Saturday, March 26, 2011

Bathroom Rankings

Over on 11points, the current posting is regarding the ranking of public bathroom options.  While I disagree with parts of his ranking, I decided to go to the expert on all things toilet-related, Uncle Mickey (infamous for the Uncle Mickey Special)...  His thoughts:

Oh this topic hits home, but I disagree with the list in its entirety.  Well, not the whole list, but the order of it, his order
  • Hotels
  • Museums
  • Sit down restaurant
  • Emergency room
  • Target/Walmat/Costco/Grocery store
  • Library
  • Fast food restaurants
  • Indoor gas station
  • Bar
  • Outdoor gas station
  • Public park
My order and explanations:
  • Hotels / Casinos- Agreed that the hotel bathroom stop is usually the best out there, esp the higher end ones. They are convenient, free, clean, and usually very empty. I would probably add casinos to this list as well, as they are usually top notch in terms of cleanliness and comforts. The only downside to the casino bathroom is they are always packed, but a lot of high end casinos go with the full length door which is like being in heaven.
  • Department store- Big box stores, higher end the better, Nordstrom is top notch, Macys is usually good, Sears and Boscovs, your treading on thin ice. Usually pretty clean, lot of stalls, little company.
  • Barnes and Noble/Home Depot/Lowes- This is essentially taking the place of the library bathroom, although I guess I could lump the library into it, tho I haven’t been nor plan to be in a library for some time. These places are perfect stops, always pretty clean, usually quite empty as people are not doing this business in these establishments. And to top it off, Home Depot and Lowes usually have very nice bathrooms cause they are home improvement stores, so they use their own tiles and features to show them off.
  • Sit down restaurants- This one depends widely on type and location. Typically they will be pretty clean but space is usually an issue. Lot of these places have 1 maybe 2 stalls, which no matter what type of cleaning efforts, you cant keep up with. Nothing worse then feeling the heat when you walk into the stall from the last person. Again, you talk about any restaurant in a big city, like NY and forget it, your lucky if they have a bathroom.
  • Museums- This is hit or miss. This guys experience at the Met, yea sure it was great and big and nice. But most museums don’t have the super large space and these days give an S about cleaning as much as they used to. Think about it, your not paying to go anyway, so do you think they have the money to throw around on a stellar janitor. No.
  • Emergency room- This is ridiculous, hospitals are huge and you have to park and figure out where your going. I don’t see this as even on my list, and for the main part this is why. They don’t have large multi-person bathrooms, but singles. Now I know what your saying, how could you not like the single, its as private as it gets. Well, I don’t like the fact that if someone is looking to go, then I have to deal with the dreaded knock. The clean, big multi-person ones you can tuck yourself in a corner and even if someone comes in, you wont be bothered. Hospitals don’t have those.
  • Indoor gas station (Wawa only)- Wawa bathrooms are pretty decent in the day and age of the super Wawa’s. Privacy isn’t great, usually 1 stall but in this rarified space of where the quality on this list is heading, its tops of the donkeys, but no race horse.
  • Rest stop- Very busy, people are there for that reason and that reason alone usually, cleanliness isn’t great but usually doable and they are big.
  • Bar- Now this category is a tough one, cause its really 2 categories, daytime bar and nighttime bar.
    • Day bar – usually fine, id equate it to a sit down restaurant.
    • Night bar – not happened, ever, I will end my night and go home. The lines are bad enough to piss, and no one cares where it goes.
  • Outdoor gas stations and public parks- Same category here, I really see no differentiation. This again is where I change my plans for the day or whatever im doing in order to avoid this. No joke, I usually piss behind gas stations before I go into the outdoor bathroom to do it. Do you think I'm gonna head in for the ole deuce, no, not a chance. Its just as easy to find a Target, or Macys or Applebee's then submit to this. And if they arnt available, outside is.

No comments:

Post a Comment