Saturday, June 27, 2009

Gross bathrooms

One of the things I'm noticing more since having X-man is how gross a lot of public restrooms are. As an adult, I've peed in some really bad ones at crappy campus bars and such. But when a kid is afraid to pee when he goes into your restroom because it's so dirty or they don't have a changer area for you to put your baby down or even a clean area -- that doesn't help out anyone. 

So here's a list of places I've taken my son, where he's been completely creeped out about the state of the bathroom -- as well as places where he's decided the bathroom is pretty okay.

Yucky:
–Hessel Park, Champaign, IL
–Skateland, Savoy, IL
–Lincoln Memorial at the National Mall, Washington, D.C.
—American Airlines bathrooms
—Prairie Farm, Champaign, IL (he went, but only because I had his small portable potty seat)
—Most gas stations off Rt. 39 between Rockford and Bloomington
—Santa Monica Pier Bathrooms (apparently they're now constructing new ones)
—Morro Bay public restrooms on the waterfront
—Most of the reststops on the Pacific Coast Highway
—Meijer, Champaign


Okay:
—Schnuck's of Savoy
—Marketplace Mall, Champaign
—Culver's on Neil Street, Champaign
—McDonald's on Kirby, Champaign
—O'Hare Airport, Chicago
—Willard Airport, Champaign
—Indianapolis Children's Museum
—Great America, Gurnee, IL
—Chicago Children's Museum family bathroom (near water table area)
—Koret Children's Garden Bathrooms, San Francisco

Stellar:
—Nordstrom's (San Francisco and Oakbrook Mall)
—Ikea family bathroom (Bolingbrook)
—Disney's California Adventure Park (over by the Boudin Bakery area)

Got any that drive you crazy or gross out/scare your kids? What about ones that you were decent or extraordinary (Ikea is still my favorite).

7 comments:

Rudy said...

Big K heartily agrees that Hessel has yucky bathrooms... Apparently he thinks that the DQ on University has a "not scary" bathroom. He also went #2 in the portapotty at Dexter field yesterday. He obviously has a skewed sense of scary and not scary. I'm just sayin'.

He is scared of 99% of the bathrooms we go to though so I am not much help. He doesn't like loud flushes or weird looking flushers, or hand dryers, or loud pee'ers, or loud faucets. So this turned into a rant about how hard it is to take him to the bathroom when we are out and about... I'm sorry! Just know... I understand all too well.

The Fearless Freak said...

Wow, I'm surprised that X-man is freaked by the super loud flushes at the mall. Lots of kids I know are. And what is his criteria for Skateland and Mejier? Skateland is old but so is the whole place and I think Meijer depends on the ones you use. The ones in the store aren't as bad as the ones outside the door. I use the one outside the door mostly because I'm always amused by the variety of trash laying around in there. Like the day the bra and the pregnancy test where on the floor by the trash. :)

Quigs78 said...

Dude, *I* like to use the IKEA family bathroom whether I have kids with me or not. That place rocks!

Unknown said...

Nice bathrooms at the Normal Discovery Museum.

Cyberchick said...

LOL, I was thinking the other day that I could start a blog devoted solely to the conditions of bathrooms in C-U! I agree that Hessel SUCKS. Meadowbrook and AMBUCS Parks are both pretty bad. We were at Ko Fusion last night and theirs is great.

melissa13mw said...

Last week we took the campers to a park to do some canoeing, and the portapotty bathrooms were so amazingly horrible and full of disgustingness, the adults could barely bring themselves to go. Luckily the kids didn't have to go...but we have pretty much banned the use of those bathrooms in future. The most positive thing I could say about them was, well, at least people are having safe sex.

makeup_girl said...

Good bathroom on I-39:
Oglesby exit - Beck's gas station