Urine is sterile...urine is sterile...

Is there really anything more disgusting than the bathroom at a public pool or beach?

Each morning begins with the floors still wet and the bleach fumes so reassuringly strong they nearly knock you out. As the day progresses, errant pieces of paper towel wind up on the floor and begin to degrade in what one hopes is chlorine water run-off from bathing suits. There is a marked increase in the urine odor as the sun approaches its zenith, intensifying the heat and stink in a humid, un-air-conditioned, enclosed space. The older kids arrive in full force early in the afternoon, and now clever tricksters will begin locking the stalls from the inside, causing mothers to groan in frustration after they have barely made it to the bathroom with a toddler in tow doing the pee-pee dance, only being comforted by thought that the idiots responsible had to crawl through what is now almost an inch of mystery liquid* on the floor and most certainly have some kind of skin condition for their efforts. At this point in the day, the place really stinks, and one would gladly stick one's face in a vat of Clorox to avoid inhaling the stench. Whole rolls of toilet paper are found in the bowls, as the dispensers are empty and small children fumble unsuccessfully with industrial-sized replacement rolls left on the shelves. The trash bin next to the diaper station is reaching maximum capacity, and disturbing brown drips are seen on the floor around it**. One wonders if, upon searching out a toilet to use, if an outhouse with a hole in the ground in Calcutta would not be a better option.

And explain to me again, why some mother gave me the stink eye at the beach when she overhead #2 telling me she went into the ocean to pee.

*Is that water sloshing over my flip-flop exposed toes, or pee?
**For which I was responsible last week as Little Man took The World's Most Inconvenient Crap while standing in the pool, which I could tell by the serious look on his face a as he crouched in the shallow end, barely whisking him away to the bathroom in time before brown streaks started running down his legs.