Am I too American for this meme?
I’m from a European country where public toilets usually aren’t free, and this meme doesn’t make any sense here either, because having a kid with you will not make the toilet free to use anyway.
A lot more often, due to need to switch diapers. Those rooms have a toilet for parents as well. In Norway I have encountered it a lot of times
Shit, even over here a lotta places don’t allow non-paying customers to use the bathroom. But they’ll usually make an exception for a kid.
Once I took my kid to a Dollar General (not a corporation I would prefer to support, but we had a need for a product and there aren’t many other options practically available locally). The kid was five or six at the time, I don’t recall precisely.
Anyway, as we were acquiring our necessities, the kid realized they had to use the restroom. I asked the kid if they were able to hold it, but they said no, so I inquired with the staff and, though I never realized it prior, it turns out that at least that particular DG does, indeed, allow you to use their restroom.
I took the kid to it but, like some grocery stores I attended when I, myself, was but a youth, it was through the stock room. Much like I remember feeling in those stock rooms, my kid felt we shouldn’t be there. They clung tightly to me and, despite my reassurances, kept repeating “I don’t think we should be here. We should not be back here.” After they took care of business, we came back out into the store proper and they said words to the effect of “phew! I didn’t think we should be there.”
I never want my progeny to have to be afraid, and certainly I don’t want them to be unnecessarily fearful, but I do feel proud that when they were I was a source of safety for them.
Kids instinctively fear the Backrooms
I have a similar story from a random grocery store.
After a long drive my daughter had to pee and I asked the staff to borrow the restroom and got guided to the back of the stock. It was occupied so we just stood and waited. They left the door/gate between the store and stock open so we could find our way out afterwards. While waiting, other customers started queueing up, so there’s a line of 5 people, who apparently saw us through the gate and figured that they also urgently needed to use the restroom just then for some reason. Nobody usually does this, so I don’t know what gave.
So after 10 minutes or so the door is finally unlocked and a staff member comes out looking all red headed and surprised to see a whole bunch of people just waiting for her to be finished shitting on company time.
That sounds awful. I’m sorry that happened.
Once I was driving on I-95 and developed unexpected diarrhea. I stopped at a nearby Subway and relieved myself there, but it took a while. While I was doing so I heard people in the hallway outside of the bathroom; what I heard was someone saying “wow, you’re all waiting for the bathroom?” Hearing that didn’t help.
My restroom experience in that situation was not positive. My experience of exiting that restroom after hearing that and walking past a long line of people who all had to hear my struggles in there was worse.
More than likely they didn’t have restrooms available to the public but allowed you since you jad a child.
I’ve certainly wondered whether that’s the case.
The kid, in therapy later: I found something in the store… A place. I found a place. It’s like the store just continues. There’s a wall… and on the other side of the wall, the store just keeps going, like a copy of itself.
They’ll probably love Click.
What dystopian shithole has non-free public toilets?
Europe
Me when (and only when) I’m using a handicap-accessible public restroom that’s free for everyone:
Canada and the US are pretty similar in this regard and our public washrooms are free only in that that are basically non existent. Public washrooms are usually just those inside businesses and half of them require you to make a purchase
seriously, the ADA is one of the greatest and most important pieces of American legislation ever written for so many reasons (including this one), and for this reason I foresee – at some stage – the fascists here trying to repeal it. “Fuck them cripples, I got mine” is entirely in line with the Republican train of thought.
*some parts of europe
The main countries that do this, that I’ve interacted with, are Bavaria in Germany and Austria. They claim to do so to prevent people from vandalizing the toilets. People still vandalize the toilets (why?).
I paid a dollar to use a bathroom in a Portuguese ferry terminal which had both sinks pulls off the wall (still sitting there on the ground as if anyone was coming to fix it) and a single working toilet which had a big chunk of porcelain knocked out of the bowl. It was actually pretty clean though.
They need more patrons so they can reach the stretch goal of hiring someone to reinstall the sinks.
superior look of Japanese public restrooms
They certainly do have some amazing public bathrooms
I’d assume it’s most parts of Europe - the Nordics certainly do, Germany and Austria as you mentioned, I believe Spain and Italy rely on paying for access by making a purchase in a café/restaurant, etc.
The only exceptions as far as I can tell seem to be the UK, Ireland and parts of France.
Not all of Europe only the shit parts…
Ah yes, the shit parts like all of the Nordics, Germany, Austria, Spain, etc.
What a joke of a comment
I said what I said.
Kudos for standing up for it I guess
Mexico, and they only give you a few pieces of toilet paper
I low key really hate restrooms and indoor plumbing in general in Mexico
Go outside, near the toilets. Whoever owns the toilets will soon be encouraged to provide fairer fare inside the toilets.
Nono, you pay for the shithole, that makes it preem, not dystopian!
- some capitalist, probably
Generally paid public toilets are not charging enough to make money; it’s a fee to discourage people from using it as a private space to be antisocial by vandalising it for fun.
It is not 100% effective and has downsides, but it’s not a capitalist money making scheme, usually.
At least they have public toilets. In thenUS we’re beholden to the kindness of franchise operators.
I’ve never been denied the use of a toilet in any business.
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