Great Ontario Bathroom Tour: Summer 2008

Caution: potty talk ahead.

One day in June, Girlchild decided to be done with diapers. We haven’t looked back.

I danced and cheered, gave away the leftover diapers and haven’t shed a tear.

There is, though, a little phase of potty training that I could do without: the Bathroom Tour.

New things, with the possible exceptions of needles and Brussels sprouts, are exciting for two-year-olds. Potty training is no exception. As such, all bathrooms in the world must be tried at least once.

Frequency is a hallmark of the early stages of training. This is all well and good when you’re at home and have strategically located bathrooms and/or potties. Since our Adventures in Pottyland began, I have been exposed to more public washrooms and side roads than I ever could have imagined.

Very shortly after we started, I visited a lovely bathroom in an East Side Mario’s restaurant not once, not twice, but FIVE times during one fairly short meal It was clean, shiny, smelled great and had fine music piped in.

When you are two and waiting for your meal to arrive, why not pass the time by practising your new skills in a funky bathroom where you can dance and wash your hands with nice-smelling soap?

Good times.

And so it goes. Literally.

I can tell you where the bathrooms are in so many stores, malls and restaurants that I should start up some sort of consulting business. "Yes, ma’am? You have a weak bladder?

Well, let me tell you where the nearest bathrooms are at your destination. Grab a pen."

Last week, we spent a few days in Toronto. It was during the driving parts – getting there, travelling across the city at various times, going home – that the "I have to go to the bathroom!" appeal truly started to lose its charm.

Some lessons we learned:

1. Cut back on liquids for the kids unless you like exploring any old neighbourhood, including scary ones, to find a bathroom. Dehydration schmeehydration.

2. Always bring some sort of empty container with you. At least then you can take care of business in the car if you are afraid to get out.

3. Don’t let your six-year-old use any bathroom-related words in the car. It automatically triggers the appeal in the two-year-old whether it is truly needed or not – and testing the authenticity of that "need" is not advisable.

I think we visited about 472 bathrooms, side streets and side roads on our trip. Several times we had to pull off of expressways to explore new neighbourhoods and find relief. Girlchild and I have experienced everything from large, roomy stalls to ones clearly designed for people measuring no more than 12 inches wide with very short legs. We visited lovely clean facilities and some that gave me full body shudders.

The line I uttered most on my vacation? "Don’t touch anything!"

The utterly disgusting, hold-your-breath gas-station bathroom downtown almost did me in, but my nerves held on until we hit a McDonald’s service station on the 401 near Napanee.

It wasn’t that it was yucky, it was just poorly designed.

After we washed our hands we had to actually line up to use the hand dryers. Meanwhile, there was a line-up of women coming in the door waiting to use the facilities. Once you dried your hands (assuming you could get near the dryers), you couldn’t actually leave the bathroom because people were standing in the way.

That’s when the tiniest bit of claustrophobia came over me and, fearing I would spend the rest of my life trapped in a public washroom on the 401, I said my loudest "Excuse me!" ever and pushed our way out, hands still wet. At that point I proclaimed to all in our party that there would be no more bathroom stops between there and Perth. I simply could not face another public washroom.

Well, of course, we had to stop again, but it was for Boychild, so I stayed in the van.

I don’t think I have ever been so glad to see my own bathroom

It brings new meaning to the phrase "worshipping the porcelain god."