What are those little things that bug you?  They consistently arise, but nobody addresses them.  They irritate you like sand in your underwear after a day at the beach.  It’s your problem and nobody else seems to care.  I often wonder just how to create change on these issues.

I hate to say it, but several for me exist in public restrooms.  Check your bullets.  Are my issues on your list?

1.  Where do you put your purse in a public restroom?  Not on the floor for a couple of reasons, germs and theft.  Obvious.  A hook.  There is often a hook, but it is too close to the top of the door.  Why is this bad?  First, theft.  Someone can reach over the top and snatch it while you are in a compromised position.  Plus, what if you need to reach it–tampons, mini-pads, your phone.  If you are going to have a hook, place it in the middle of the door, half way down.  Much more reasonable.  Of course the hook is frequently broken, or there just isn’t one.  Then what?  A TP holder with a level top?  Occasionally.  A shelf?  Rarely.  Final choices, around your neck or between your feet.  Both are annoying.  And how come they never fix those hooks?  I have my guesses.  When the door opens, the cleaning lady never notices because it is behind the door!  Or, maintenance men are just that, men.  They don’t get why you need them.  Or, the man that oversees maintenance thinks it’s not a replacement part priority.  Nobody wears coats much anyway.  Little do they know it is rarely about a need for a coat hook.  It is a purse hook. The purse that carries the family’s life, from his wallet that is too bulky for him, to the family bills, the baby’s diaper, the DVD for the kids in the car, and, oh yeah, the personal items of the woman who is packing it around.
2. Stall doors.  Two pet peeves here.  Do they open out?  Big mistake.  Women sit.  Their pants are down.  What do you do when someone slams the door next to yours and your door opens and fades away from your reach?  Depends on what you are doing, but most involve an unsightly and awkward manuever.  Doors that open in are better, but they can still have problems if two issues are not addressed, depth and width.  A stall needs to be deep enough that you don’t have to stand on the toilet, or step over it, to close the door.  And you may need enough room in there for a couple of kids to stand with you.  And width.  It might have been an acceptable width by code, but then they installed the big, double whammy toilet paper dispenser.  You can barely manuever again because you keep hitting your elbow on the thing.  Why do they put them there?  Oh, and again, you may have a couple of kids with you.  Width is important.
3. So now let’s talk toilet paper dispensers. If it is not a free roll, loosely rolling on its own independent roller bar, then it needs to be mounted above the bend of the elbow.  And I might even suggest, if the stall is narrow, above the height of the shoulder.  There is nothing worse than a wide, locked dispenser at knee level with the end of the paper stuck to the roll (or a new roll not loosened by the installer).  If the roll is diminished in diameter, you can’t reach it!  You can only bend at the wrist.  Miserable situation.  And you can’t really do much about it unless you can beg from a neighbor, or reach your purse for your tissues.  Think this doesn’t happen?  Ha!  Ask any woman.  It happens a great deal.  Don’t any women design bathroom stalls?  Remember, hooks only half way up, toilet paper dispensers at shoulder height.
4. Oh, and let’s not forget the automatics.  The automatic flush.  It can splash all over you, or it might not flush at all.  What if you need a second flush, tampons, a kid decides to vomit, whatever.  You have to have a button somewhere.  Then there is the automatic sink.  Just wave your hands.  And wave again, move left, right, up, down, forward, back.  What the heck?  Next sink, same thing.  Don’t they work?  Get some soap, from the automatic dispenser.  Same story.  Wave your hands, move left, right, up, down, forward and back.  Oh, no automatic soap.  Okay.  How were you to know?  And the automatic paper towels.  Wave in the front, wave underneath, pull to get it started, struggle with the pointy plastic roller.  It’s okay, your hands are practically dry anyway.  Rub them off on your jeans.
5. And here is a not normal, but definitely a peeve of mine.  It’s from church.  A whole other problem, these church bathrooms.  But the worst, on Sundays especially, the water in the toilet is hot.  Sauna like hot. I’ve reported it, but nobody seems to care.  I mean something is wrong somewhere if there is hot water in the toilet.  How do I know it’s hot?  I spent three years there helping my mother toilet in the waning years of her life.  From the wheelchair to the seat, to cleaning, and to hiking pants.  The water was hot then, and it is still hot now, because nobody seems to want to talk about it.  Just fix it, all that heat has got to be costing us something.  Why are people afraid to talk about the conditions in the bathroom!

Getting sand out of unlikely places is a small irritant that can be remedied in a shower, but some of the peeves on this list are an annoyance.  What does it take to get employees to note needed changes.  They probably just need to hire a few more women, and then listen to them!  Relieve the peeves!

My mother…sweetest person I ever knew. Loved/love her dearly.  Today is her birthday.  She would have been 99 today.  There is so much emotion in the feelings one has for his/her mother, that it is known only by the heart and is mostly unspeakable because the human language fails the feelings.  So, I’m just leaving this here like this.  December 20, 2016