Blindingly Crazy Bathrooms In Virgina

This last weekend on my return from an unfortunate visit to Virginia, more on that in a moment, I had the most odd bathroom experience. It was probably the most poorly laid out public bathroom I’d ever been in but I won’t go into that.

So already bothered by the strange layout I entered the handicapped stall after a five-minute wait. Since the handicapped stall is so large they had installed a foldaway baby changing station on the wall. As I was taking care of business and observing my surroundings I noticed that the baby changing station offered direction written in Braille. At first, this didn’t seem unusual to me but within moments I began to laugh out loud.

Think of the circumstances whereby these directions might be used. This was a bathroom at a truck stop on I-80. You would assume that most of the patrons of this establishment would be interstate travelers and therefore any blind man in need of a baby changing station at truck stop would have been traveling with at least two other people: the baby and an adult capable of driving. That other sighted adult would presumably also be capable of changing a baby’s diaper. So here’s the scenario: a blind man and his wife stop to get gas and change their baby’s poopy diaper. The woman say, "Honey, will you do me a favor and change the baby’s diaper when you go to the bathroom." The blind man, apparently also retarded, says, "Sure, honey!" He takes the baby in his arms, which makes it very difficult to use his cane, and makes the short but perilous journey across the busy parking lot and through the unfamiliar store all the way to the bathroom. Assuming he ever made it to the bathroom and into the correct stall he would have to rub his hands all over the bathroom walls to find the baby changing station and the directions written in Braille. This scenario is already absurd and gross enough without describing what it might be like for a blind man to change a baby’s poopy diaper, so I just won’t go there. This guy must be really desperate and helpless to stay with this woman. So, this is why I was laughing on the potty.

There were a few more odd things about this bathroom. The bathroom was moderately clean looking but the sink area had a lot of standing water. To get a squirt of soap your arm had to extend and almost touch the front of the paper towel dispenser. However, the paper towel dispenser was one of those infrared activated models so when you reached for your soap the towel began spilling out the dispenser into the pooled water on the countertop. Worse yet, the soap was the greasy stuff that takes several seconds of scrubbing to get off your hands. This is usually not a problem but the water faucet was also infrared activated meaning that there were two settings, on and off, no temperature control. The water coming out of this faucet was probably 120 degrees so you had to scald your hands to rinse off the greasy soap.

At first thought I told myself that I’d avoid this place if I ever found myself on I-80 in the future but I think I’ve reconsidered. I actually got more joy out that bathroom than from nearly anything else on the trip.

It's been nearly a full year since I last wrote. I really do enjoy writing but I have to be in the right place for it. If things are too stressful and at work or at home then the creative juices seem to dry up quickly. Also, once I got out of my short lived blogging habit last summer it was just difficult to get back into the groove.

From last July through September all of my humor, all of my sanity, all of my being was consumed by our move from Los Angeles to Nashville. It must be a testament to how sheltered a life I've lived that our moved put me into such a tailspin. If I were to tell you the details of our move you probably would think, "Geez, what's this guy's problem?" And in reality, everything did go very smoothly...it's just that everday there seemed to be a major threat that things were not going to go smoothly. Despite my need to Ambien every night for three weeks, I've come out of this experience praising God for blessing us richly.

For the last nine days Sarah and the kids have been in Houston visiting Sarah's parents and brother. It's nice to have a few days to myself. I went fishing one morning. I've played a little X-Box. I've been accountalbe to no one for my time. However, nine days is a little excessive doin't you think? All I needed was about one weekend to reenergize....it got really old after that. During that time though I've been able to get back into a place where I think I can starting writing a little. So, summer has come again and I hope to be writing more often.