- Cape Rolling Out Bloomfield Road Art Trail (8/21/19)1
- Donors Pledge Almost Two Grand To Replace SEMO's Possibly Sentient ‘Gum Tree' (8/16/18)
- SEMO and The Will To (Become A Consultant) – Part 2 (6/14/18)
- SEMO and The Will To Do (You Really Want To See That Legal Notice?) – Part 1 (6/4/18)
- Judge, Jury... Trashman (6/1/18)
- Diary of Cape Girardeau Road Deconstruction (5/11/18)
- Trying To Save A Tree From City “Improvements” (4/30/18)2
Amazing Restrooms!
I was recently filling up my truck at the Mercato convenience store at the intersection of Bloomfield and Mount Auburn, when a message on the business' digital signboard caught my eye. Sandwiched somewhere between advertisements for fuel prices and beef jerky was the following bit of self-promotion:
Amazing Restrooms!
That made me very curious. First of all, restrooms are not exactly something a business -- almost any business unless you happen to own a Port-a-Potty franchise -- tends to promote. Customers just expect restrooms to be available in case they need to use one and really only care that they are clean and have sufficient supplies of TP. They are like a roof. You never see a business touting the fact that they are 99% leak-free. Customers just expect it to be that way.
Secondly, what does it take for a restroom to be considered amazing? What makes Mercato's restrooms more amazing than say the public restrooms at Menard's just down the street? Do the restrooms at Mercato have bidets or maybe TVs over the urinals like they do at Buffalo Wild Wings? I guess either of those would be a little bit amazing to experience at a convenience store.
Or does Mercato have employees stationed in the restrooms to hand users a hot towel and mist them with cologne as they are leaving? I've seen this type of service in some ritzy hotels. Personally, I never found it all that amazing. A little creepy, yes, but amazing, no.
And how does one go about getting your restroom certified as amazing? Do you have to get a license from the city? "Regular" restrooms are ten dollars, but for twenty you can legally promote that your business has a bona fide "Amazing" restroom.
Or is there some kind of an independent evaluation board that sends specially trained examiners to public restrooms to assess them -- "Toilet paper. Check." -- and perhaps poll the people exiting -- "On a scale of one to five where one is very dissatisfactory and five is very satisfactory, how would you rate your experiences in THIS restroom today?"
I suppose this could also be a "Gone Girl" movie reference. Rosamund Pike's character was the basis for a line of books written by her parents detailing the exploits of Amazing Amy. In the "Gone Girl" novel, Amy does stop at a gas station restroom in one scene, but even if she had used the one at this particular convenience store, I don't think her mere presence would make it amazing. She didn't have the Midas touch. And even if she did have that ability, I think it would only make the ladies' room amazing. The men's restroom would still just be an ordinary men's restroom.
Of course, if this were a century ago, pretty much any form of indoor plumbing would be considered amazing to a large part of the population. But this is not 1914, it's 2014, and therefore you might be curious as to what could possibly be so amazing about the restrooms at Mercato.
Unfortunately, I can't tell you.
At the time, I didn't have to go.
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