with public restrooms. But here’s one thing I learned:  order enough glasses of wine to muddle through—but not so many that you end up going to the bathroom. 

Q: How do you deal with bathrooms while traveling?