HEY! MEIJER! It's all fun and games until I have to use your restroom!

Here we go! Merry Christmas to All!  It's the 23rd of December and I was all set to write a really lovely holiday post about how my mother has become really passive aggressive regarding my housekeeping lately.  (Trust me, THAT was going to be LOVELY compared to what's coming.)  The problem is, after a wonderful dinner with an old college friend, Hubby and I made a stop...and that's where disaster struck.

Those of you who know me, or who read this blog on a regular basis, know that I would rather walk across hot coals than use a public restroom.  I've pontificated often enough about the woes, the pitfalls, and the nonsense I've experienced in public toilets all across this fine US of A.  (I recently read an article about restrooms in other countries that pretty much cured me of any desire to travel.)

Last night, on our way home from a really beautiful dinner with an old friend who's in the area for the holidays (That would be TODD of the "Todd, you've been warned" fame.) Hubby and I stopped at the Meijer store on our way home. Please note: This was NOT our regular Meijer in Waukesha, where the restrooms have been, in my experience, perfectly lovely.  This was a different Meijer.  And, in fairness, it was 7PM three days before Christmas.

Still. I checked.  Those bathroom check lists...yeah, that had been filled out.  So either that one ladies' room got crazy stupid busy between 6PM and 7PM on a Sunday night (I'm thinking not likely since this was the facility at the BACK of the store) OR, and this is what I'm going with, maybe the restroom checking isn't as, um, detailed as it should be.

Not that the restroom was dirty. It was not.

There were no bad smells. Nothing was overflowing.  The hot and cold water was working, there was paper towel in the dispenser for hand drying.  There were no puddles anywhere and everything was flushed clear.

So what...oh what...oh what could have been wrong?

Now, from here on it, it gets a little gross. So...TODD...don't read beyond this if you're easily grossed out!  (Or if you're going to send me an email or accost me in the hallway at church letting me know I grossed you out. YOU. HAVE. BEEN. WARNED.)

They. Were. Out. Of. Toilet. Paper.

THEY WERE OUT OF TOILET PAPER!

It was one of those double sided dispenser, and I'm a former janitor so I reached past those sharp teeth of death (why do we need such sharp edges to cut single ply paper?  Those teeth cut skin!  If it can puncture skin, it's complete overkill for use in cutting through translucent TP.) and I felt nothing. Not  a single square.

Now, normally this is not a problem. I mean, I typically carry a couple packets of nose tissue with me in my purse. 

Except....

Thanks to tightened security in various places and since I hate dragging a big purse around all the time, but it's still a necessity even though I'm lightyears past the diaper bag era of my life, I've been switching between my big purse and my little purse. Last night was a little purse night.

The nose tissues didn't make the jump.

What does one do?

Well...one does what one can.  And in this case...one had to use a teeny, tiny little lens whip she just happened to have in the bottom of her purse to clear up...enough...so that one could then move from the first stall to the second with a modicum of dignity.

Two lens wipes would have been good, but you know, I had one.

As a side note, I did the best I could with what I had and then moved over to the second stall, this one the handicapped stall.Now, I don't know what kind of ADA rules are in place for these stalls, but I found it really difficult to believe that in that entire GIANT stall one about the size of my home bathroom) the only place they could put the toilet was within four inches of the wall.  Seriously.  Anyone actually needing a handicapped stall could have parked a whole music festival of wheelchairs in there, but no one, and I mean no one, would have been able to actually use the toilet unless they sat side saddle, which is just uncomfortable.

Anyway, there WAS TP in there. Not in the dispenser...just a large wheel of single ply resting on the grab bar.  So...thusly I managed clean up and left the restroom determined the tell the first associate I saw that they needed to restock.

And then I didn't because the first associate I saw was a teen aged boy who looked like nothing in the world would make his life worse than to have me talk to him about toilet paper.  Instead, well, instead I waited a day and I'm sharing it with the rest of the world.

Well, it was a lens wipe, so my bum feels streak free?

Anyway, Merry Christmas. And Happy Hanukkah for my friends out there who celebrate that.  May your holidays be happy and bright and may your toilet paper be well stocked.

But just in case, I'll leave this cute picture of a Christmas goat for you to enjoy.