What's with the not flushing, and other random-ness
I've spent a good deal of time in the last ten days in public restrooms.
This is because
1. I left last Friday (ten days ago) to go to an amusement park on Lake Erie, an enormous amusement park called Cedar Point. If you are a roller coaster enthusiast, and you have not been to Cedar Point, well, let me just say that you SHOULD not be calling yourself a roller coaster enthusiast.
We go to Cedar Point every year, family reunion/mini-vacation. All the family dramas arise - it's a multi-generational event with aunts, uncles, cousins, a deaf and slightly insane grandmother, the makings of very funny kind of stream-of-consciousness/coming-of-age type novel if I ever get around to writing it.
The part of Lake Erie that the Point sits on is truly, one of my favorite beaches in the world. (Yes, I am serious. And yes, I really did live on the French Riveria for five months.) I am going to try to post a picture here so you can see how lovely it is - the sand is like fine sugar, and the water is deep blue.
2..Anyway, after that, we went this last Thursday to Cleveland and back in order to get our fingerprints taken at the USCIS office there, and visiting the Great Lakes Science Center. We all had a really good time exploring at the Science Center, and then had the joy of driving back home across the top of Ohio in the middle of the second storm of the century to move through the area in two days.
(Actually, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the day before, it was just that we were, unfortunately, DRIVING in it, which was scary.)
3. THEN, Saturday and Sunday morning we were “camping”. I use the word camping loosely, because staying at the Jellystone Camp in Angola, Indiana is more like "congregating with many RVs just off the highway", as opposed to actual camping, which I tend to associate with being out in the woods away from people.
Not that I am a big fan of “camping” in either sense, to be honest. I am not good at sleeping in a tent, on the ground, which was our situation Saturday night.
The reason we were on the excursion is that it is an annual tradition with my brothers and sisters and parents, that we go camping in Indiana for one weekend each summer. The Jellystone Camp has a little waterpark and playground for the kids, and we always get the same campsites, which are right on Lake Barton, and we have developed a tradition of floating in the middle of the lake drinking beer on a bizarre blob of various floatation devices. (Only the adults drink beer. We send the children back and forth to shore in a boat captained by my 9 year old niece. Yes, they all wear life jackets.) (Last year, my nine-year-old niece, who was then my 8 year old niece, saved me, and her four year old sister and four year old cousin, when we got stuck on the other side of the lake in a rowboat. I am a little bit ashamed to say this – although, while she is tiny, niece has some pretty impressive bicep strength. Or something. The girl can move a boat, is all I’m saying.)
But, anyway, the point of all of this is that I have spent A LOT of time in the last ten days in public restrooms, and I want to say, WHAT IS WITH THE NOT FLUSHING??
While at Cedar Point, I actually heard a mother tell the child with her, “don’t flush – I don’t want you to get germs on your hands.”. Great, so, you would rather subject the next patron to your offspring’s excrement than have them FLUSH THE POTTY?
Seriously, the whole thing has started really ooging me out. I would say that fully half of the toilets I encountered in this 10-day-whirlwind-tour-of-public-toilets-from Cleveland Ohio-to-Angola-Indiana were unflushed. I am thinking of starting a public education "Flush the Potty" campaign, perhaps with a demonstration on how to flush most any kind of potty with the bottom of one’s shoe…
So, that’s whats going on in my neck of the woods, mostly…
LM
posted by LawMommy at 9:38 PM
6 Comments:
Telling your child *not* to flush? Have they not heard of washing hands afterwards? Or even just carrying around hand sanitizer? That is truly just gross.
I went to Cedar Point when I was really little (like 4) back when we lived in Michigan. I remember thinking it was the greatest place on earth.
Some people are just plain gross! I HATE public bathrooms!! EWWWWW. I have never been to Michigan. Sounds like a great place though.
haha... I'm afraid to tell you what my dad (step) used to say when we were little. We lived on a farm so we were country bumpkins all the way but while our house was being build, we were living in an RV/Greyhound bus parked in our driveway and the saying around our "house" was; "if it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down." It was so our tank didn't fill up right away! haha Do you think less of me now?
You know, I have noticed a ton of this this summer, too! What is up with that? It totally freaks Noah out and he won't pee in public if it hasn't been flushed first. I actually have this fear about flushign toilets - I saw this special about how the germs really fly and very veyr far when the toilet is flushed. But I still flush every time. I just make Noah leave the stall and I flush with my shoe instead of my hand and I turn the other direction and hold my breath. Ok, I'm neurotic. Still, I flush!
The equally baffling thing I noticed lately is the amount of pee on the toilet seats in women's restrooms. Ok, if you don't want to sit on the seat and can't aim well squatting OVER the seat, the LEAST you can do is wipe UP the seat when you are done. Gross.
You know, I have noticed a ton of this this summer, too! What is up with that? It totally freaks Noah out and he won't pee in public if it hasn't been flushed first. I actually have this fear about flushign toilets - I saw this special about how the germs really fly and very veyr far when the toilet is flushed. But I still flush every time. I just make Noah leave the stall and I flush with my shoe instead of my hand and I turn the other direction and hold my breath. Ok, I'm neurotic. Still, I flush!
The equally baffling thing I noticed lately is the amount of pee on the toilet seats in women's restrooms. Ok, if you don't want to sit on the seat and can't aim well squatting OVER the seat, the LEAST you can do is wipe UP the seat when you are done. Gross.
By the way, Cedar Point IS the best place on Earth. When we give our kids the choice of getting an annual pass or going to Disney, they want CP hands down. They have all been born and raised there. Although these days they are mostly in it for the water park. We are heat wimps.
Post a Comment
<< Home