I know that I’ve been the biggest pair of emotional ovaries these last few weeks.
My posts have been more melancholic than the bowl of high fiber cereal that I eat every morning.
Hey, it keeps me regular.
Which is actually not a problem since I had my gallbladder taken out.
Did you know that bile acts as stimulant?
Now you know.
And I bet you have a picture of me clenching my ass cheeks as I search for a bathroom in the middle of a parking lot at an outlet mall with Chunky running behind me yelling:
“You have to take a trophy dump Mom? A real big one?”
True story.
In case you’re wondering, I did make it there and yes I felt violated.
There is nothing worse than having public toilet water splash your ass.
Which brings me to my confession:
I have a little thing that I like to call public toilet phobia.
I simply can’t do it.
Except in emergency situations.
The thought of all those bums on the seat.
And I’m sure that all of you women can attest to the fact that our bathroom is dirtier than the men’s bathroom.
Right?
We have the women who hover and piss on the seat.
Which means we have to wipe the seat and then lay 5 inches of toilet paper on there before sitting.
Then when we stand up, sometimes that protective pee barrier gets stuck on the seat.
Then we have to use the tips of our shoes to flick the toilet paper into the toilet when we are done which will more than likely clog the toilet.
Sometimes the paper will fall off the seat and soak up an unknown water substance.
Why are our washroom floors always wet?
No one picks up those rogue pieces of toilet paper.
If you do, you should cut your fingers off.
Sometimes when you stand up from the toilet the paper will stick to your behind which is the grossest thing ever.
Was it ass sweat that made it stick there?
Was it someone’s left over hoover pee that made it stick there?
You will never know.
But you’ll think about it all day.
Oh we can’t forget the ladies on their cycle who leave about an inch of their pad sticking out of the “napkin” disposal container as if it wants to play peek-a-boo.
Or finding a tampon applicator floating in the toilet.
Then there are the people who thoroughly enjoy sitting there for hours.
What are you doing in there?
Do you enjoy the ambiance?
Then there are the ladies who freshen up in the bathroom and leave a nest of their hair in and around the sink.
Ladies we are gross.
We wouldn’t stand for our bathrooms at home to look or smell like that.
Come on now.
My 3 year old is scarred for life because I told him if he touched anything his hand would disintegrate.
True story.
And that is why I have a phobia of public restrooms.
*What weird things have you encountered in the bathroom?
*Do you agree that our bathrooms are disgusting?
I hate public bathrooms so much! I am one of those who hover, but I always clean. And then I disinfect my hand for about 10 minutes extra. I hate any bathroom that is not mine. And even then? I hate any bathroom but the master bath. Cause other people use the rest.
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Try the public toilets here! Yikes! Some have the squat toilets which give me the heebie-jeebies. Yes, I try to avoid them unless it’s necessary but sometimes I got no choice but to use one. Even then I never ever sit down, I’m somewhat ‘floating’ my boy would asked “Mommy why aren’t you sitting down?” hahahaa.
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I have recurring nightmares of filthy public bathrooms, that’s how much I dread them.
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I so love that you can write about your “trophy dumps”
Public washrooms can be really gross. The hover ladies who like to leave their piss everywhere really piss me off. Seriously? You expect ME to clean up your pee? I don’t even like to clean up my kid’s pee, and he’s cute.
I do think that blood on the seat is the worst I’ve ever encountered though. Gross! How were they raised??
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You’d think I’m Bipolar or something (hahaha) because HALF of me takes hand sanitizer & a paper towel (OR 10) and LITERALLY SCRUBS the toilet seat before I’ll use it, while the OTHER half of me is cussing the filthy morons who LEFT all that crud I’m scrubbing. And the worst thing I’ve EVER witnessed in a public bathroom was at a McDonald’s. I went into the bathroom & there was an employee digging around in the stinky trash can in case anyone dropped anything GOOD (as she proclaimed) while, with her OTHER hand, she was eating an Egg McMuffin. DISGUSTING. Ugh! I think I’ve found a way to stay on my healthy eating plan. Anytime I’m tempted to eat something ‘bad’ I’ll just conjure up THAT scene again.
