The Joys of Airport Bathrooms

A little bit of personal travel this week gave me the opportunity to experience one of life’s little dichotomies – the airport bathroom. On the one hand, airport bathrooms can be pretty gross, but what public bathroom isn’t? On the other hand, airport bathrooms – at least in North America – tend to incorporate little niceties and technological advances not found in many other places. What, you may ask, am I talking about?

1. Urinal Partitions: These are all the rage in airport bathrooms, and (for the most part) allow adjacent urinals to be used simultaneously without a breach of etiquette. Why aren’t these things everywhere?!
2. Fancy Hand Dryers: Ever use a Dyson Airblade? I have, in an airport bathroom. Those things are awesome!
3. Wall Hooks: That’s right, I was in an airport bathroom today that had hooks on the wall. You actually had a place to put your bag that wasn’t the scaggy ground! I’m not saying I want to lick a bathroom wall anytime soon, but it’s got to be cleaner than the floor.

Heck, with the state of air travel these days (miserable), airport bathrooms can be the highlight of a trip. We’ll talk about the wretched smell in that bathroom at Sea-Tac another time…