This morning I witnessed an exceedingly unmannerly sight: a man was urinating on a tree in my neighborhood. Not just any tree, but a tree planted right next to the sidewalk on Wallingford’s busiest thoroughfare, 46th Street. Apparently, he didn’t know I was following him so closely and without looking around or behind him, he whipped out his pants weasel and went to town. I cleared my throat loudly and he jumped as I passed. I could see his stream waver slightly, but he kept on with it. Since I always have a baby strapped to my back nowadays, I have plus-ten in shaming ability, which is awesome and I use to my advantage when yelling at the high school hooligans in Wallingford. When he finished he lit a cigarette of empty-bladder relief. Unfortunately, we were both headed into Wallingford together, which was a little awkward; he stopped eventually and fooled with his cel phone and I passed.
I understand from reading personal accounts that an extremely difficult thing about being homeless the bathroom issue–it’s hard to find places to go and places to bathe. But there were several clues he wasn’t homeless. The cel phone, for one, and the cigarettes. He was also wearing jewelry and tidy clothes. So who pisses on a tree at nine-thirty in the morning on a really busy street? An uncouth rube, that’s who.
There are many places to legally go potty in Wallingford without shame or a big hassle. Here’s a few that I know of.
Ye Olde Uncouth Rube’s Guide to Finding a Bathroom in Wallingford, Accounting From West to East
Chevron Gas Station, 1420 N 45th St
Drinking fountain? No, but there’s a Squishy machine.
You will probably have to buy something, but you could get away with quarter candy. It’s newly remodeled and the sign says, “Beer. Need we say more?” That’s great.
Fremont Public Association, 1501 N. 45th
Drinking fountain? Yes.
This is the building that houses the Wallingford Library. If you enter the building adjacent to the library, you will find public restrooms. Why is the Fremont Public Association in Wallingford? I have no idea, Homes.
Wallingford Park, 4219 Wallingford Ave. N
Drinking fountain? Yes, but dogs drink out of it. Yuckers!
Remember, Seattle Parks’ bathrooms are only open from dawn-to-dusk. But the park’s a nice one.
QFC, 1801 N 45th St.
Drinking fountain? Dang, I don’t remember. But you might be able to mack on some samples if it’s the weekend.
The bathroom at the QFC is upstairs in the hippie food alcove. As far as I know, they don’t lock it when it gets late.
Wallingford Center, 1815 N. 45th St.
Drinking fountain? Yes.
The bathrooms are in the basement of Seattle’s favorite dying mall. Seriously, stores and restaurants are dropping like flies from that place, which is too bad, because what’s left is pretty cool. I hope they can at least lease out their empty restaurant space.
Meridian Playground, 4649 Sunnyside Ave N.
Drinking fountain? Yes.
Located at Meridian and 50th Streets, Meridian Park is off the beaten track of the exciting and glamorous Wallingford strip. But it’s another park where you can get your potty on. And, hey, the park is pesticide free!
Starbucks, 2110 N 45th St
Drinking fountain? Hell no.
If you meander around a little and pretend to look at their selection of fine mugware and over-roasted beans, you could probably slip in to the bathroom unnoticed.
After Starbucks, you are a little fucked for bathrooms until you get into the University District. There’s always the National Bank of Taco Time, at 2212 45th St., but you may have to buy some Mexi-tots or something. I hope this guide to using the bathroom in Wallingford for cheap or free will help the uncouth or uncomfortably pregnant. Use it, because I don’t want to see any more strange plonkers when I’m out on my daily constitutional, OKAY?
ALSO
Franny’s back!
She’s so cute! In countries in South America, men tend to pee outside–harder to find public bathrooms(but their favorite place to pee, for some reason, is always on the news kiosks. It’s sort of like the acceptable pee spot.
I need you in my neighborhood to suss out the pee opportunities! There’s no place to go!
Last Saturday, I was walking through Greenwich Village as it started snowing. I wandered onto a quiet, tiny little street with a row of beautiful townhouses, and it looked like a Christmas card. I stopped to take pictures, and fantasized about owning one of those (probably $5 million or so) townhouses.
As I was taking the pictures, a man asked me for money. I declined, and he kept walking. I finished taking the photos and started to walk away, and I passed him, urinating against the side of a building, across the street from the charming, historic, $5 million townhouses.
Perhaps public urination is the great equalizer?
Thanks for the public service announcement of your directory. Care to write one for New York?
Welcome back, Frannie!
I have made it my business to know where there is a public bathroom in many of the neighborhoods of Philly. It’s come in handy on many a drunken outing, and I anticipate the knowledge will be even handier if I ever get preggo.
