Gas station bathrooms are straight out of a horror movie. I’m not talking about the modern ones that you find next to the snazzy gated communities that look as though you’ve entered a small grocery store. I’m talking about the ones you find along deserted parts of the highway when you’re in the middle of a road trip.
The moment you stop to pee, you know you’re in trouble. Your bladder clearly doesn’t understand the peril that you’re in.
You go to the side of the building where there’s a barely legible sign that reads “bathroom.” You try the door only to find it locked. Take a deep breath. You now have to go inside to get the key so that you can relieve yourself.
Where do bees go to the bathroom? At the BP station.
Of course, going in is a mistake, too. There’s a reason why they make it so that you can pay at the pump. The only thing sold inside is cigarettes, chewing tobacco, six-packs of beer, and stale potato chips.
You get the key, which is either attached to a hubcap or a cinderblock and head back to the side of the building.
You unlock the door and hope that it’s not as bad as you’ve built it up to be in your head. Surprise, it’s so much worse.
That’s when you return the key as quickly as possible and apologize to your bladder. “Uh, it um, turns out, uh, I don’t have to go as bad as I thought. I’ll just hold it …”
It’s as if these places have never discovered what a toilet cleaner looks like. Apparently, they hold it until they get home, or they have another bathroom that they don’t want to share with the public.
When you’re in Sherman Country, you deserve to find the best bathrooms possible, whether it’s on your road trip or just driving around town. After all, when you gotta go, you gotta go.
Take Care of Business
Public bathrooms can be fear-inducing. If you can’t go into the public bathroom because of the smell or general appearance, you have to figure out what else you can do to take care of the problem.
If you pee on the side of the road, you can be fined for indecent exposure. And don’t even get us started about what happens if it’s not a #1 kind of situation.
You have to take care of business, and that means figuring out what you’re going to do. You could just use the bathroom and hope for the best. However, do you know what’s worse than a cold toilet seat? A warm one. It means that someone was likely in there just moments before you used it. Did they cause the wreckage that you see, or was it already like that?
Police station toilet stolen. Cops have nothing to go on.
Of course, that’s if you even allow your butt to hit the seat. Men can stand, and many women have learned this weird hovering technique to avoid butt-to-plastic contact.
All of this could have been prevented if the gas station had simply bothered to clean their bathrooms periodically.
Remember this fear. Embrace it. This will ensure that you do better within your own business (and within your own home). Hey, if your kid doesn’t want to clean their bathroom, take them down to the corner gas station and have them use that. All it will take is one visit, and they’ll never balk at cleaning their toilet ever again.
Let’s Talk About Gas Station Etiquette
There’s some basic bathroom etiquette that should always be followed. If you’ve ever been to a home in Sherman Country with a country theme, you may have even seen little embroidered reminders in the bathroom.
Let’s start with the basics:
- Lift the toilet lid
- Avoid a splash (or wipe up the splash zone)
- Flush
- Put the lid down
Now, there are a few added tips that will make things nicer, too:
- Don’t flush anything that shouldn’t be flushed
- Report plumbing problems to the store
- Throw your trash into the trash bin
Is that so hard? It really isn’t. And yet, based on the way that some of the public restrooms look, you’d think that people aren’t even standing close to the toilet when they try to go and that they’ve completely forgotten how to flush.
If we can’t even share public restrooms with one another, what does that say about society? For the love of all that’s holy, just flush when you’re done. That would solve quite a few problems.
A bit of Lysol and an air freshener goes a long way for those who own stores with public restrooms, too. Just saying.
Since you can’t depend on everyone following proper gas station etiquette, Gas Buddy does offer a list of the top-rated restrooms in the US here.
Have the Bathroom You and Everyone Else Has Ever Dreamed About
Public restrooms don’t have to be disgusting. We’ve all been in ones that are actually really nice, so we need to make the promise to do better.
If you’re building a pole barn that’s going to be a business with restrooms open to the public, you have to think about what those facilities are going to look like. Be sure that you create enough space that they can be the place people want to stop into after a long road trip.
More importantly, don’t forget about cleaning them.
Life is like toilet paper. You are either on a roll or taking crap from someone.
At Sherman Pole Buildings, we believe in pole sheds being the kind of place that everyone wants to visit. Whether it’s your home, a business, or even a place where you go to get away from the world, be sure that you have a nice bathroom.
If you’re worried that people will destroy your pole barn when they use the bathroom, place a sign in there to remind them of proper bathroom etiquette. You should also establish a regular cleaning schedule.
If the signage doesn’t work and the cleaning schedule isn’t enough, you know what you have to do.
Pole sheds can lock just as easily as gas station bathrooms. Secure your facilities, add a hubcap to the key ring, and make it harder for people to enter. That way, if they go in and don’t like what they see, they were given plenty of warning.
Right now, let’s not focus on bathroom cleanliness. Let’s start by getting you a pole barn. You can deal with the rest later.
