Sometimes I wonder what they were thinking.

When people are building bathrooms, and in particular bathroom stalls, do you think it ever occurs to them that not all people are double-jointed Houdinis?

Maybe it’s the fact that I’m getting older and it seems like I have to go twice as often as I used to, but I’ve run into a bunch of these user-unfriendly ones lately.

You’ve heard of the “Fashion Police”?  Well, I’m thinking seriously about appointing myself the “Bathroom Police”.  Carry around my ticket book and slap flagrant violators with big fat tickets.

First is the “Too-Small-Stall”.  Just a couple of weeks ago at a restaurant, I pushed open a stall door.  As the door swung open, it barely cleared the porcelain throne.  Let’s just say it’s hard to be a lady and close one of said doors at the same time.

I squeezed myself in between the toilet and the wall, being careful not to break the toilet paper dispenser I was leaning on, and desperately holding onto my purse lest it slip into, well, you know what.  Once wedged, I did a half-backbend, reached over my shoulder, and finally got the door past my rear end.

It didn’t help knowing that I’d have to repeat the same exercise when it was time to get out.

Pretty blatant.  They’d get a ticket for sure.

My aunt has a relative of the “Too-Small-Stall”.  It’s the “Where’s-the-Legroom?-Bathroom”.  I’m not kidding here … there are only about eight inches between the toilet and the vanity.  You can’t stand facing the toilet and turn around, so you stand next to it and sort of slide into position.  Men in the family avoid this restroom like the plague.

Best to let this one slide because she ‘s a pretty good cook.  If she got a ticket, I can be pretty sure there wouldn’t be another invitation to Thanksgiving Dinner.

Then there’s the “How-Do-You-Get-This-Open?-Stall”. My favorite one was a handicapped stall that opened outward, only the hardware was on the inside.  The only way to open it was to reach up to the top of the door and pull.

I’m pretty sure the door had just been put on backwards. But you would have thought that whoever installed it might have wondered how a person in a wheelchair was going to reach up six feet to open it.

Really shameful. Two tickets. One for the guy who installed it; one to the place for never fixing it.

The next one is the “How-Do-You-Get-This-To-Close?-Stall”.  It’s probably the most common and most aggravating of them all.  Just talking about it raises the hair on the back of my neck.  Let me go ahead and get out my ticket book.

I was at the Astrodome, waiting in a really long line, when it was finally my turn.  I rushed into my stall, turned to lock it and … it wouldn’t.  So, I let go of the door, hoping it would just stay closed.

Of course it wouldn’t!  They never do!  Just as you take your hand off it to undo your belt, here it comes again.  You finally sit down, reaching out to keep it closed the whole time.

You have to take great care not to allow it to open even a fraction of an inch.  In a crowd of impatient women who have been drinking lots of fluids, this is taken as a sign that it is vacant, and without fail somebody will barge in on you.

“OH!  I’m so sorry!” she exclaims.  I’ll bet she is.  ‘Cuz now she’s getting a ticket, too.