The Cost of Doing Your Business...

One of the things most Americans find difficult to adjust to in Europe is having to pay for your…uh, well, your private business, inside a bathroom. With the pleasant exception of airports, nearly everywhere else in Europe (even many restaurants in tourist areas) you have to be prepared to pay to pee, to put it bluntly. Actually, you pay one price for whatever you choose to do behind closed doors. Except that, for men, they really aren’t closed doors. It is not at all unusual to have a female attendant busy scrubbing a sink or the floor while you are standing at the urinal attending to matters of state. Fortunately (I’m not sure that is actually the best word), these Toilet Ladies are invariably old and unattractive. Then again, this is rarely a place men go to find beautiful ladies to pick up.
The average price in Belgium is 50 Euro cents, or about 75 U.S. cents. There is no discount for a “quick trip” to the men’s room, nor anything like a “frequent flier program” after several beers, but then again there is also no penalty for what we might term an extended stay, thanks to spicy Thai cuisine the night before. The record price I’ve ever seen is almost $1.50 – just to pee! This was noted in the Cologne train station. Granted, the bathroom was immaculate and the attendants actually wore starched white uniforms (this was Germany, after all), but I would gladly have accepted a hag in dirty blue jeans if we could have cut the pee-price in half, say. I picture a gang of American college frat guys hitting the town and eating and drinking literally everything within sight, simply to make sure they “got their money’s worth” at the station toilet.
There are rumors that Ryan Air, the most famous European discount airline may actually start charging 5 Euros for a single potty visit – that’s nearly $7.50, folks! What we pay for an in-flight meal, Europeans will now have to pay for… oh, forget it, it’s too gross even for me. Another Ryan Rumor is that they are adding more seats on each aircraft by cutting the number of bathrooms down to one. How’d you like to be Lucky Pierre on the 3-hour flight across the continent, sharing a plane with Mister Occupado, who decides to really get his money’s worth by hogging the one and only toilet for the better part of the flight? Once again I find my sick mind pondering how those U.S. frat guys are going to handle this situation and save a few bucks…