Cruel Summer

"This heat has gone right out of hand..." Preach it, Bananarama. It doesn't help when the air conditioning unit for your house is broken. I think I must be getting soft in my old age. The central Florida house I grew up in did not have central a/c until I was middle school. (There were window units in the living room and my parents' room.) And, my first dorm at UF had no a/c. In both of these situations I survived just fine. Oh, the adaptability of youth!

Our a/c unit was fixed this afternoon (Thanks, Dan!) and I feel like singing and possibly dancing about the house. Meh. Maybe I'll wait on the dancing bit until the temperature in the house drops below 80F.

A Fresh Bowl

If you didn't watch Ally McBeal in the 90s (is it syndicated somewhere now?), then you might not get my reference to John "The Biscuit" Cage's preference for a fresh bowl: toilet bowl that is. Now, I don't normally go for potty talk - at least not on the blog - but I've been quietly pondering a rather troublesome workplace problem for quite a while. I've recently discovered that some of my coworkers have been wrestling with the same issue. What is causing all the angst? It's the bathrooms. That's right. Bathrooms.

I work at a world renowned public health agency with lots of highly educated public HEALTH professionals. Notice my subtle emphasis on "health". So how can it be that the bathrooms are so disturbing? The strangest part about this whole situation is that the bathrooms are 'cleaned' (I use this term loosely) twice each day. I just don't get it.

I've worked out a few theories but don't have the ability to test them out. I appeal to you for your thoughts on the matter. Do any of these seem like a good fit? Do you have any alternate hypotheses? Please. Help me understand.

Theory 1: Statistics. When you get a certain number of people together in one place (let's say one floor of an office building) there is a high probability of at least two (one male, one female) Josie Gross-ies to be in the mix. The rest of the population suffers because a small minority are rude.

Theory 2: Building design. During my tenure at this place of business I have seen all levels of bathroom design and technology. The first place I worked didn't have a/c in the restrooms, only super-hot radiators and crank windows painted beige. My current work site has all the latest automatic gadgets to supposedly make your bathroom visit as clean as possible. I've seen frightening things in all of these settings, which leads me back to the human component.

Theory 3: It's me. No, I'm not the Nasty Nancy! I mean it's just me that notices or even cares about these things. I wouldn't put this one at the top of the list. As I stated earlier, other coworkers have mentioned their concerns as well.

What do you think? Am I just being a baby? Am I wrong to expect my workplace restroom to be in much better shape than the public restroom at Daytona Beach?