Black Beans and Ruby Slippers

I'm a bit torn about this morning. How to separate the restroom from the restaurant? I LOVE Darby's. The college town style breakfast joint is the best in Olympia. The funky atmosphere. The cheerful hip hop and funk music blasting from the speakers. The the way the servers are both intimidating and warm (I think of them, as i think of myself, as "cheerful misanthropes"). The over the top Wizard of Oz decor always entertains. The food is great. I really like a place that gives you an option to get black beans with your eggs instead of meat. Not that I ever order the beans; I adhere to a pretty strict "as much breakfast sausage as possible" diet when I'm out. By the way, I had the latkes this morning, which pretty much guarantees that there will be napping when you get home (I didn't disappoint on the Saturday nap -- though the girls did their best to prevent it).

Also, Darby's has a panel from "Get Fuzzy" up on the wall (one of the panels from the week that Rob wore a Darby's t-shirt).

I even like the fact that Darby's is small enough that you have to wait for your table OUTSIDE -- usually in the cold and rain. It makes me feel like I've payed a bit of penance before breakfast. But once you get in, it's like a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy enters any manner of secret treasure room. All the snakes and poison darts are worth it in the end.

But then you visit the restroom, and are completely underwhelmed. Aside from the walls being an attractive hunter green, the restroom is about as boring as can be. It's clean enough, but not remarkably so. I just heard the Elie Wiesel quote this week that goes something like this:

"The opposite of love is not hate; it's indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness; it's indifference.   The opposite of faith is not heresy; it's indifference."

You get the point. The opposite of a great restroom is not a horrible one. It's a boring one. Nothing notable. Nothing distinguishing. How do you really rate something like that?

Yes, it had a minimal amount of graffiti, but not enough to really make any kind of impression. But there's NO art on the walls. The toilet is unremarkable. There's even a boring black metal patio table in there, but was oddly free of ANYTHING.

I hate writing this kind of review. Not only is the restroom a let down (a disappointment on its own merits), but I had such high hopes because of how much I love the place. Anyway, you'll at least be happy to hear that this won't prevent me from eating at Darby's whenever I can.

Rating:

Cleanliness: C+

Decor: D-

Facilities: C+ (it has a decent sink)

Overall: C (indifferent).

Orca Books

I have always liked utility sinks. It seems like it'd be due to the ruggedness of the heavy duty plastic basin. But what I really think is that they're pretty much splash and spill proof. They're not like those shallow basins where it's a given that you get soaked from all the spilled and splashed water on the counter.

At first I was ready to give a review that highlights the restroom at Orca Books (downtown Oly), and its strategic placing of book posters around the walls. And the poster ARE fun to read, but it's not what i like the best. That utility sink gets me excited everytime I go in there.

And oddly (yes, i realize you don't want to know this) I almost always have to go to the bathroom when i go to Orca. It's probably because I sometimes go there as the second part of a date with Erin, after we've gone out to eat. It's also because I take FOREVER to browse for books.

So we've established that I like the utility sink, and that the book posters are entertaining (though they always seem to be oriented toward kids' books -- they could work on that). There's also this funky wooden dresser thing in there. I haven't gone through it (yet), I think because I want to fantasize that the people who work there keep personal bathroom items in there (like hairbrushes, and deoderant and binaca). I like to think they live there. Huh...when i write it out like that it's kind of a weird thought. Well, I guess I've always wanted to live in a book store. There -- it's out in the open now.

Anyway, I was also very pleased that the bathroom was clean there. And there air is nice and cool -- that's very important. And -- aha (!) -- check out the deadbolt on the door in the photo of the sink. You can feel nice and secure in there.

The one thing i don't like about it is that to get to the bathroom you have to head back like you're going into the "authorized personnel only" section of the store. It's ALMOST like you are looking behind the "curtain". I'm a little uncomfortable about that. Chalk that up to another weird neurosis I have. This wouldn't bother normal people i guess.

Overall ratings:

Cleanliness: A-
Decor: B (though I could be convinced to upgrade this if there were some better book posters)
Amenities: A- (god, i love that sink. i'd give this an A if it didn't have a slightly funky sponge on the sink)
Overall: B+

Vic's

Normally, I get a little nervous in a small restroom -- and frankly it takes away from the whole expereince if i feel the walls are closing in on me. Not at Vic's Pizzeria on Oly's westside.

