The Worst Part of Public Toilets

My late father took a lot of pictures of public toilets. Not in a look at the weirdo taking pictures in public toilets sort of way. More in a boy wait till I show the kids how clean this public toilet is sort of way. So, you know. Normal retired dad on a road trip stuff.

He was a discriminating public toilet photographer. He didn’t bother with the coat closet that passed for a restroom on their church group’s charter bus. He didn’t give a second glance to the restrooms in fast food joints where they stopped for coffee and chicken fingers. Those dumps were for  amateurs. 

Any public restroom longing to be the subject of his artistic eye had to have three qualities. Clean, expansive, and at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. If it didn’t meet those criteria the lens cap stayed affixed to his 35 millimeter Nikon. He might take a dump there, but he wouldn’t take a picture.

Clean I understand. Expansive, well … I guess you need room to get all those artistic angles. Why only rest stops I have no idea, but when toilets are your inspiration you don’t question the muse.

My dad loved to travel, but he never set foot on an airplane. I assume that’s because pilots don’t pull over at rest stops. What’s the point of having a camera if you’re not going to have a roadside toilet to use it in? He did, however, cover the entirety of North America in buses and cars. So as you can imagine, we saw a lot of pictures of toilets. 

It became a kind of travelogue, a serious piece of photographic journalism that chronicled the biggest, cleanest public toilets in America. And it gave me a weird kind of nostalgia, a longing to go back to places I had never been. Or maybe to a time that wasn’t mine. I looked at those pictures and felt a wanderlust to follow in the footsteps of my intrepid father, exploring the unknown realms of public plumbing. 

So I set out in planes, tranes, and rental cars to see the world as my father saw it. A wide open place where a man could chart his own path, forge his own destiny, and enjoy a good poop.

But history is a fleeting thing. We record history because we know it will change. We need to record how things are now so we can reflect on how they were then. My father’s travelogue was a snapshot in time, a photographic tapestry of an America that no longer exists. America is still here, but not my father’s America. If you’re looking for picture worthy public toilets, you’ll have to refer to his photos. As far as I can tell, they don’t clean them like they used to.

If my dad was still alive his photo journal would chronicle a crumbling America. It would start with the national pride of polished sinks, pristine porcelain, and floors that, except for their location, would be worthy of the five second rule. From there it would devolve into a travesty of gradual decay. The public toilets of my travels have shown me an America in crisis. Floors slick with what I hope is mop water but smells suspiciously like urine; poop-clogged toilets no one wants to flush but everyone wants to pee in, and a bearded guy in the Union Station mens room, doing something that should not be done at a urinal.

I had become accustomed to the constant decay of public toilets in America. I had even reached a point where the occasional turd in a sink didn’t phase me. But then a trend swept the nation that shut down my wanderlust and kept me safely in lockdown, pandemic or not. A trend so revolting as to make domestic travel constipating. As soon as I see it my bowels lock in protest, as if to say, “We’ll just wait till we get home.”

This trend, this national disgrace that has ruined even a quick wash of the hands in a neighborhood coffee shop, is the hand dryer. That inept metal box mounted near the exit that blows lukewarm air on my soaking hands while I stand there like a two-bit chump.

I’m sorry, America, but I have better things to do than stand around getting my hands blown. And way better than standing behind another guy getting his hands blown, while I wait to get my hands blown. And way, way better than standing in a line of a half-dozen guys, all of us waiting to get our hands blown.

With a paper towel dispenser, I could grab and go. With the hand dryer, I’m not only late for my next appointment, I’m making everyone behind me late. I already held up the urinal with my bashful bladder (hey - it’s a thing), now I have to deal with this? 

And sometimes they don’t even work. Then I’m just waving my hands around and cursing like I’m trying to dry them by incantation. And I’m holding up a line of other guys waiting to invoke their own incantations.

Not only do they slow progress, causing untold damage to productivity and the American economy as a whole, they’re unsanitary. Not that I needed a study to prove it, but The University of Connecticut and Quinnipiac University did one. Petri dishes left in public restrooms without hand dryers grew, at most, one colony of bateria. Those left in restrooms with hand dryers grew as many as 254.

The study concluded that not only do hand dryers not do what they’re supposed to do, they slather us in disease while not doing it. 

Even without an academic study proving it, it seemed obvious to me that hand dryers were unsanitary. With paper towels, I could dry my hands, use the paper towels to open the door, and drop them in the trash on my way out. Not only does the hand dryer cover my hands in more bacteria than they had before I washed them, now I have to grab the bacteria laden door handle with my bacteria laden hands. So now what? Wash my hands again and repeat the process? I’d be stuck in a loop, wandering among the sink, the hand dryer, and the door, wishing I had a camera to break up the monotony.

A friend suggested I open the door with my shirt. What do I have, a death wish? I have to wear that thing. I’m supposed to get bacteria all over my shirt sleeve and carry it around all day? Talk about a health hazard. I’d be history as soon as I got a runny nose.

The whole thing is frustrating, unsanitary, and bad for the economy. We have a moral duty to stand against it. I’m not advocating violence. I don’t want people charging out with crowbars and pick axes, demolishing every hand dryer that threatens the world. What I’m advocating is a new routine.

After you wash your hands, skip the dryer. Walk to the door and wait for the next person to enter, then slip quietly out before the door closes. Sure, your hands will still be wet, but the important thing is you have made your stand.

If enough of us do this, we can form a new, global movement. A clandestine organization with our very own secret handshake. The only secret is that it’s wet. We’ll just have to trust that it’s only water.