I used to laugh at my husband because he would rate a store or a restaurant based on the condition of their bathrooms. He believes if a business makes an effort to keep the bathrooms clean and orderly, then the rest of the establishment would be cared for in the same manner. Huh. Good point.

In general, I try to avoid public ones as much as possible. What can I say? I’m loyal to my own. And public ones always seem exceptionally icky, despite how clean they are. Unfortunatley, there are some instances where they are unavoidable. For example, my work puts on an annual event in another city so our office will relocate onsite for a few weeks beforehand and then stay for the duration. In this venue, the toilets are really low so I’d feel like I was falling backward to get on the seat. The stalls are also shallow so with doors that swing in, I’d back up so much to get the door open, the backs of my legs would just about touch the front of the toilet. Yuck. Since I’d been working there for 20+ years, I eventually got used to it. But it doesn’t mean I liked it.

This year we held our event at a different venue for the first time. Here, the stalls are deep so there’s no issue with the door swinging in but the toilets are high. When I’d sit down, my toes barely touched the floor so I had to hop off to stand up again. I never realized until then how loyal I am to the bathroom in my regular office. Much like the three bears, in one place they’re too low, these are too high, and the toilets in my usual office are juuuust right.

Speaking of the bathroom in our office, sometimes I’ll find myself just sitting in there enjoying the quiet (but only when I’m alone). And since covid happened, new protocols made it so only one person is allowed to be in the bathroom at a time. This is really nice. Really-really. No one in the next stall, no interruptions of someone coming in, just me and the sound of the air vent. It’s very peaceful. Maybe this is a mom-thing, it’s definitely a Jen-thing. At home with only one bathroom (though we do have a toilet in the basement but I’ll only use that for emergencies), I always feel like I need to hurry. In the “olden days”, the men I worked with would go to the bathroom with a newspaper and be in there for an hour. (I had the misfortune of having a desk located by the men’s room so yes, I did notice. But I wish I didn’t.) It was something I thought was super weird, but now I think I get it. Well, not the hour-long part. Who really wants their you-know-whats hanging out for an hour like that? Don’t answer that.

One last thing to point out about toilets is the flusher. All hail auto-flushers! Unless they don’t work. Then you have to find the button. Ugh. Grrr. Ick. For toilets sans auto-flush, the position of the flusher is important. At home, the handle is in the standard spot located on the front of the tank, top left corner. This is fine only because it’s our personal toilet. But in public restrooms, this style of flusher can be tricky. I refuse to touch it so I’ll hit it with the tip of my shoe instead. This is my standard way of flushing for all public toilets. It’s an awkward maneuver requiring balancing on one leg, but only for a second or two. Because that little handle is right up against the tank, sometimes I’ll need to hit it a couple of times depending on the type of shoe I’m wearing or if it’s a stiff one. I find the best flushers are on toilets with no tanks. The handle just sticks out of the back pipe so it’s really easy to hit it with my foot. In my house growing up, some of our toilets were similar to those but the handle was alongside the bowl, like one you’d find for an ejector seat. (Picture Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2 when he ejects himself from the plane that’s about to blow up.) While I was still seated, I used to count down before I’d flush like I was gonna blast off. Hey, I was little!

Now, here is the reason why I brought up toilets and flushers in the first place. In our recent trip to Denver, the bathroom in our room at the B&B not only had a high toilet (which was slightly annoying), but the flusher was actually two buttons located on the top of the tank. What the-??? This was very confusing. Despite staying there for five days, I still couldn’t get the hang of those buttons by the end of the trip. I always ended up pushing both for a double flush. I was told later the buttons were for going #1 and #2. Oy vey. Why must it get so complicated? What’s next, sea shells? (Sorry, Demolition Man reference.)

So there you have it. Waaaay more information about the toilets and flushers in my life than you ever wanted to know. But I’d bet from now on you’ll take a little more notice of the toilets you use in your daily life. My work is done here. ✌🏼Peace out.