Taking Care of Business

When I was a kid, I kinda had this thing.

I couldn't use any other restroom except my own bathroom at home.

Sure, I could urinate anywhere (like any other guy) but, uh, taking care of business, I couldn't do it anywhere else.

This was intensified when I started high school and discovered that the stalls in the boy's restroom had no doors.

No Doors.

Who does that?

Does this prevent smoking in the bathroom? Can't you tell if someone is smoking in a stall with or without a door before you even walk into the bathroom?

When my stomach starting rumbling and it was only first hour I knew it was going to be a long day.

And this was the life I lead for a long time.

Until I started traveling overseas.

The food in Romania was strange. None of it tasted good. None of it really tasted bad. It was just food. They told us not to drink the water so we had giant water bottle mountains we went through. Apparently there's two kinds of bottled water in Romania: normal, regular, the-kind-of-water-I-drink-on-a-regular-basis-type water and something else. We got a new shipment of this other water and everyone tried it and spit it out. I picked up a bottle of it and the only English I could make out on it was "still water" which is kinda how it tasted: brewed in a still. Very, very watery moonshine, maybe. It had that brackish Powerade kick without all of the good flavor or coloring. My friend Josh and I took turns taking shots of it.

We procured two cans of Mountain Dew (Mind you, all we've had for a week was room-temperature to warm water) and risked our very lives by pouring them over two glasses full of dirty Romanian ice. It was the best thing I've ever tasted.

I'm surprised I don't have some strange Romanian stomach worm.

I guess I still might and he's been living happily for many years.

One afternoon spend out on the town (err, rather, the village, I guess) found me with stomach pains. I have to find a restroom, and fast. Our interpreter pointed me to a small building at the side of the road. I went in and experienced two firsts in my life.

One: my first pay toilet.

Using the toilet was 50 Lei which was the equivalent of only a few cents but I still took a second to realize what she was talking about.

I have to pay? To use the toilet?

Toilet paper was an extra charge. But I didn't need to buy any.

I wanted to check the toilets out to see if I'd be able to use them. If they were as dirty as just about everything else in the country, I'd have to reevaluate just how bad I had to go. When I opened the door, it was what I feared. Worse even.

The "toilet" was a hole in the ground. Thankfully, there were two ridged areas on each side for my poor little feet to plant for careful aiming.

No thanks.

I waved to the old lady at the door and tried not to listen to my stomach as it protested my decision.

Okay, so I didn't use that one.

But let me tell you this: the trashcans next to the toilets in Mexico are not for your boogey-filled Kleenex.

Apparently they have really bad plumbing in Mexico. So bad, even, that the presence of toilet paper clogs up the pipes.

Yeah, I think you're following me.

The trashcan is for used toilet paper. Take this, add the sweltering Mexican sun and heat and you've got the recipe for a pungent trip to el bano.

Oh, and rarely is there both a lid on the toilet bowl AND the tank. (This is not the Cancun or Aruba Mexico [I think. I've never been to those, but I assume resort cities aren't like this] but rather the Mexico where the houses are made from cinder blocks and the roads have curbs but no pavement.)

When I came home, I looked at the bathroom in some random restaurant or store, one that I would have avoided beforehand, and I saw a sparkling clean facility that I had no problem whatsoever using.

Ah, perspective.