Finding myself back from the sunny land of Philadelphia this morning, I wish to talk about...

Public Restrooms.

This isn't because I came from Philly today after spending an evening assisting the Cardboard Box Collaborative in their newest show, Now Serving - which anyone in the Philly area really must go and see. It's actually held over from my weekend in NYC this past weekend.

Well, what I really wish to talk about is something more specific about public restrooms.

For starters, if you are lucky enough to go to a nice, decent restroom, chances are that you will encounter those toilet seat covers.

As the daughter of an infection control nurse, I can tell you scientifically and without a doubt that these are a very important and good invention.

Now I've found that if you are loitering around reststops on the highway or turnpike, these come very much in handy. At the same time, however, the thing holding them to the wall is cheap as hell. So you go ahead and pull on one to use it and the thing rips halfway in your hand. A little annoying, you go ahead and pull on another one...which rips in your hand. After about four tries, you're pretty damn near frustrated, and depending on your situation, perhaps edgy as hell because you need to use the toilet. Finally, you slowly pull out one and the other halves that have ripped off in your hand stream out at you like candy out of a pinata.

This isn't the only frustrating thing.

Then you go to put it on the seat. You carefully rip the center out of the rest of the cover, like you do - and so that you don't have the uncomfortable situation where you pee on yourself - and place it gently on the seat. By the time you undo your pants and go to sit down, the weight of the center dropping to the toilet water has pulled the back of the seat cover into the toilet and is slowly beginning to drag the rest of the cover into the toilet with it.

So you grab another one - which proceeds to rip in your hand. So you go through the whole process again...

...and again.

By the time you finally get it to stay on the toilet, you've got seven toilet covers on the seat, twelve ripped up in the toilet so that you can't see the water in the bowl anymore, and you've lost the urge to use the toilet.

Is anyone else slightly frustrated or at least mildly amused by this situation? I find it annoying as hell, but really funny now that I think about it. I mean, if you're afraid of germs (thanks, mom) like I am, toilet covers serve a very important function. If they could figure out a way to design it so that you only have to use one...