I thought men were the lazy ones, and then I walked into the ladies room at Walmart. It made me want to throw up, but I couldn’t because the toilet was overflowing with balled up tissue and impurities. Come on, ladies… nobody wants to see that shit—literally!

It’s a little-known fact that women are more repulsive than men when it comes to restroom etiquette. In the past ten years, I have not had the pleasure of finding more than two clean stalls in a public restroom at any given time. Below is an example of what women like me have to go through whenever we need a quick shot of relief in a public facility.

You walk in, gagging from the grisly funk, and slide past a series of disheveled basins. Soap is dripping all over the counters and splashing to the floor, but no one cares. There is a woman standing in front of a mirror with her mouth open. She’s putting on lipstick and pretending not to see you. You both know what is going to happen.

The first stall is unacceptable, so you roll your eyes and move to the next. It isn’t any better; in fact, it’s worse. “Seriously?” you say out loud in hopes that the mirror goddess will acknowledge your objection, but she does not. She continues to ignore you while pursing her lips.

You move along to door number three, but it’s locked. Someone has apparently fastened the lever and crawled out from underneath —most likely a child. But any fool can peek through the crack and see that it’s not worth investigating.

So you step down the runway and kick in door number four. This is where you begin to weigh your options. You calculate the exact number of items you need to buy and determine how long it will take you to pay for them and drive home safely. Once you realize the improbability of a successful mission, you move on to the final door. “For the love of all things hygienic,” you say to yourself, “please do not let this be like the others.”

I call door number five the crapshoot (pun intended) because you never know what you’ll find. Sometimes it’s clean; sometimes not, but it’s always designed for the handicapped. If it is satisfactory, you will scan the room for preachy eyes and step forward. However, if the odor is worse than the visual, you are face-to-face with the most revolting decision of the day: which door to choose. Will it be door number three, door number one, or the sink?

By now, the lipstick queen has evacuated and left you alone to determine your fate. There is a moment of shameless awareness that comes from small bladders called fuck it… I have got to pee! And so you do, squat-peeing like a four-year-old on a jungle gym.

Last week, I stopped in to grab a coffee at Starbucks. There was a woman in the ladies room and I was in a hurry, so I snuck into the men’s. I couldn’t believe how clean it was. I mean, there was nothing: no scraps on the floor, no dripping soap, no evidence in the bowl–nothing! It was as if Hazel herself had come in and squeegeed the entire room wall-to-wall, and I couldn’t believe my eyes.

But this isn’t the first time I’ve dodged the ladies room to use the men’s; it’s more like the twenty-fifth. What I’ve learned during those daring expeditions in the men’s room is that they are significantly cleaner than we are when it comes to using the loo. I don’t know, maybe it’s because they don’t wash their hands or sit, but they are fast and they do flush, which are two things I find appealing.

Let’s face it, ladies… the powder room doesn’t exist anymore. It has been replaced by a vile and tainted replica of an outhouse from 1942, and something needs to give. I would like to create a (non-bowel) movement that will inspire women to clean up after themselves in the ladies room. Don’t hear a flush? Give a tap on the door to remind them. Water running all over the sink because someone forgot to turn it off? Do it for them; do it for us.

Let’s stop flushing our pride down the shitter and take a stand for sterility. If we don’t do it, no one will, and sometimes the men’s room is full.

This post was originally published online at Sassypiehole.