Yuck!

People using wheelchair accessible bathrooms when they don't really need to, often blocking it for a really long time and having an attitude about is one issue. I might add, a big one. Patrons trying to force themselves into one while a person with a disability is still inside is another. And I've written about both. But the problems don't end here. As much as I really don't want this blog to be a series of recollections of things that happen at the handicapped restroom, consider the events of last Tuesday night. Energized by the Gainesville spring weather I opted for an early dinner at the Top, one of my favorite venues. My other "bathroom stories" also take place there. This time I found not two, not three, but four girls leaving the wheelchair cabin, but I wasn't too annoyed so I didn't make a big issue out of it. It's not that they were there, that was upsetting, it's what they did while they were. Somebody apparently thought it would be a good idea to stuff entire sheets of paper towels into the toilet. And when that happens the toilet just doesn't flush. And when it doesn't flush, you really can't use it. I will never understand people who leave a restroom as if nobody else would be using it after them. Not only not cleaning up their own messes, and I understand that sometimes accidents happen, but acting as if to prevent somebody else from going in. Making it dirty, messy, non-functional, and never even alerting the staff. Because if I can't use the wheelchair bathroom there is no other place in the venue I can go to while a able-bodied person will just go to the next one. Maybe for that reason some places even lock them. Otherwise I have to go back to the bar and tell the servers the bathroom is not clean and safe for me to use. That's what happens at The Top or Starbucks and then I wait for them to clean. Some venues don't. When I complained that I needed to use the restroom at Market Street and the seat was covered in a brown substance, I've heard- "Why are you telling me" from people who work there. In other places I risked touching a urine covered seat or risking slipping and kneeling in a smelly puddle because nobody cared. And all after running a considerable drinking tab. And sometimes, yes, I had to get over how gross something was about the toilet to sit on it or touch it, feeling  very humiliated as a result. And no amount of alcohol makes me forget about that