Searching For Bathrooms on the Open Road
I do a lot of driving. As an art teacher my beat stretches from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, a 100-mile span. I’ve become dependent on three things: gas stations, coffee houses and clean bathrooms. The latter is by far the most challenging to find.
I’ve developed a strategy when searching for public bathrooms. Gas station restrooms should be avoided. These putrid pits are so disgusting even truckers pass them by. The walls are covered with graffiti, the toilet seats are cracked and no one ever flushes. To top it off, toilet paper and clean paper towels are often missing.
Coffee shop bathrooms are equally heinous. Spots like Denny’s and Coco’s specialize in high-carb meals with little in the way of produce or roughage. This attracts people with digestive systems that stopped working years ago. To enter a toilet stall in one of these slop-houses is to be transported to a latrine during the black plague. The stains are inhuman and the smells can only be described as demonic.
Retail behemoths like Walmart and Target have bathrooms that smell like compost bins. These superstores attract large people with larger intestines. The toilets are scenes of horrible crimes. How anyone manages to shop after experiencing these hellholes is an enigma I’ll never comprehend.
