Ever since I found out in our first ultrasound where we learned we would have a girl more than 5 yeas ago, I knew the day would come where I would eventually have to deal with a certain scenario. No, I’m not talking about Ally bringing home a Hell’s Angel or a two-timing professional athlete – that’s my cross to bear in a decade or so. No, I’m not referring to Aunt Flo – she’s only 5 and that will be Mommy’s job to explain. No, I’m not referring to her getting into a fighting match with her sister – I’m sure that will come soon enough once Katie starts to say “no” to her on a regular basis.
My biggest fear is having to take her to a public restroom. All guys know how absolutely fucking disgusting men’s rooms can be. Even with a wide angle surface area like a urinal has, guys still manage to miss their mark more often than not which leads me to believe they WANT to miss it. If there’s a urinal, it’s going to be urine-splattered, thus matching the floor tiles around it.
I’ve lucked out a lot of times with Ally since either Megan has been with us and she can take her to the ladies room or there is a family restroom which usually is cleaner than the men’s room. For the past few years, we have periodically been forced to use the public men’s toilet at the park Ally plays at. It’s filthy but at least it’s an individual room and I can prepare it as best I can before she places her little cheeks on the toilet. Last year was the first time I took her to a ballgame and I also lucked out since my mother-in-law was with us.
Circumstances allowed me at the last minute yesterday to take Ally to the ballpark while my mom watched Katie (Megan had to work from 7-7). This was the first time she and I would be going to a sporting event alone together. I knew we would have to eventually face my demons and take her to the men’s bathroom. As we walked around the concourse looking for Dippin' Dots (the main reason she was excited to go to the ballgame), I kept my eyes out to see if there were any family changing stations I could take her when she had to go. No such luck.
Sure enough, a few innings go by and The Need is announced. We went in the middle of the inning to avoid the between-innings crush of people. Of course I put my right hand by her eyes to avoid seeing the row of guys relieving themselves in the urinal and see one toilet stall open, which happens to be the handicapped stall. Score one for extra space. But that was where my smile ended. I lock the door, turn around, and my worst nightmare came true. About the only thing missing from the scene was a stray turd on the floor.
Do you ever pay attention to something like seeing a small puddle on a flat surface and seeing what the “breaking point” is if you add a bit more water to see it finally overflow? Well there couldn’t possibly be any more Urine on this toilet seat without it spilling over into the toilet and the floor. I had to wad up giant balls of toilet paper and let it seep up but not long enough for the seeped urine to touch my hands. I had to do this for quite some time, flushing a few times so the toilet wouldn’t get stopped up. After the lid finally was dry, then proceeded to “birds nest” the top of the seat with layer after layer of toilet paper in hopes that that remaining urine and venereal diseases attached to that seat wouldn’t latch on to my daughter.
Then we tried to wash our hands as fast as possible but of course there was no soap left so who knows what additional germs we ingested when we ate things later in the game. Water can only do so much. As of right now, neither of us are sick but that bathroom scene was exactly how I imagined it would be 5+ years ago. She had to go a second time in the game and thankfully I only had about a minutes worth of urine sopping chores to do on the same toilet lid.
Typical Braves game – we got 4th row outfield seats after purchasing them online only a few hours earlier.
Take a look at this picture and then go here to see a very similar scenario last year.
