The Continuing Quest to Pee

It’s been away since I have discussed the state of facilities here in Canada though it occurs to me that I am perhaps being unfair in labeling the whole of the country a no-pee zone. It could be just an Alberta problem. For a province with a boom economy and a building streak that has buried an entire canola field under a slew of condos and houses in the Fort since I have moved up here, not much is being done to address the lack of public washrooms.

Americans are spoiled. I will admit that right up front. There are very, very few places one to go to that are not adequately equipped with restrooms. The need for elimination is sometimes covered to the point of overkill. Although I hadn’t thought of this before just now, it could be that Americans really are as incontinent as the dearth of commercials for ? would seem to imply. Or it could be that Canadians are just the camels of the continent in terms of bladder capacity. Rob’s girls assure him that the human bladder can only hold a litre of liquid. Rob doesn’t believe that as he was complimented not long ago in public restroom in Iowa on his capacity, but in retrospect that could be just evidence for my theory that Americans need to pee a lot. That could be a Pavol’s dog thing however. American’s have a lot of easy restroom access leading them to pee at whim which and thus retraining their bladders into wimpiness whereas Canadians often can’t find a public toilet and have mammoth capacity for storage and patience to wait as a result. Nah, Canadians just pee outside when they can’t find any place indoors. And believe me, that is the norm in public places.

Today, I was picking up photo reprints at the London Drug in Sherwood Park. It has exactly one washroom. Unisex. And you have to track down the guy who works in Electronics to get the key to open it. He is rarely behind the counter. When I asked for the key today, he informed me that someone was using the washroom. I went and waited by the door. Knocked. Waited. Jingled the doorknob. Heard noise faintly from inside. Waited some more. And finally in desperation I walked quickly back to my vehicle and headed over to the Safeway only to find that they too had one unisex washroom for the entire store. Fortunately it was not in use or this tale would have an embarrassing, for me, ending.

I am in awe of Canadians. There ability to forgo peeing when out in public spaces in something to admire and possibly even strive to emulate. I am not sure at all how to train myself out of the need to pee. I have tried not taking in liquid when I need to travel or be away from home in general. I end up with cracked lips and a bad headache however. One thing that still puzzles me though is why when there are so few of them to clean anyway are washrooms here always so dirty?