Love Frannie’s hat. It reminds me of one I had to wear in my sister’s wedding, except mine was lipstick red, with netting instead of feathers. Ugh.
Nice to see Franny’s smiling face under that bit of glamour.
Nice pee encounter. I would imagine there was a lot of steam since it’s freakin’ bitter cold out right now.
Where not to pee #1: walking up the street near Cornish with a group of co-workers…a stream runs down the sidewalk from behind a blue mailbox next to the front door of the social security office…uh, hi there old man hunched behind the mailbox. What made you think that was okay? (We were only 2 blocks from Urban Rest Stop.)
Where not to pee #2: the property where I work was sold recently so my company’s security officers no longer patrol the small (used to be private) park in front of our building. Men are constantly peeing in the large cement garbage receptical. This is in a wide-open space near a 4-lane street and they do this ALL THE TIME–like they recommend it to each other.
Where not to pee #3: I was at softball practice at Woodland Park (on Phinney) and a teammate’s little boys ages 4 and 5 had to pee. She talked them into walking into the trees by the backstop and going. They came out waving a pair of mens underwear and we all screamed.
and he didn’t even wash his hands. ee-yew.
she looks fran-tastic in the blue!
Get Daniel on the job and you could have an I-Asshole-Where-To-Pee-Google-Maps-Mash-Up on your hands.
Did the librarian in you recoil when I capitalised “To”?
The very first time I ever got seriously drunk (as opposed to mildly drunk when Dad would use a little Everclear in milk to make me go to bed when I was rowdy) was when I was 16, which I know is late but I made a point of waiting until after I graduated from high school. So I graduated, waited a month, and got appallingly drunk at my friend Jon’s combination 4th of July slash housewarming party.
The way the party went was that Jon went out and bought two cases of beer, half a case of wine coolers and about $300 worth of fireworks. Me and about 5 of his other friends showed up around 4:00 and started playing with fireworks. Then we went inside and played some drinking game I don’t remember. Then we went out and played with fireworks some more– and drank and drank and drank.
By about 10:00 we were standing in the street lighting M80s, packets full of jumping jacks and ladyfingers and throwing them at each other, laughing like a bunch of drunk teenagers. Also, you know those boxes of rockets? So it’s like 60 little plastic rockets in a cluster of cardboard tubes that shoot out and fly all over the place because they aren’t stabilized in any way? We were lighting those and pointing them at each other. I have no idea how nobody got seriously injured.
The thing is, Jon’s new basement apartment was near the Seattle Zoo and at some point the zoo security people came and told us that we were scaring the shit out of the animals and could we please chill. We all immediately felt very guilty in that drunken teenager way. Fortunately we had one guy among us who hadn’t been drinking and we talked him into driving us down to Golden Gardens where I was so drunk that I got completely lost in the not-very-dark lost my group of friends and ended up getting left behind when they went home. They insisted that they’d spent at least an hour looking for me, walking up and down the beach yelling my name. I have no idea. I blacked out shortly after leaving them.
I woke up the next morning very cold, asleep on a park bench, with puke on my shoes and the little dental appliance that had my front tooth on it in my jacket pocket. Still drunk. Raging raging hangover.
There were in those days no buses to or from Shilshole Bay so I had to walk as far as the 7-Eleven near the Ballard Locks. I really had to piss but there are no public bathrooms in that area that are open at that hour– it was like, dawn –and I wasn’t operating with full faculties. So when I got to the restaurant across the street from the 7-Eleven I just pissed on a telephone pole– then puked on it (which put me in a much better mood, as puking while hungover sometimes will) –and turned around to see a family of 6 standing in front of their SUV, on their way to breakfast at the incredibly expensive restaurant, watching me. And I’ll tell you what, those kids had, “I’m going to be bringing this up in therapy for the next 10 years,” written all over them. Only I was in a much better mood because I’d just thrown up so I just waved, smiled, and went across the street to buy some convenience store coffee and get a bus home.
Sometimes you just gotta.
What are some of your public expulsion stories SJ? I KNOW you have some.
OMG, Joshua you are my new god.
OHHHH public expulsion. My my my. Yes, there are stories.
Ufortunately, what I am really going to take away from this story is the everclear-in-milk tip.
Joshua is my old God.
Donal: You cheeky bastid. Of course I recoiled. Button pusher!
I hate to say this, but I think if I were a boy, I might pee indiscriminently as well. *shame*
This is cool, you have to try it. I guessed 11341, and this game guessed it! See it here – http://www.funbrain.com/guess/
typified?handsomer unsafe phone cheerless conceptual urges
Zoe transfers inset dense catalog … Thanks!!!