Flushed

My biggest fear, besides clowns, is a dirty bathroom. When I encounter a bathroom that smells and is filthy beyond belief, I am on the verge of tears. Not because of the horrid state of the bathroom, because of the fact I have to ‘go’ and there is no where else to ‘go’ to.

I remember a parent who complained to me about the comfort rooms of a school down north. The comfort rooms did not only reek but they were dirty with grime, mud and, well, the unmentionables – if you get my drift.

It’s enough to make anybody hold it in for another hour or so.

He complained that his son and the other students would not go to the bathroom because of the stench and the dirt. He blames the school for not keeping the bathroom clean.

As I think about it, both are to be blamed – the students and the school.

Sure, it’s the school that is obliged to provide clean facilities, especially an immaculately clean bathroom. After all, it’s all about hygiene. If I were a parent, the last thing I would do was to enroll my child in a school which had a bathroom that equals to a sewer.

But then again, aren’t kids these days taught of hygiene? If so, kids should know how to flush after, well, doing it. How physically demanding is it to push the silver button or pick up the pail and flush whatever is floating around in the toilet?

This reminds me of an instance when I was still in grade school. I refused to go to the bathroom because I did not like the bathrooms at school. Not to say that they were dirty, but because they were new to me. I grew up with toilets that would flush – you push the button and everything goes down the toilet. The concept of dumping water into the toilet bowl was new to me.

In the end, I nearly got kidney stones because of my stubbornness.

I’m the most picky when it comes to bathrooms. If the bathroom is dirty, the last thing I want to do is use it – no matter how badly I need to go. Most of the bathrooms I have encountered smell to high heavens and are dirty beyond belief. This does not only go for schools, but also for malls, restaurants, and doctors’ clinics and hospitals.

Why most of us don’t bother taking better care of our bathrooms is beyond me. For crying out loud, you take a bath there, brush your teeth, do your ‘business’ there and freshen up there.

Why on earth people tolerate bathrooms that are smelly and dirty does not seem logical to me. Perhaps their sense of smell must have burned out. The toxic smell of the toilets must have busted their senses.

If people these days are really that lazy of flushing and cleaning the bathroom, there is only one simple solution. Get a toilet that flushes on its own – and for sure, your problems will go down the drain, so to speak.