Shocking Information About Women’s Restrooms

A few years ago while enjoying a family dinner at one of our favorite area restaurants, J. Alexander’s, I had to excuse myself to make a quick trip to the restroom.

While there, I took a few moments to get caught up on the news. No, I wasn’t relaxing on the porcelain throne reading through the newspaper often tucked into the space between the toilet paper roll and the wall in men’s public restrooms, I was actually standing in front of the, umm, urinal (I can’t find a nicer word).

Conveniently placed in front of the “P” spot (an imaginary little dot straight ahead on the wall in front of urinals where most men stare intently so as to not even CHANCE a stray glance), are various pages of the newspaper. Stall 1 is page 1, stall 2 is sports, stall 3 is business, and so on. Take your pick.

Not every bathroom is the same. Some have a collection of advertisements in front of the P spot (cigars, pick-up trucks, gas grills, sports tickets, all the manly stuff), and some even have televisions tuned to ESPN. A guy doesn’t need to know how many rating stars a restaurant has to judge the quality of the joint- what really matters is whether they care enough to provide something in front of the P spot.

Back to the story… when I came back to the table I told my family about an interesting story I had just read. My wife and girls were fascinated. “Where did you just read the newspaper?” asked one of them. I explained to them about how most men’s restrooms often have reading material in various places. They were flabbergasted and had never heard of such a thing- even my wife. I was amazed that they hadn’t- it was just so normal for men. We just assume women have the same thing in their restrooms.

My wife said once in a while, rarely, there’s one of those mini billboards with multiple ads on the back of the stall door, but that’s about it. Michelle and the girls had no idea there was reading material in front of men’s urinals and they thought it hilarious.

Well… fast forward to last week. I learned something about women’s bathrooms that I had never known, and I would guess a good number of other men don’t either. To say I was flabbergasted is an understatement.

Here it is- it is not uncommon for women or girls to get locked or trapped inside a stall and have to crawl on the floor under the door. Yes, you heard it right.

It turns out, according to my wife and confirmed by all four of my daughters…and two other women I checked with, that every so often women get inside a stall, lock the door, and then can’t get it unlocked. It’s sort of the bathroom equivalent of not being able to get a jar lid open in the kitchen without help.

While it’s more common in young girls, it happens occasionally to older kids and adults as well. I was told also that every so often a woman will go to open a stall, find it locked, notice there’s no one in it, and know exactly what happened- “Oh. Someone got stuck in there and had to crawl out under the door.”

My wife said one of the most horrible experiences she’s had (not including the incredible incident that took place at a gas station this summer while on our family road trip) was when she got trapped in a stall whose walls and door came down to within an inch or two of the floor. Horror.