The Men’s Room at the Seattle Public Library Sucks
The men’s room at the seattle public library sucks. Now, the rest of the library is pretty amazing. It is over 10 stories tall, made of glass and steel, and oddly shaped. The floors are made of renewable, recycled materials and there is even a creepy mouth/eye thing that mutters words at you as you ride up the escalator. I’m no architect but usually these types of things earn major kudos with the building-lover crowd.
The bathrooms however are terrible. They are bright day-glow green which usually would be a plus, but given the ventilation is poor it is less Kool-Aid acid trip and more vomit at the bottom of a wastebasket. People are always camped out in the stalls. When I say camped out, I mean that they are occupying a stall with the intent to be in there awhile, but they also brought appropriate support gear for an extended stay. Backpacks are the norm, sometimes equipped with sleeping rolls, shopping bags, snacks, portable tv, who knows what else, I’m too afraid to go in there and take inventory.
And that is the point. It is not a fun place to be, and more so than other men’s rooms, no place to make new friends. Usually though, as long as you are answering nature’s call from Number One, you can get your business done in an efficient manner and vacate pronto. Today however, bad got worse. Today I found that the eco-friendly hot air hand dryer is no longer working, and in line with the eco-friendliness of the rest of the building, there are no paper towels to serve as an axillary hand-wiping implement. Swell.
