Is that why I can't use public toilets??

I avoid using public toilets

     I don't like them.  Men's rooms are always filthy.  My advice:  If going to a urinal, check the floor.  Find the driest spot and then spread your legs so you have two dry spots.
     Call it a wide stance, which got a congressman in trouble.  (Ok, he was in a stall at the time and his foot went under the wall into the next stall.  Now that is a wide stance!  Big news at the time, but who remembers his name now?)
     Many times in Europe there are attendants at the entrances.  They collect change, usually about 50 cents to use the bathroom.  It is worth it.  Most European bathrooms are clean.  Plus they have doors that go all the way to the floor, like a little room.  Using the facilities there is so much nicer.
     (Again, a digression.  Jackie and I were on a bus from St. Moritz to Lugano in Switzerland.  We stopped for a comfort break.  Jackie had to use the facilities, but she did not have to go bad enough to straddle the hole in the floor while holding on to the grab bars.  Yes, some toilets are stand uppers with a hole in the floor.)
     Going to the troughs at Wrigley is an experience.  You have to be desperate (I was) and not bashful at all as total strangers will line up next to you.  Some of them even bring their beers in and set them on the ledge above the trough!  How gross is that?  And some even talk to you.....pardon me, but I can only do one thing at a time well and it would be smart of you to not encourage my turning toward you when I am draining my body of morning tea, water and maybe some coffee.
     But now I know why I don't like public bathrooms.
     It goes back to Leave it to Beaver.  In 1957 they had an episode where the boys bought a little alligator and decided to keep it in the toilet tank so Ward and June didn't find it.  Censors refused to put the show on because they showed a toilet!!
    The network and the censors battled back and forth, with the concession being they could edit the story to show only the toilet tank and not the toilet itself.
     I was almost 10.  I loved Leave it to Beaver.  But deep down, in my sub-sub-subconscious, I must have realized that if you could not show it on television, it must be bad.
     Sure, cigarettes were everywhere.  It was ok to smoke, but not to use the bathroom!!
     All those formative hours spent in front of the new electronic marvel exposed me to smoke but not toilets.  So when I got older, I naturally had a fear of toilets.  I also had a fear of cigarettes, since my father seemed to set a record for cancerous parts in a body.
     To this day I still avoid using a public bathroom.
     Tomorrow I will tell you how one can overcome that fear in a foreign country.
   

PS....This is my 117th post.  I have only missed one day, but I did two entries the following day.  There have been 4,976 page views so far......so if you are reading this, you may be the person that puts it over the 5,000 mark.  Thank you for your support and your comments.  And when you use a bathroom, please wash your hands when finished.