Hi folks, I just want to add an experience I encountered while attending Mardi Gras on Saturday evening for the Heart concert.
I decided after touring the park for a little while that it might be a good idea to go find a bathroom before the Mardi Gras parade started. As you get older you will learn if you are at a place in time, that you find you are all alone and trying to save a really good spot to view a parade. You must go to the BATHROOM before you take on the task of waiting and saving your spot. Now it is not as important to you if you are with others. Then you can say “could you watch my spot please I am going to run over to the bathroom”. See that is so much easier to do. No pre-planning is involved and you can pretty much drink liquids as much as you want while waiting for the event to happen. This is not the case when you have no buddy system in place. On occassions like that you need to plan things out way ahead of the event.
Intake of fluids is the key to the whole plan. Drinking even one whole bottle of water to far in advance of an event can throw off your whole plan of attack. Timing on when you actual GO TO THE BATHROOM is key to a well executed plan that allows you to view the event or in this case parade.
Now mind you there are two strategies to going to the bathroom. There is the male strategy of walk in to the bathroom, walk up to a urinal and go to the bathroom, then exit the bathroom after washing your hands. In a Mens room you never usually have to wait in a line, except if it is like half time at a football game. In that case you execute your plan by leaving your seat early so you can attend your planned urinal halftime ritual and there is never usually a problem. Then there is the female strategy, which almost always involves A LINE THAT MUST BE STOOD IN FOR YOU TO GO. You say why is this always the case anywhere you GO. (Did you get that play on words there). Ok I have the answer to the reason this happens all around the world. MEN ARE THE ONES THAT HAVE TO BE DESIGNING THESE RESTROOMS. There is no way a woman that is designing a building is going to make the ladies room smaller than a mens room. In a mens room you can have a room that has 4 stalls and 4 urinals and you will have a good working no line bathroom. Put 6 stalls in a Ladies room and you will most times have a line form anytime of the day and especially at peak high traffic times of the day. You say why 6 and not 8, well that is because a stall takes up more floor space than a urinal. It’s just physics of a bathroom stall there is no other explanation for it. So a woman must not only figure out it is time to go to the bathroom, they have to budget the time factor of waiting in the line. This leaves them a comfortable wait that will get them to their goal to GO. So if you have read this far you are saying right about now, BAWB what the heck does this have to do with going to Universal. Well here is my story:
I have picked the Bathroom that I am going to use. I look around and as usual there is no line coming out of the mens room. I glance over at the ladies room as I walk in and there is a HUGE line that is coming out of the ladies room. I think to myself “THANK GOD A MAN Designed these bathrooms. “( I do feel bad for the ladies in the line which is my first reaction anytime I see a line coming out a ladies room door). I walk up to my urinal and thank the bathroom god for my nice urinal that he or she has provided me. I finish up and at this point we will forever refer what happens next as “THE UNIVERSALS BATHROOM INCIDENT” Now is a good time to start playing that dramatic deep movie suspense music. DA DA DA. AND as I turn around to head over to the sink I hear these words echo through the restroom” ALL CLEAR!!!!!! I think to myself that is not something you hear everyday in a restroom. I look around and near the entrance I see a man yell again “ALL CLEAR” out the entrance to the restroom. The next thing I see is a WOMAN (insert a wide eyed look for me here) run into the mens room and run right into the just vacated stall. I must tell you she had a big smile on her face. I think it was because she just made history in figuring out how to beat the LADIES ROOM LINE PROBLEM. I continue washing my hands and after a minute I hear the toilet flush and she runs back out of the mens room. I felt like yelling to her “HEY YOU BEAT THE LINE PROBLEM BUT YOU DIDN”T WASH YOUR HANDS” but I didn’t say it.
I walked out of the mens room and as I walked past the line for the ladies room I glanced over and some of the woman were talking. I can only guess they were saying to each other. “I never thought to do that or Hey why haven’t we ever thought to do that or WHY DO MEN ALWAYS DESIGN THE RESTROOMS”
ANYWAY here is my point to the story. WAIT FOR IT!! Just a little longer… almost there…
#1 Mens rooms are easier to use than ladies rooms. #2 Universal might want to figure out a way to have additional portable bathrooms available for these events. I saw the same thing during the Halloween horror nights.(I hope the #1 and # 2 joke didn’t get lost amongst the points I was making above. LOL)
I wrote this for my wife Dianar who has to always wait in these lines. I am typing this at 4 am and she is sound asleep not aware of what I am about to say. Hey Honey! I think I found a real solution to your having to wait in a line in the future. Or maybe not. It is your choice now. And for woman around the world, more of you need to take up architecture as a profession and design the ladies rooms larger. Please leave the plans for mens rooms alone our space is JUST RIGHT!
Leave a Reply