{She Said} Bathrooms Bring Big Decisions

As a dessert to Becky's bathroom blunder, I have thought about the following gem for years. When one goes into a public restroom, what is the best way to choose a stall?

First off,  there are (what should be) some social norms to choosing a stall like…

1. Don’t go into a stall directly next to another person if it can be avoided
2. Allow old people and/or mom’s with kids to use the bigger, “handicapped” stall
3. Check for toilet paper before actually proceeding with your business (this avoids the awkward under-the-stall paper pass with a stranger who may or may not be there depending on the number of stalls and people following the first rule)
4. Don’t use stalls with backed up toilets unless there is a crowd and then try to fix it before you commit

I would also like to add as a social shout out to not rattle on the door and force the person inside to tell you of their existence. I vote for the under-the-stall peek for feet (from an appropriate distance- you shouldn’t be able to make eye contact with the person in the stall during said peek). This is a little beside the point.

I have developed this system of choosing a public restroom stall. The following assumes many stalls are present, not just two or three. And I will say that if there is an unoccupied handicapped stall and there isn’t someone in need (see rules above) vying for it, I usually choose that one. I like the space. Back to the point. First, I never choose the first stall. This may be a mistake because I fear most people don’t but, none-the-less, I don’t choose it. I check a couple different stalls and see A) which one just looks more dirty or nasty (you know what I am talking about with all those non-flushers and drippers out there) and B) which one has less toilet paper. To me, less toilet paper indicates more usage. So I go with the stall that has a good balance between non-nastiness and more toilet paper. Not a fool-proof plan because more toilet paper could indicate so much more usage that they (the toilet paper changers) have actually recently had to replenish the roll but I have to go with something.

While researching this post (oh yea, I said that), I came to realize that evidently the handicapped stall is statistically the most used stall while the first stall is statistically the least used stall. Crud. My stall profiling was all off but that otherwise doesn’t effect the system too much.

Anyway, how do you choose a stall? If you haven’t considered it before, this may be the start to something big.

**if you have a good bathroom story e-mail it to me- I would love me some more bathroom guest blogs!**