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I HATE public bathrooms. as a kid, I would hold my pee ALL DAY at school to not use one. My family called me Iron Bladder.
I will say that I have used the men’s bathroom at the bar when the women’s room had way too long of a line and it was far more disgusting.
I know. Who knew THAT was possible.
The difference? Somehow dudes poop everywhere BUT the toilet.
And the memory has me gagging. Ick.
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Oh god, I hate public bathrooms. I usually am the person putting a thousand layers of toilet paper on the seat prior to using it, then scrubbing my hands like I’m a surgeon about to crack someone’s chest open. I also take the paper towels to open the doors with because EW PEOPLE ARE DISGUSTING WHY DID YOU NOT WASH YOUR HANDS YOU GROSSY MCGROSSERTON?
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1. I don’t hate public bathrooms. 2. I have pee’d and pooped in the wilderness, so public bathrooms are like a luxury to me. 3. I do hover. 4. I wash my hands. 5. I never lectured my kids on the evils of public bathrooms. Life is too difficult without that info.
Happy Saturday!
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I recently read a story about a women who brought her child into the restroom and claimed it was so filthy so she pulled her toddlers pants down and let her pee in the sink!
When she was done she didn’t even rinse the sink, or wash her or the child’s hands she just walked out.
No wonder the public restrooms are so bad!!
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While I was a single Mom in the Air Force, I used to take part-time jobs on the side to supplement my income. Once I worked as an office cleaner. Yes, I cleaned the bathrooms and I can tell you the level of grossness is pretty much a toss-up between the sexes. Women do all of the above, and as for the men, I have one word: URINAL. Seriously enough to gag a maggot. It was one of those jobs you can still smell after all these years.
Weirdest thing in the bathroom? I was once at a renaissance festival and went to the ladies room and there was a man and woman having sex in one of the stalls. They didn’t stifle their moans, either. It was funny as heck.
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I have trained my girls to not use public restrooms — we can all pee in the grass with any man. And yes, I’m quite proud that although I’m known to be all prim and proper? I can pop a squat with anyone rather than use a nasty public toilet. And so can my girls.
Now, when we are on the turnpike . . . gah. There isn’t any place to stop except rest areas, so you have to go. Then we employ the hover or “Mom can you hold me?” method.
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i totally agree, i hate public restrooms. but the absolute single most disgusting public restrooms? airplane bathrooms. ever tried to change a diaper in one? where do you put the baby? on the sticky wet floor or the germ ridden toilet area? you pick. i dread plane rides, and not just because i have to keep a two year old entertained for 3, 4, 5, whatever hours, because where are you supposed to change the damn diaper? do you use the grossest bathroom you’ve probably ever seen in your life, or, do you do it in your seat with your neighbor sitting exactly 1cm away?
the public restroom/water butt splash is something i dread too. could there be anything grosser?
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I’m so with you on that. I hate using public restrooms and try to avoid them if at all possible. For all those reasons you named and possibly more. The only “public” restroom I don’t mind using is at hubby’s grandma’s club… they have those seats with the moving sanitary wrap on them and they are always sparkling clean. It seems like a janitor is in there as soon as someone uses it!!!
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YES! Women’s bathrooms are so so gross! I only use public restrooms if my eyes begin to float! yuck
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I was making little shrieky sounds, the whole time I was reading your post. OMG, it is all so, so true! And how about all the babies who get their diapers changed, because rarely do you see a diaper changer in a man’s bathroom. Heaven forbid. Nothing like adding the smell of a blown out diaper to the mix.
I am a total freakazoid in a public restroom. I hold my hands up like a brain surgeon getting ready to operate the whole time. I open the door with my elbow before I flush, hit the flush with my foot and then jump the freak out of that stall. I read somewhere that public toilets have such a force that fecal bacteria along with all kinds of other gross awfulness gets sprayed in the air during the flush.
