There’s furniture in the ladies’ room!?!?
So, uh, 37.
I started cleaning bathrooms when I was 16. I’ll maintain until the day I die that women’s bathrooms are filthier, but they did have a little couch and a little makeup mirror in the front room, so not all bad.
Are you kidding? Put a barcolounger, a giat screen TV, and a chest full of beer in there, and you’d never get me out of there.
That’s the private bathroom upstairs, of course. Not the crappy one down the hall.
Around 16. I got at job as a bagger at the corner supermarket, and had to clean the bathrooms. I was surprised to find a bench in there.
That job also dispelled the myth that women’s restrooms are cleaner than men’s. :eek:
IIRC, I was in a restaurant and I saw someone open the door. There was some kind of nice love seat with flowers in the women’s room. I remember thinking, “??!??!?!” I can’t remember where it was, but it was not a fancy place.
I was 22, I think. My girlfriend was standing up in a wedding; one of the other bridesmaids (sister of the groom) was 7 months pregnant. The pregnant bridesmaid went to the ladies’ room, and, one by one, my girlfriend and the other bridesmaids joined her. After ten or fifteen minutes, the “guys” realized that all of the bridesmaids had been missing for some time. Worrying that something might be wrong with the pregnant woman, we sent in another woman to see if everything was all right.
They were all relaxing in there, the pregnant woman with her feet up on a chaise, and all of them chatting with her, and appreciating that the chairs in the women’s room were far more comfortable than the chairs in the reception hall. 
Notice that not many women are coming in here to give excuses why they never told all of us about it.
I expect to get threats from the female secret societies for creating this thread. I’m taking a hit for the team, guys. Fighting ignorance and all that.
One minute ago… I’m 28.
My sort-of-secondhand story:
I learned when I was maybe 21 or 22 or so, which was in 1972-1973 or so. I worked as a computer operator at a state university. The bathrooms were in a public area, where it was mostly students around. The place was open 24/7. I worked night shift, when there was generally hardly anybody else around (except towards the end of the semester when everybody’s projects were about due).
There were maybe 5 operators on the night shift, all male. One of them was in the habit of going into the ladies’ room during his break and falling asleep on the sofa there. So around the end of his break time, one of the others had to go in there to roust him up to get back to work.
That was the first I learned that the dainty ladies had soft cushy furniture, and that there was an anteroom for it.
Didn’t see that, but I’m picturing the ladies being fed grapes by balding pudgy males dressed in togas.
In college. Probably about 20 or 21.
It had a couple of guys dressing as women to see what was going on in there, getting caught, and being blinded and kept as servants.
I do not remember the last part of that. I do remember that they snuck in wearing wigs that their wives had just bought.
And I remember a very effeminate Eddie Murphy shouting “There’s men in the ladies’ room!”
Probably 15 or so, when I finally ran into a building that still did that.
I think the sketch started with the guys wondering why women go to the bathroom in pairs/groups, and why it takes them so long. (Female, here, so I knew.)
That’s why they finally had to get rid of them.
Huh. Found out age 29. And female.
Apart from maybe a rickety old chair that I’ve never seen anyone use, I don’t remember seeing furniture in women’s bathrooms. Maybe it just never made it this side of the pond, or maybe it’s just because I go to scummy places?
It’s really not all that common here. The only places I’ve seen it are catering halls (which sometimes have a dressing table sort of set-up, with chairs and a counter in front of mirrors) and one office I worked in , which had an old ratty couch that no one ever used.
Before I was an adult, but I couldn’t tell you what age. Saw it in a movie or two.
Yup, I’m in the UK too and I was in my mid twenties before I came across anything like this. It was in a nice hotel and was very snazzy.
Hijack: I’ve seen the opinion about women’s bathrooms/toilets being as filthy as men’s before but it’s not true over in my experience – unless British men’s loos are a lot cleaner than I think. The worst thing I generally see is paper towels and loo roll on the floor. Oh and you have to check in case a hoverer has been in but this seems to be getting rarer. Sticky floors and poo are rarities that I’d associate with loos in parks or really nasty pubs. And even park loos are getting better.