Coffee and Communal Commodes

Let’s get one thing straight. A casual saunter is the wrong pace for making one’s way to a public bathroom.

Has this happened to you? You’re at a highway rest stop, you’ve been driving for two hours, one and a half of which you’ve had to pee thanks to the ill-advised (but unquestionably necessary) ingestion of pre-trip coffee. You’re making your way through the crowd of fellow interstate travelers, you see the big “RESTROOMS” sign up ahead, and you are weaving through people, eagerly focused on the needed relief that your destination will surely bring.

You’re close now. Just 15 feet or so to the entrance. It’s getting a little more crowded as the outgoing bathroom users swim against the stream (pun intended) of the incoming bathroom users.

You’ve arrived! You simply need to pass through the small doorless corridor to the promised land flowing with, well, whatever…but as you close in, there he is in your way. That guy. He’s bigger than you are. Considerably. Broad shoulders and tattooed arms that canopy outwards like a body builder, taking up the space of at least two normal-sized men. He’s wearing a black tank top. You marvel at the lack of body hair on his bulging muscles and momentarily wonder if he’s blessed with such smoothness or if he visits one of those waxing places in a local 2^nd tier mall that never seem to have any customers but remain open for years nonetheless.

But the emergent urinary tension jolts you back to reality. He’s walking SO slowly. He’s like a turtle on two legs. This man of steel must have a bladder of steel based on his lack of urgency. You see an opening to pass him on the right but as you make your attempt the natural sway of his saunter leans directly into your path. You make another quick attempt to the left, but it’s no use.

By now you’re consumed with frustration. Why aren’t there two lines at public restrooms; the “I’m about to pee in my pants!” line and the “Might as well try” line, the former always getting priority, like a TSA PreCheck for bathrooms. Your abdominal and down-there muscles are now contorting your pelvis in crazy directions, straining to withhold the imminent deluge, until, finally, you’ve made it through! You dash straight to the closest open urinal, and as you relieve yourself, you exhale deeply, cock (pun not really intended, but I’ll take it) your head back and stare at the ceiling as one does at public urinals, and in that moment of biological bliss, you wonder to yourself…is there a Starbucks here?