Okay. Here’s the deal. No one goes on a road trip without having to face the inevitable: THE PUBLIC TOILET. Here is a poem I wrote, inspired by my 14 PLUS hours on the road with a 7 year-old girl with a bladder the size of a chickpea in tow. 

ODE TO THE PUBLIC TOILET

(with a little inspiration from and profuse apologies to – Walt Whitman)

O Toilet my Toilet!

My on the road… my beacon on a lonely stretch…next rest area 60 miles.

O the yin and yang of my feelings for you.

Urgency, yet utter contempt.

I long for you, yet loathe you.

My loathing interrupted by the need, that incessant need, that GROWING, URGENT NEED for you.

And then I see you. Beckoning me from afar. A lighted sign. Or a symbolic marker. Whichever. At this point. I don’t care.

So close I can almost touch you…(though I wouldn’t in a million years).  Yet, my journey unsung.

Separated by the masses who stand between us. Others who say they need you as much as I. But something deep inside me….begs to differ.

No choice, I await…with bated breath and bladder. For my turn. My moment with you.

Until finally… it is here. I face you. Every inch, every fiber, every cell of my being SCREAMS for me to RUN! Alas I cannot. Something keeps me there. It’s that damn need. A need more powerful than the repulsion I feel.

I close my eyes. My quads engaged, quivering. Fearing contact. Yet needing it, oh so desperately. Needing you.

I succumb. Ahhhhhhhhhh….. EEEEEWWWWWWW!