There is a restaurant in our town that has a completely hands free bathroom. Even at the door, you just wave your hand at this sensor and the door opens. I love that restaurant, just for its bathroom alone.
Okay and you’re not ready for my grossest public bathroom story, but here it is. One of my girls when they were a baby had to go desperately when we were on the road. We stopped at a gas station. I opened the door to the bathroom and discovered that someone had taken a huge shit on the toilet seat lid. I almost threw up. My husband brought her into the men’s bathroom, which of course, was clean.
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My daughter loves public restrooms, and I think I leave a little piece of my sanity behind each time we go.
I don’t even really like hotel room bathrooms.
Now I have to go wash my hands, just from reading this.
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You know, I was just thinking. Well, only because I was reading about your phobia, but wouldn’t it be nice if in every stall, they had like a box of the latex (or not latex) gloves so we could all put a pair on, do our duty, pick up the stray toilet paper, help out, not stress about our hands touching things. Really, don’t you like that idea.
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No question – grossest place ever. I wouldn’t directly touch anything in a public ladies’ room if you skipped it to me across a pool of disinfectant.
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Public restrooms are disgusting!! I do the whole thing by squatting & putting a ton of toilet paper down. Gross. Every single time I walk in one with my daughter, I tell her a million times to not touch anything
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Ugh the public toilet is the worst! And awful to bring kids into. The worst scene I caused in a public washroom was the ole “my little boy just learned how to undo the latch and opened the bathroom door wide for everyone to watch me mid stream” trick. Eeeeesh.
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I laughed so hard with the thought of you clenching your ass cheeks and running for the mall.
Also, I worked as a teenager one summer, at a camp ground, and I had to clean the bathrooms. There was shit all over the walls of the woman’s washroom.
I refused to clean it. I didn’t get paid enough to toughs that vile mess.
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Grossest feeling is when you sit down and your butt is wet from the previous person who squattered over the toilet & then sprayed the seat. If everyone would just sit down, we’d all be spared. Just saying!
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Ew!
Like “Iron Bladder” (love you, Katie), I never went to the bathroom at school growing up.
I avoid public bathrooms to the best of my ability.
& I’m pretty sure I’ve traumatized my kids by freaking out if they go to touch something.
Ick.
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Know what’s worse than your average, run-of-the-mill public bathroom? The bar bathrooms in my college town on Saturday nights. The lines are horrific, the women forget how to flush, the toilets clog, tampons are floating on top, somebody missed the pot when she puked up her Long Island Iced Tea’s and Alabama Slammers, and there’s piss on the floor. No wonder there so many people there get ticketed for public urination.
This is also why I used the men’s room 90% of the time. There was urine on the floor, but the toilet was untouched.
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so there was this day that i HAD TO use the toilet at Kmart. I was 32 weeks pregnant at the time. there was no way i was holding that sucker in. so i went into the ladies bathroom and took a look into the 7 stalls and couldn’t find one i could sit in. gross, nasty. so i said screw it, left and went across to the men’s bathroom. i walked right past the two men at the urinal and went into the cleanest stall i’ve ever seen in a public place. hubby did tell me the guys’ restrooms are always clean. and i had to pee. who the hell was gonna stop the pregnant lady?
Kim, girl I die from the way you tell your stories. big hugs to you girl for always telling shit the way it is
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You make me laugh so hard Kimberly!!!
I have that same phobia and my children are the same. Even the long days at school, they can manage without having to use the toilets. Women’s public toilets are disgusting. I agree.
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I almost spewed beet juice all over my computer when I read this post. Hilarious!
I totally agree that public rest rooms are utterly disgusting. I also have a similar fear of using them, and try my hardest to avoid it unless in case of emergencies. It’s just cleaner to go at home.
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Dude. I always have to pee so unfortunately I frequent public restrooms whenever I go out. It sucks.
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I will hold my pee for hours rather than use public bathrooms! Although, I do use the one in Ikea. It is clean & never crowded. I hate using a crowded bathroom. I hate using other peoples bathrooms when they are too close to where everyone is. It is weird. I blame the fact that I was raised by a single dad. I either went in to the mens room when I was little or went alone. Both = scary.