First, a little back story. I hadn't intended for Vic's restroom to be the subject of my first review. I had somewhere else picked out, and I've been dying to go there all week long so i could survey it formally (I won't reveal where it is until I go there). Anyway, the girls and I went out for Pizza tonight and Allegra had to use the bathroom (which happens absolutely everywhere we go -- and now that I think about it -- she might be the perfect cover for future restroom visits). As soon as we stepped into the closet sized restroom, I knew it was right. A small room is normally not my favorite, but this one was cozy in a good way.

So Vic's has the standard wall coverings in a hip kinda place -- lots of music and event posters. I normally don't get off on that kind of thing, but the posters in Vic's restroom were mostly obscure enough to intrigue me a bit. Even though many of the posters were for events that already occurred, i got the sense that they changed them fairly often. It could be because the place felt VERY clean. That was my overall sense of the room -- clean. Even the graffiti on the papertowel and toilet paper dispensers seemed clean.

As far as the amenities themselves go: the toilet was sturdy and clean; there was a good soap dispenser; and the sink and mirror were in good shape. The one thing that I didn't like so much was that the lock on the door didn't inspire much confidence. I always prefer a restroom with just one toilet, so you can enjoy your business -- but a flimsy lock always puts me a bit on edge. I'm not too excited about having someone walk in on me. A good deadbolt always allows me some peace of mind.

So that's it, the first quick review. So my overall ratings for Vic's restroom are:

Decor -- B+
Amenities -- B (but only because of the less than inspiring lock)
Cleanliness and Aroma -- A-
Overall -- B+

Oh, and by the way, Vic's has the best pizza in Olympia (sorry Old School).

Here goes...

I guess this all started back in 1996 or 1997, when I was in grad school. I was in Mann Library at Cornell University, and nature called. I’m not sure how I stumbled upon it, but there was a bathroom in the stacks (not in the lobby, but right there in the stacks!). I walked through the door, and felt a bit like Alice tumbling into Wonderland.

Something struck me about the beauty of that room. Everything in the restroom was stainless steel (maybe it was really aluminum – but I remember it as stainless): the toilet, the sink, the walls, the floor – everything. Not sure why I found that to be so amazing because I guess it sounds kinda clinical. Anyway, the metal finishes seemed brand new. Either that or the custodian at Mann Library was a cleaning genius. The metal also made the environment feel cool, almost cold. And frankly that made it delightful to use the facilities. The room was small, maybe a little bigger than a walk-in closet – and there was something a little dangerous about the fact that the bookshelves surrounded the bathroom immediately on its outside walls. I could hear people rummaging through the shelves, which normally would have inhibited my bathroom activity. But somehow I think the metal environs protected me from what could have been a bit embarrassing. It was perhaps the greatest restroom visit I had ever made – and I visited it many times for my remaining 2 years in Ithaca.

Ever since that day I’ve been threatening to write a “field guide to public restrooms”. Frankly, public restrooms fascinate me. And let me stop right now to say that this fascination is NOT tied to any lurid desire to troll for romance or lusty encounters in the bathroom. I’m not a prude by any means, but I’ve always been a bit skeeved out by the thought of “romantic” encounters in the bathroom. I have just always admired the public restroom – we’ll leave it at that.

What I hope will follow over time will be a number of accounts about public restrooms I encounter. I’ll take a shot at rating them, describing them and hopefully publish a picture or two of each one. Yes, I know that this whole endeavor smacks of the scatological obsession of a 12 year old boy. I’m not sure how to respond to that other than to say – I am who I am.

I hope to have regular posts here (weekly, maybe?). Of course most posts will be from the greater Olympia, Washington area – since that’s where I live. But I hope to do my best to document some other restrooms when I’m away from home too.

Oh, and by the way, the title of this blog – “les affaires sont les affaires” – comes from the French saying that “business is business”. It’s also from a small water color painting that we had hanging in our bathroom as a kid. It showed a little kid sitting on the toilet, with his pants down to his ankles – and he was leaning over reading a book on the floor at his feet. The caption at the bottom of the piece was “les affaires…”