Choose your own Adventure (icky)

[Amusement Gal]

So you need to go to the bathroom in a busy store. *

The first stall isn’t too bad – it’s got a bit of toilet paper on it, but you go on to the next, just in case. The next looks like someone took a bath in lemon Gatorade, and nearly just as appetizing looking. The third, well, had a cultist to accompany the blood spatters on the walls, toiletries floating like a testament to the event. She tried lighting a candle for it, but the flooded stall next to her kept drowning the fire. The family stall was nearly impeccable, until you looked at the floor. It was like a mildly nasty cupcake, with toilet paper confetti and peppered with more…Gatorade. Footprints were stuck on the floor from the victims who had discovered their fate. Finally, the largest and most controversial stall: the handicap stall. It was clean; so clean, in fact, that all of the women had lined up to use it, rivaling the lines of a Rock concert. Sighing, you go to the first stall you saw, and wipe off the seat. You wash off your shame in a hot shower after your shopping journey. You swear to never shop again on weekends, but will continue to do so anyway.

Normally, the bathrooms are never this nasty. Sure, we get the occasional people who think the burrito comes out cleaner with a hat dance on the toilet seat, but they’re everywhere. The sheer concentration of people on weekends almost makes me glad that I always work them. Doesn’t mean I still don’t try.

* This is an exaggeration. Cultists usually don't inhabit bathrooms. And if they did, I'm sure they'd prefer the clean ones just like we do.

But seriously. Every single time this store is slightly busy, it's like every female in the universe decides to not clean up after themselves. Drives me nuts, especially when I'm at work. Because then people keep telling me it's a mess, and I can't do anything about it because: 1) I'm on break; 2) That's not even remotely my job. Usually the store is so busy during the 'messes' that we can't even keep up! So telling me isn't going to do anything. Usually if I tell someone that CAN do something, they take their time until I come up and tell them a third/fourth/hundredth customer came up and said they were nasty.

[XCashier]

It's shameful that people act this way in a bathroom.

Maybe we should try three bathrooms: "Men" "Women" and "Slobs". The first two are normal bathrooms, the third one is a giant litterbox.

[Teskeria]

My daughter is a cleaner in a store that used to be Sco tts. taken over by Kr og **. She does the job, does it right, had people trained to return any cleaner supplies they borrowed. Told the manager what supplies were needed so they werent over or understocked on cleaning supplies. They hire a couple MALE cleaners, who as soon as they get past their 30 day trial, dont bother doing half the work (and put her on the registers), then complain that the place looks nasty. Well, DUH. if your requirement for a cleaner is that he have a pen*s and balls, then your standards are too low (not saying men can't do the job properly, just saying if that is your main requirement) and you get what you asked for. a slacker and a dirty store.

[Amusement Gal]

It's shameful that people act this way in a bathroom.

Maybe we should try three bathrooms: "Men" "Women" and "Slobs". The first two are normal bathrooms, the third one is a giant litterbox.

That'd be too clean for most of those people.

Maybe if it had a giant LitterMaid machine attached to it, on the other hand...

[MustangErin]

My store is the same. The women's washroom is the worst. Toilet paper on the floor, unflushed toilets, water all over the counter. But my favorite is when there is pee on the seat. Please tell me how pee gets on the seat if you are sitting down like most people do. At least if you get it on the seat, wipe it off.

Many days I would rather walk into the mens washroom and use that.

[Primer]

Please tell me how pee gets on the seat if you are sitting down like most people do.

That's just it--they don't sit, they "hover".

The good news is that unless the person has a UTI or a bladder infection, urine is sterile, so it's really usually not quite as nasty as most people imagine. The bad news, is that it's still just nasty!

[Amusement Gal]

That's just it--they don't sit, they "hover".

The good news is that unless the person has a UTI or a bladder infection, urine is sterile, so it's really usually not quite as nasty as most people imagine. The bad news, is that it's still just nasty!

Even then, if I'm that desperate to have to wipe a seat, I put hand sanitizer on it first. Rubbing alcohol is good for the safe of mind.

[Pixilated]

Ugh. I worked last summer at a heavily-trafficked site of Canada's best-known purveyor of doughnuts and coffee (heavily-trafficked because it is in a REALLY high-tourist area). I'd hoped to get some behind-the-counter training but spent 99% of the summer doing cleanup, which of course included the loo. It could be pretty appalling: drifts of toilet paper everywhere, soapy water all over the counters, and let's just say that, in a few stalls in particular, the water pressure seemed inadequate for the job it had to do ... *eew*

However, to be honest, not all of it was the customers' fault. Don't know whether there was a problem with the sinks or whether it was just the layout .. I mean, what idiot puts the soap dispenser BETWEEN two sinks?? Of course people with wet, dripping hands are going to reach over the counter to get at the soap, thereby flooding the counters... (Yes, of course they could get the soap before wetting their hands, but most people don't do that.)

