Do You Have a Bathroom?

Lately I've been thinking about changing the name of my store from "Country Roads Antiques & Gardens" to "Country Roads Antiques, Gardens, and Bathroom"! I swear to you all, that is the most asked question of the day. And it is asked in a variety of ways. From the customer that interupts you while you are helping someone and rudely says, "where is the bathroom", to the ones that squeeze their legs together and do a mini "pee-pee" dance! And I am serious when I say these things! Bryce went to great lengths to make finding the bathroom easy. He took a giant letter "B" (you know as in bathroom) and spray painted it bright blue (double B's for bathroom). He then spray painted arrows on the floor in the same bright blue paint that will lead you to the bathroom. And do you think they can find it? All of us can that work at Country Roads can say this phrase in our sleep when we answer the question, "where is the bathroom"? We say, "it is the big letter blue "B" hanging under the fire extinguisher behind you, left at that aisle, follow the blue arrows on the floor, at the base of the stairs on your right". We then watch them spin in a circle. Some do become dizzy. Then they ask again, "where did you say the key was"? We continue to tell them to go left at the last aisle, follow the blue arrows on the floor, at the base of the stairs on your right. Then it all starts over again, "no your other left" or you hear, "where did you say the arrows are" or we just sadly watch them wander off to places unknown. So sad! Our public bathroom is not equipped for as much use as it gets. It is the size of a closet, no fan, and thank God awhile back we scored a super flusher toilet which saves our lives from constantly plunging nasty things. We have a sign with rules, as you can see. But sadly, no one cares. We try out best to keep it clean, but sadly no one cares. We use to stack the paper towels behind the toilet. Bathroom abusers would knock them on the ground and never pick them up. So we hung a vintage holder up and someone tried to rip it off the wall. They miss the trash, they miss the toilet, and sadly no one cares about our rules! This is our world famous toilet on a good day. Nice and shiny, air freshner available and just waiting for the next bathroom abuser. And we do have bathroom reporters. They will say, "there is paper towels all over the floor in there, you are low on TP, don't you have any air freshner, it doesn't smell good in there, etc." When there has been a tragedy in the bathroom, I will be the one to clean in up. I don't pay anyone nearly enough to deal with the unbeliveable messes I've dealt with over the years. So disgusting I will not even begin to put "those" stories in writing! Let's just say, I've had to drag in the hose from the garden along with a gallon of bleach. What is wrong with people! For some reason, customers LOVE to take the bathroom key on tour. Personally, none of us like to even touch that key! When a customer returns the key and tries to hand it to us rather than hang it back up, we quickly put our hands behind our backs and tell them where to hang the key! I'm not sure why people take our bathroom key on tour. Maybe they know they will have to re-visit the bathroom again soon, and so they feel secure having that oh so special key with them! While our key is on tour, or when people ask if we have a bathroom, I will never, ever understand why they feel the need to explain themselves. For example, "I just had a cup of coffee, do you have a bathroom". Or, "oh I drank so much water, I need a restroom quickly". I don't get it. One of my all time favorites was the pair of large women and the one was asking for the other one, "I need to find a bathroom quick, my friend is squeezing her butt cheeks together as I speak"! Of course I took my time to answer that question. Usually we don't respond to their explanations, but yesterday I couldn't help myself. This girl walks up to me and says, "do you have a bathroom, I just had lunch"? I'm thinking to myself why do I even care that she just had lunch and what does that have to do with a bathroom. Okay, I had an idea but I won't go there! So, I folded my hands on the counter and looked at her and said, "so, you just had lunch". I don't think she knew how to respond, so I gave her the world famous speech how to find the world famous bathroom! And to people like the guy last week that sat in the bathroom after we were closed for 15 minutes, please try and do your bathroom business at home or before we close. I know some people wonder how and why I can write a post about our public bathroom. Let me just say, if you spend any time at Country Roads, I promise you that you too will hear what we hear those oh so famous words too, "do you have a bathroom, where did you say it was"?