5 Things Every Public Bathroom Needs

I'm relatively certain all public bathrooms are the same:  they smell terrible, they're rather cramped and there's always that one homeless guy cleaning himself in the sink.  We all whine over the qualities that these bathrooms have, but not so much what they don't.  I think it's time to start.

Working Locks

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This is the lock commonly found on public or communal bathroom stalls.  Most other locks have tumblers that open when set in one particular pattern.  They are incredibly intricate, especially when you consider that, just like snowflakes, fingerprints, tongues and nipples, no two are the same. 

But every bathroom lock is the same.  They look just like that stupid picture you see above this text.  They can't be terribly difficult to manufacture, and I'm relatively certain a semi-retarded ape with a screwdriver could install it properly.

So WHY is it always misaligned?  Why does it always grind when I try to lock the door?  I've actually had to lift doors off their hinges to align the lock properly and THEN slide over the little rectangular thing to close the door properly.  How about if we standardize something so simple, we do it right?

Silenced Stalls

In my home, there are two bathrooms, and each contains one toilet.  This implies that one person uses the bathroom at a time.  Yet I count at least two stalls (and often some urinals) when I enter a communal lavatory. 

I recognize the efficiency behind this, but sometimes it just becomes uncomfortable.  The stalls are at least a foot above the floor, do not reach the ceiling and because of the aforementioned faulty locking systems, the doors swing open at highly inappropriate times.  People who are feeling particularly creepy can look in on me while I'm launching a butt torpedo, or, much more often, I hear some surprisingly inhuman sounds.  I don't know if men can give birth to full-grown elk, and I'm not positive if the splash that follows is from a deadly rogue wave that's come ashore, but frankly, I don't want to know either of these things.  Whatever causes these sounds, I hear them pretty regularly in my infrequent visits to common washrooms.

And this is in men's bathrooms.  There's actually a federal law that states women's restrooms are to be equipped with a greater number of stalls than men's.  So if a single man gives birth to a full-grown elk while sitting on a commode, what might an entire orchestra of lady parts be doing?  It'd be a rambunctious cacophony of unholiness that I pray I won't ever have to experience. 

So if not separate rooms with toilets, it would be lovely to have courtesy soundproofing between patrons of the same facilities.

Quality Materials

When was the last time you used a sheet of sandpaper instead of your pumice stone to clear your feet of dead skin cells?  Never, right?  Feet have a pretty thick epidermis (in addition to that dead stuff you wanna scratch off), but odds are you're not gonna feel inclined to wipe a piece of paper that was designed to smooth wood over them, especially when you have a beauty product readily available for that purpose.

Yet I am supposed to believe that sandpaper is a quality substance to use on my anus??  Is there anyone on this masochist-breeding planet who demands a rougher piece of toilet tissue for when they wipe?  NO THERE IS NOT.  But that's what we get.  (And while I'm thinking about it, why do they use the same exact freaking material for tissues in corporate workplaces?  Is my snot so plebeian that I can't use regular tissues?)  Charmin makes some awesome toilet paper that caresses your rump, not irritates it.  Why can't we use that, shopping malls, corporate America and every place that isn't a private home?

Soft buttwipes might be the single-most important item on this list, everybody.  So please complain to whomever you need to and rid this world of grating toilet paper.

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 Do you see how excited this freaking bear

 is to go to the bathroom!?

Even the Sinks Suck!

From what I've seen, people have an incredibly difficult time working sinks.  I have no idea what is so difficult about them, because I have cleaned my hands and occasionally my face in them without incident MANY times.

But that is clearly not the case with very many others.  Entirely too often I will go into the bathroom, release my liquid gold and prepare to purify my hands but find some moron has ruined the sink, the floor near the sink and, please help me, somehow even the soap dispenser.

"Well how can these things even be ruined?"  -someone who obviously hasn't used a public bathroom ever

I'll tell you, you spoiled nitwit.  People are stupid, that's how.

Listen for a moment, please:  sinks' general shapes are pretty close to toilet bowls, and you'll notice that toilets hold water.  Now, I'm going to ask you to bear with me on this, because I know it's difficult to understand.  What if, just as a thought, water could be held in the sink, as well, instead of being placed on the floor?  It already has the general shape of a bowl, maybe, just maybe, it could  contain the water that gushes from that spout.

I know what you're thinking:  this is revolutionary!  Yes, yes, it is a tremendous transition, but I think it's something we humans, as head of the food chain and masters of indoor plumbing, can handle.  Next time you go to the bathroom, just try it; keep the water inside the sink.

Finally:  Basic Hygienic Conditions

Men are blessed in some ways, and in one particular, it's safe to say they stand apart from women.  I was shocked to learn this, but men have something called a penis.  And, just like everyone else, men have to take a whiz from time to time, which means using this "penis" to do the action.  What makes men so special is that this tool extends, allowing them to aim their urine pretty accurately. 

The unfortunate part is that they don't.

I have never once been to a shared restroom where all the toilet seats were free of urine, and I simply don't understand how this can be.  And it's bad.  Like, a few drops of someone else's pee I can handle.  I can wipe it off with a thick swatch of toilet paper or whatever.  But somehow, whoever else goes to the bathroom at the same places I do releases torrential downpours localized specifically on the rim of the seat and occasionally with drips onto the floor. 

So if we men have such precision with our urinator, why, for the sake of my sanity, can no one straighten their freaking trajectory?!  Is there a possibility that everyone actually aims away from the seat, just to make the next user's life torture?  What do they gain by showing us such malice?

I probably sound like some idiot ranting about something pointless.  "Become a janitor if you care so much," is probably what every slack-jawed, Cheeto-eating moron is muttering to themselves at this point.  I do care, but not just because the seat is so dirty a priest couldn't cleanse it of its sin.  I care because it involves quite literally ZERO effort to alter the peestream a few inches. 

So I propose we clean people do something.  Dogs get their faces rubbed in their "mess" when they're being trained, so, naturally, people who pee on the seat, write on the walls with their poop or commit any similar injustice should be plunged into a huge vat of urine for a week.

So you wanna know how you, the seat-peers of America and the world beyond, can fix the entire planet?  Stop peeing on the freaking seat.