Stalled

Hell hath no fury like a woman with a full bladder and nowhere to empty it.

Scrap that: hell hath no fury like a wheelchair-using woman waiting for someone to vacate the only accessible stall in a public washroom with plenty of unoccupied toilets.

And can you blame her/them/me? It’s hard enough to locate a wheelchair bathroom to begin with, and it isn’t as if I have any way to dodge the problem entirely. Although I can mitigate it a little by avoiding liquids prior to leaving the house, I’ve learned the hard way that not drinking for hours on end isn’t a great solution; I value my kidneys, and dehydration isn’t, as it turns out, a myth perpetuated by Big Water. So drink I do, which results in my cursing my responsible decision not to deprive myself of liquids when I go out and soon find myself, once again, with nowhere to go.

Accessible toilets are indeed few and far between—so much so, in fact, that I plan outings around the mental map of them I’ve compiled over the years. Every time I pass one of my favoured public toilets, I ask myself if I should stop, just in case, much as a parent encouraging their child to pee before getting in the car as to avoid a bathroom detour after ten minutes on the road might. No matter how diligent I am, though, no matter the precautions I take, by the time I’ve found a workable bathroom and entered it, I’ve already waited far too long and am, in a word, desperate.

It adds very unwelcome insult to injury, then, when I’m stalled by the unavailable stall.

There’s a pee dance particular to this situation, a wriggling and finger-tapping accompanied by throat-clearing and rolling forward and back a foot or two to make my wheelchair-bound presence known, to make sure that whoever’s chosen to use the only toilet accessible to me is aware that I’m waiting for them to hurry up and flush. This strategy is sometimes effective, but it more often backfires when the enemy in my territory drags it out, presumably hoping that if they take forever, I’ll give up and leave, thus sparing them the embarrassment of shuffling past me and/or making excuses for valuing their desire to urinate in a roomier space over my desire not to pee myself. I never do, which makes the inevitable all the more awkward. “Oh, I’m sorry, I almost never set my fully functioning foot in the wheelchair stall, I just didn’t think about, gosh, so sorry,” the culprit might say, training their gaze on the floor. I used to offer reassurances that it’s really OK, totally understandable, happens all the time!, and while at least one of those things is true, I’m now more likely to nod and, not smiling but not, to my credit, glaring, either, begin inching in the direction of the toilet, signalling to get out of my way.

I try—I really do!—to be patient and understanding. I also try to remember that invisible disabilities exist and that different people use accessible stalls, which are invariably the largest and often do double-duty as diaper-changing stations (gross, now that I think about it), for different reasons. Every so often, the door swings open and a small family bursts forth like clowns tumbling out of a clown car. Sometimes the person who emerges is using a mobility device that I didn’t spot when I nosily peeked down to check for wheelchair wheels. Let’s be real, though: the vast majority of the time, a seemingly able-bodied individual ambles out and strides in the direction of the sink. On the one hand, I get it: who wouldn’t want ample square footage to, I dunno, windmill your arms while doing your business? On the other, c’mon.

The infrequent occasion I happen to cross paths with a fellow wheelchair-user in public facilities—usually after one of us has been delayed by the other, given the whole one-stall thing—is a rare opportunity for genuine connection and commiseration of the kind only those habituated to this very specific waiting game can understand. We exchange an encoded glance that magically communicates many critical pieces of information at once. Large or small? Clean or dirty? “Accessible” or accessible? A knowing smile, a nod of recognition. No death glare necessary, and the mutual understanding that lingering isn’t an option. We’re both in a hurry: whoever’s just finished is probably late for something, having spent too long on the bathroom hunt and already anticipating having to find another one, and the next in line can’t think of much else but their bursting bladder and the fact that bathroom equity is an issue that really needs to be addressed in a systematic manner.

Back to that, and to my personal hierarchy of accessible toilets, when I’m home and secure in my knowledge that I can urinate at will, without struggle. I’m out now, and it just occurred to me that the closest accessible stall is ten minutes away. Better get moving.