Hubby's Perspective on the Bathroom Debate comes out thanks to Norah Jones.

Good afternoon!


It isn't often that I get grumpy about things people say in line for stuff.  I mean, do I make comment about it here?  Sure.  Because I'm an observer of human nature, I feel it's my duty to report what people are saying out loud when they think they have privacy.

Although, why you'd think there's privacy when you're standing in line for a restroom is beyond me.

Hubby and I went to the Norah Jones concert at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee last Friday night.  I realize some people out there are thinking, "Wow, Sarah went to a concert?  Really?"  And also, "I didn't realize Sarah was a Norah Jones fan."

Let me put some doubts to rest:  I am NOT a Norah Jones fan.  The kids and I call her "Snorah Jones." While her voice is pleasant and her music is calming, it's not something I would pay to go hear live. So why was I standing in a restroom line at her concert?hubby 

Hubby listens to this really, really local radio station in town.  88.9 Radio Milwaukee.  I kid him about the station because he wins tickets from them all the time. He's always caller #4.  The joke is, only 4 people listen the station.  However, I will admit a weakness for their Saturday morning all request show.  Why I love it has less to do with the music (they play a wide array of funky stuff from national acts to super local bands) and more to do with the fact that regular people sound stupid on the radio and it makes for great comedy.  (If you live in the Milwaukee area, seriously, check out the station.  you'll hear variety with a capital V.)

Anyway, so Hubby won a pair of tickets to last week's Norah Jones concert. We had to go. I mean, of all the tickets he's won, this was actually an act I've heard of and at a theater where I knew there would be chairs.  (He once won tickets to see "Trampled by Turtles" at Turner Hall in Milwaukee. There were exactly two chairs in the building and those were reserved for the parents of the lead singer.  I can't make this stuff up.)

ANYWAY, the Riverside is one of those great old theaters with velvet chairs and gold wallpaper and very, very old restrooms.  And very small restrooms.  So I'm standing in line just ahead of these two women who were beefing about the wait.  And this is the conversation I heard:

Woman 1: The only time I didn't have to wait in line was in the 90's when the Packers went to the Superbowl...because women didn't go to football games in the 90's.

Woman 2:  That's true.  It's different now. Women go all the time.

Ummmm....were they talking about the 1890's?  I mean, sure, the NFL has marketed to women much more in the last ten years, but still Packer fans, men or women, go to the games plenty.  So....you didn't have to stand in line because...maybe all the other women were watching the game?

Woman 1:  I grew up in Green Bay, but I don't even care about football.

Woman 2:  Same here.  

Now I'm angry.  You don't care about football and you got to see the Packers in the Superbowl in New Orleans?  now I KNOW you skipped the game and used the restroom instead.  

Woman 1:  There should only be ladies' rooms and unisex bathrooms.

Woman 2:  Exactly.

It's a good thing that at this point it's my turn to get in a stall because I wanted to whirl around and slap them both and say, "It's not a crime to be a guy!"

You all know how I feel about the bathroom issue.  If not, there are several blogs dealing with it. Having all unisex bathrooms is fine. But having one specific one for women and then a unisex one...come on.  That attitude isn't about equality, it's about wanting everything for yourself.

BTW, the crowd that night was pretty evenly split between men and women. The reason the men's line was much shorter is that men don't spend five minutes checking their look in the mirror.

Men also don't need a tutorial from me on how to operate the soap dispenser...which I had to give to a couple ladies that night.  But that's another story.

So I get back to my seat, seething in righteous anger that these two old bats had 1)  Grown up in Green Bay with no appreciation for the Packers, 2)  One of them had gone to the Superbowl and clearly not appreciated the experience and 3)  They didn't think there should be mens' rooms at all.

I relayed this to Hubby...and pretty much everyone around me because I don't have a soft voice when I'm mad.  

And that's when Hubby put the whole bathroom thing into perspective.

He said, "I don't care if there's no specific men's room.  As long as there's a tree in the lobby, I'm
fine."

It's often been said, "All the world's a toilet when you're a guy."  If that's true then I suppose most guys wouldn't care if none of the world had a "MEN" sign on the door.

But also I'm glad there wasn't a tree in the lobby because...ew.