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Arnebya Reply:
June 4th, 2012 at 10:18 am
@Mimzy Wimzy, with most newly developed/built homes, the powder room seems to either be in the living room or RIGHT OFF THE KITCHEN. Um, ew. I don’t want to smell fried chicken…and grown people’s poop.
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Kimberly,
If I need to go to the bathroom, I’ll go anywhere…even in the woods, babe.
I mean, I don’t really give a damn…but I will not go if somebody else left their poop in the toilet!!!!!!!!!
NO. No. No. I do have my limitations.
Xxxxxx
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This one time, I ate a bowl of mac and cheese before a run and mid-run…I had to poop on a bush. It was horrible. Then I ran all the way home because, ummm…there weren’t any leaves available. On top of all that, this path I was running on was in the middle of a subdivision. So yeah, if someone was on their deck that afternoon, they got a great view.
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What kills me is the women at work. If you leave the stall, and I SEE YOU leave the stall, the fact that you left remnants of what you did while in the stall will always be with me, making me frown everytime I see you. I will refuse to eat anything the non-handwashers bring in from home (if you’re nasty enough to poop and walk out the bathroom without as much as checking to see if there’s even soap available, you’re probably nastiER at home.
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Kimberly Reply:
June 7th, 2012 at 9:39 am
@Arnebya, Oh the remnants. Lord have mercy. If you’re going to drop a deuce, check to see if you flushed it all. No one wants to see that!
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We share this fear my friend. Gross.me.out.
That said, in Croatia…there were (Lord help me I hope they are no longer) places where it was just a room, door and a hole in the ground. Smelled LOVELY.
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Kimberly Reply:
June 7th, 2012 at 9:17 am
@Susan, A. Hole. In. The. Ground? Oh no.
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You have no IDEA of the bathrooms I have used in Asia and Africa. So I would say the US is pretty darn clean in the grand scheme of things.
(I love Hyperbole and a Half).
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Kimberly Reply:
June 7th, 2012 at 9:07 am
@Lady Jennie, Oh I have heard of those toilet holes…EEEKS!!!
I miss Hyperbole…I really do. Where did she disappear to…sniff
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I hover, but if I dribble, I clean it up before leaving the stall….and yes, I agree with you 100%. Also, I had an emergency situation last week. It was called oatmeal + coffee (which I rarely drink), then I went to Target. Uh Oh. Oh no. OH NO!
god. you are so right about public toilet water splashing your ass.
love you, love this honest, real post.
xoxoxooxox
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Kimberly Reply:
June 7th, 2012 at 8:40 am
@erin margolin, Don’t you feel so violated? Ack. Don’t even get me started on camping restrooms. Once I went a week without going #2. An entire week.
Bowels of steel I tell you.
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We have a lady that works on the same floor in our office building that sprays the most obnoxious perfume ever all over the bathroom. Gives me a migraine every time. I don’t even know her and I hate her.
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Kimberly Reply:
June 7th, 2012 at 8:32 am
@Jennifer, OH. MY…I hate those people. And the ones that use those portable febreeze ones…I don’t want to smell floral poop!
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I am crying with laughter. Mostly because I have had my gallbladder removed also. And one of my post-surgical surprise attacks came on the mean streets of NYC. Yeah, that was fun.
Love this post so much!
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Kimberly Reply:
June 7th, 2012 at 8:25 am
@thedoseofreality, OH. NO. That is terrible. I’m glad that you understand the urgency though. It’s awful. How long did it take for you to get over this?
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thedoseofreality Reply:
June 7th, 2012 at 8:28 am
@Kimberly, Honestly, a while. Months, maybe? Like nine of them? Maybe even close to a year. I am normal now, though, so there is hope!
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Kimberly Reply:
June 7th, 2012 at 8:31 am
@thedoseofreality, ACK!!! That’s what my surgeon said. It’s awful. I have to be near a toilet at all times or at least know where one is. And I haven’t even tempted to eat anything greasy yet!