I’m at work, in a corporate office setting today. Because it’s very early, there is some general cleaning happening in the rest rooms. As I headed to the Men’s Room, I saw the Ladies’ Room door held far ajar by a janitorial cart.
They’ve got big cushy chairs in there. They’ve got wallpaper and floor lamps…and…carpeting. It’s soothing and inviting in there.
The Men’s Room is clinical, cold and small. White tile, brushed stainless steel. I’m jealous. Nay, seething with jealousy. Aside from perhaps the need to sit down in a comfy chair to nurse your baby ( a virtual impossibility in this corporate office, since there are no child care areas anywhere, and so the odds of lots of women nursing is close to nil ), why is it that ?
Before I become engulfed in the fiery agony of flaming for attacking women who are in the midst of their periods, I understand the need for some comfort and quiet sometimes. I’ve been married for almost one hundred and seventy-five years. I get it.
Why can’t men enjoy the same level of quiet and moments of creature comforts???
It’s a holdover from the days when ladies retired en masse to the ladies room on social occasions for some makeup touchup and lots and lots of gossip. Oh, wait, we still do that. Well, some office buildings haven’t figured out that it’s unproductive to make it easy to do that in the ladies room at work, too. And I’m jealous myself – not many offices are that well equipped today.
Some bathrooms still have the old “fainting style” couches in them… Ladies used to wear corsets, and couldn’t always breathe very well etc, and when out in public would feel faint and go and pass out in the bathroom for a few minutes. In the bathroom so they could keep their delicate dignity intact. A couch is much better than a dirty floor, esp in a white dress.
Personally I would escuse myself from the Sunday sermon, and use the couches in the bathrooms at church to sleep on for the next hour and a half.
Oh and since there is always water around sinks, it gives a great place to rest that brand new leather purse without water stains.
No names and no cite but I saw an office products supply catalog that had ladies room couches or sofas because the laws in certain areas required that ladie’s rooms were to have a sofa.
Hey Cartooniverse, next time you are there early switch the signs.
Our restroom at work doesn’t have a sofa.
I think too many of the women would actually “hang out” there.
But I must say, that it takes a woman longer in the restroom due to all the hullaballoo we have to go through in order to even GO in the first place, especially when working.
I mean… think about it, we don’t just unzip and yank it out. We have to unzip/unbutton, extracate ourselves from nylons, sit, do our thing, then repeat the process… therefore, anyone that has to go AFTER that person, has to wait longer. And I haven’t taken any polls on it lately, but it’s easier for me to “hold it” while I’m in a sitting position.
I never understood it myself. Of all the places I would choose to sit and relax/reflect/ repose/recuperate, a bathroom isn’t anywhere on the list. There is a small couch in the ladies room where I work - if I make a pit stop on the way to the car, I’ll pile my stuff on the couch, but I don’t think I’ve ever sat upon it.
Most ladies’ rooms are also clinical, cold, and small. At least at state universities they are.
OTOH, my grandparents had their fiftieth anniversary bash at an officer’s club where the ladies’ room bordered on palatial. My girl cousin and I spend most of the evening sneaking my boy cousin in and out, until the janitor caught us in the act. (I was thirteen and had just been allowed my first glass of champagne. That was a fun evening.)
It probably does make more sense for a ladies’ room to have a chair or sofa, as it is much more common for a woman to have to “wait her turn” than a man. However, whenever I’ve been in ladies’ rooms with these kinds of amenities, I’ve always assumed the mens’ room would be equally nice. Guess I might have been wrong.
You beat me to it FCM. I’ve heard this gripe from men forever and all I can do is assure them that I have personally never benefited from this injustice.
Not to nurse my baby. Not in the grips of a migraine. Not doubled over with womanly pain. Not for a chat with my pals, a cup of tea, not even to catch my breath. Never ever ever have I sat on one of those cushy chairs or God forbid, stretched out on an inviting Ladies Room couch.
Get in get out fast is the name of the game. I don’t get it either.
Many of years ago there was a very silly SNL skit about the ladies room, where Bill Murray snuck in and there was a fountain and massage and skiing and a funny song that went “The ladies room, the ladies room…”
Does anyone ever sit on the furniture? No matter how “nice” and “clean” the facilities are, something about the fact it’s in the room with the toilets creeps me out. I have never sat on a chair or sofa no matter how fancy the accomodations were.
Mrs. Flesh and I work at the same company and I know that there’s a couch in the women’s restroom. Wife tells me that it’s not uncommon to hear someone throwing up from morning sickness. The couch is a good place to lay down and calm your stomach but still close enough to the Porcelain God if you gotta throw up again.