Never got to see the men's, but the male employees told me no matter how bad I thought the women's was, the men's was ten times worse.

One night we couldn't even get in to clean up -- the lineup was out the door, down the hall and halfway up the stairs. We told the shift manager who just told us to "Forget it." She said they'd wait till the crowds went down (probably after midnight) and then go deal with it. Thankfully my shift was over by then.

[Jester]

As a bar patron, I have dealt with an interesting array of bathrooms.

There's the WOW! This bathroom is sparkling clean, no matter the time of day or year, no matter how busy, and you feel honored to be allowed to use it. And you make damn sure you leave it how you found it...immaculate.

There's the Nice! Clean, everything in order, nothing amiss. A welcome site to the nature-called.

The Fair is neither great nor horrible. It just is. A great example of this the run-down bathroom that's still clean, but sweltering hot.

Then there's the Ick. Splatter of whatever, spilled beer, definitely in need of a wipe or two.

Followed by the Gross! Time to find a new stall, or if not, a thorough wiping, followed by a boiling of both your hands and your intestines.

And finally, there's the HELL NO!, which is so indescribably bad not only do your bowels scream out in protest, but you would rather chance shitting your pants or being arrested for public urination as you search for something else than dare bother relieving yourself in this toxic human waste dump.

And yes, I can usually tell you which bars in Key West have which bathrooms. Helpful Hint to Tourists: Ricks' is a great place to dance, but if you need to do more than Number One, time to find another bar. On a regular basis, the worst bathrooms in Key West. Hog's Breath Saloon isn't much better.

Best bathrooms in Key West? Undoubtedly Island Dogs. Cool, comfortable, immaculately clean, Four Seasons bathrooms in a casual bar.

[Kristev]

Remember: Wet ones are your friend. I keep some in my bag. They are so helpful when it comes to public toilets. Wipe the seat with a wet one, and boom, instant safety.

[dalesys]

That's just it--they don't sit, they "hover".

Is it time to mandate automatic seatbelts on toilets? Snug the asses down where they belong?

[Blue Ginger]

I can deal with a few sprinkles of pee on the seat. I can mostly deal with re-flushing a toilet before I go. (Then you know if you have to hold down the button or something equally stupid.) I can even deal with loo paper on the floor.

But I can not for the life of me understand how or why there are shoe prints on the seat. I have seen muddy runner prints and bits of dried grass. I have even been next in the line and wondering how the door was locked but there were no feet to be seen. Then I heard her putting her feet on the floor and she was wearing 6inch stilettos. I can't even stand up in those shoes.

I feel sorry for anyone who has to use the toilets after the feet-on-seat people. And really sorry for the cleaners. Especially when they have no aim.

[MoonCat]

Those "hoverers" are asking for a bladder infection. You can't empty the bladder completely unless you sit down on the seat. Or so the doctors say anyway.

My sister keeps a bottle of hand sanitizer in her purse and uses it in public bathrooms: Squirts some on the seat, wipes it off with a big wad of toilet paper, tosses that in the toilet & then uses the toilet.

Wanna know where the cleanest bathrooms I've ever seen are? At the county fair. No kidding. All those people coming through, and the restrooms are so clean they sparkle. They even smell clean! You bet I tip the attendants who keep those stalls and the surrounding area clean.

[Fire_on_High]

Maybe we should try three bathrooms: "Men" "Women" and "Slobs". The first two are normal bathrooms, the third one is a giant litterbox.

Cats would never tolerate that.

[Clover]

Going by the messes I had to clean up while I was working retail (which I hope never to have to do again), I've gotten to be very fond of my policy of never using public restrooms, and having bladder control good enough that I can withhold for pretty much an entire day if I need to, I've been able to stick to it for years. I don't even like using the same bathroom as my own family members, I have my own bathroom which I keep meticulously clean-my mom even complains sometimes that I'm TOO clean, but then she wants me to clean the kitchen for her because she knows I'm the only one, her included, that'll do it right. -_-

But seriously, nasty bathrooms are disgusting. Hygiene people! None of us want to use a horribly disgusting bathroom any more than the rest of you do, clean up after yourselves!