Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Public Washrooms - a rant

Grant and I had a lazy day at the lake. All the rain, we decided to take a drive and see what the locals had to offer. I probably shouldn't have had the 4 mugs of coffee and litre of water before our little roadtrip but I did and so we made a few pitstops throughout the day.
I decided that the women's public washroom must be designed by a man. Tim Horton's, Irving, Sobeys- they're all the same. The rooms are spacious. That's because they put everything to the far left. With the toilet just six inches from the wall and a big honkin' toilet paper dispenser that juts out from the wall about 6 inches, you wonder where or how to sit.
I looked around in the Tim's facilities and thought there's more than enough room to move everything over a foot and still be wheelchair accessible. Giving the engineers the benefit of the doubt I reasoned that the plumbing required such horrible placement of the toilet. That's fine, so why do they have to put that mammoth dispenser on top of it when there is 3 ft of empty wall in front of it. This I can not figure out.
Let's talk about the taps. Seriously. The pump tap has got to go.Holding it down with one hand while the water drizzles out on the other? Who invented this thing?
I have survived the toilet and the water, time to dry and get outta there. But wait the paper towel dispenser is mounted 5 1/2 ft up the wall. Standing with my hand in the air, waving and waving to trigger the dispenser. By the time paper rolls out, the water has ran down my arm getting my sleeve wet. Now I am not OCD (although it's in my lineage) but I try to grab the door with the paper towel to avoid the ickey germs of those who didn't bother to wash. And I think finally the designers got that part right and placed the trash can at the door so you can toss the paper as you leave.
I will admit the newer designed rooms are much improved. Outside the stall, that is. Inside? Well, some things take awhile to catch on.

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