Thank god for Starbucks?

Since when did it become the social norm to deny people the use of a bathroom? This practice must date back at least twenty years, as I remember seeing the "Restroom for Customers Only" sign from a very early age. Yes, restaurants are privately owned establishments with water bills and therefore get to open up their bathrooms or whomever they please. Fine. But shouldn't allowing a human to relieve him/herself fall under some kind of common decency code? An unwritten rule like giving your seat to the elderly or being rude to tourists. I'm not saying bathrooms should be opened up to no good teenagers; who knows what those miscreants do behind the privacy of a locked door. All I'm saying is there has to be some level of allowance for basic human needs. I've peed in the street more times than I can count. Even in my drunkest, most misanthropic state, I would have gladly walked into a restaurant if I was certain they'd let me use their sacred restroom. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. It always comes down to peeing in your pants, defiling public property, or sprinting like a mad man in search of a Starbucks or Barnes & Noble. I don't even like my pants. But pants cost money, so I'd rather risk getting a ticket on par with the cost of pants than ruin a perfectly good pair of Levi's.

Look, I'm not trying to waltz into the Four Seasons trying to take advantage of their bathroom attendant and complimentary mints. I just want the right to relieve myself when the time comes. With the exception of dogs, I doubt there is a single species on this planet that has some any equivalent to holding it in. Animals let it go when it has to go. If only it were that simple for us. I'd even settle for a new line of public bathrooms doomed for a life of graffiti-laden walls and smelling like feet. I'm pretty sure I saw plenty of those last time I went to Europe. I lived in Boston and saw literally one of these, and that was in the most deserted of public parks in the North End. I'm pretty sure there are zero in New York. Perhaps there are a couple hidden in Queens, but fuck Queens.


It's rants like this that make me glad to be a man. I've seen girls pee in public and it looks 35% more difficult and 460% more awkward than when dudes do it. Well, that made me feel better about this whole situation. You see people, it's about the little things in life.