The top 100 things that frighten me when I use a public restroom
There is currently a good deal of debate about safety in public restrooms. I would like to throw another data point into the conversation: a highly personalized list representing the opinions of one particular cis het white woman. Depending on the situation, the precise order of items in this list might shift (am I alone? Is the bathroom well lit? How badly do I need to go?) but it’s a fairly solid representation of the frightening things I contemplate when using the restroom.
2. The fakir who travels around in the body cavities of the people he murders.
4. The ghostly mother of Phantom Dennis looming in the mirror behind me.
5. Natasha Henstridge bursting through the wall to kill me because women are terrifying baby-mad predators.
7. A mess on the toilet seat that I can’t just pretend is a bit of water splashed up by a particularly vigorous flush.
9. J-horror gets its own line item.
10. Autoflush in a stall I thought was empty.
11. Autoflush in my stall while I’m still sitting on the toilet.
12. Any malevolent supernatural entity, drawn from any combination of media, folklore, and my own psyche, looming in the mirror behind me or peering into my stall.
Let’s call it 15-66 for assorted X-Files episodes that aren’t springing to mind at the moment, but might the next time I go to the restroom. (Probably monster-of-the-week episodes, not mythology, because I’m really not all that scared by the thought of William B. Davis talking about aliens and blowing smoke in my face.)
67. The killer bees in the restroom was a mythology episode, but now that I think of it killer bees attacking me in the restroom (or anywhere else) is kind of scary.
69. That Stephen King story with the pencil through the eye and the body in the toilet stall, even though that was the men’s room.
70. A restroom that is closed for maintenance.
71. A restroom that needs to be closed for maintenance.
72. Automatic hand dryers rather than paper towels, because sometimes you need to clean up a mess and that’s a lot easier if you have paper towels to wipe off food or whatever other substance a child has smeared all over your body or theirs.
73. An obviously clogged toilet which forces me to decide whether I need to go so badly that I’ll be one of the jerks making it even harder on the janitor.
74. Dropping something onto the floor and having to decide how much real and psychological dirt has contaminated it.
76. A separate line item for a women’s room with a really long line next to a men’s room with no line.
77. No lock, so I have to hold the stall door closed with my feet.
78. Forgetting to check whether the seat is down and inadvertently sitting on the cold, narrow, psychologically dirty porcelain rim.
80. A distant or otherwise inconveniently located restroom.
81. Toilet paper getting stuck to my shoe.
Let’s call it 82-96 for inadequate changing facilities. (This isn’t much of an issue any more, but it made a really big impression over the course of several years when it was a high priority.)
98. Really, really cold water.
99. William B. Davis talking about aliens and blowing smoke in my face.
(Not cracking the top 100: trans women peeing.)
