Community: Real Life

Toilet trauma


Rosie

Rosie, 18, is an administration student. She likes literature and spends lots of time watching movies and listening to music. She is interested in a career in publishing.

Rosie has been scarred by her experiences of using public toilets and cant get over just how gross they are.

I think most people who use public transport will recognise the deep fear I have while travelling by train. No, it's not about paying, though most of us wish we didn't have to. No, it's not about crashing or anything disastrous like that. It's the fear of a specific place. Do you know what I'm talking about yet? It's the dreaded train toilet.

I swear I'm not being snobbish, the conditions are just disgusting. There's hardly any space to stand, nevermind sit down, the floor is sticky with something unspeakable and there's always evidence that someone who went before you thought they were at a wedding and the toilet roll was confetti.

I also suspect that train companies have decided the best way to ensure that no-one can hide in the toilet to avoid paying is to make sure passengers don't have a clue how to close the door. You stand there anxiously fiddling with the toilet door buttons and then try to set about your business as quickly as possible. You dare not breathe, which is a good thing as I'm sure Mars has a more hospitable atmosphere, for fear that any minute now someone on the outside is going to press the button and the whole carriage will look over their newspapers and see you, as Frankie Boyle once put it: "Being unveiled like a prize on a quiz show."

After this nerve-wracking stage you have to navigate your way around a toilet that won't flush, no matter how much you beg it to, a toilet roll holder with no bog roll left and a tap with either freezing cold water or water that ensures you need treatment at a local burns unit. You emerge like a wounded soldier after what has seemed like the longest few minutes of your life, make your way shakily back to your seat, vowing you'll never drink the same day you travel on a train again.

"You spend half an hour with your hands under a dryer only to walk away deaf in one ear and your hair looking like you've backcombed it."

Even public toilets are a disgrace! You've got to put up with the grumpy toilet attendant and then wait until a cubicle is free, which usually contains a toilet with no seat and a toilet roll holder which you've got to violate to get any paper from. Or you'll be extra lucky and get a holder which gives out one sheet at a time, so that by the time you've got enough, you've also got repetitive strain injury in your hand.

Public loos, despite being more spacious, still have the same problems as train toilets. It's not uncommon to find you've picked the toilet that doesn't lock, and when it comes to having to flush, they've invented so many different ways. Some might have the normal handle and some have fancy sensors you have to wave at to get the thing to flush. What's worst is when the toilet flushes itself before you've even finished.

Local councils assure us they're doing their best to improve and maintain these facilities, both environmentally and hygienically. This means that they don't provide paper towels anymore, so you spend half an hour with your hands under a dryer only to walk away deaf in one ear and your hair looking like you've backcombed it. It also means you might find yourself in public toilets that are lit only by eerie purple UV lights, so you feel like if you sit on the toilet you might, at any moment, be beamed up to be probed by aliens. All this for the privilege of at least 20p a time! Boy, are we lucky?

So you might think we should all avoid them, and most of us do, but there are times when we just have to give in and endure the messy, smelly, broken state that public toilets can be in. It doesn't help when, at 5:10pm as you realise you need the toilet and reach the door, you're confronted with a sign saying: "These public toilets are open from 9am - 5pm." Yeah, that's right, because we all turn our bladders off at 5 o'clock, don't we?

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