I have always had problems with public bathrooms. I mean, who doesn’t, right? No one sane likes taking their pants off in public, the last time I checked.

Before I hit puberty I always had to go before I left the house, because otherwise my bladder would freeze up the minute I got into the bathroom. For some reason my mother didn’t like to make five trips to the bathroom while we were at the mall, with me saying “Well can you run the water again? Okay, now louder. Quieter. Turn it off!” Clearly I was cutting into her time spent at Petite Sophisticate.

Finally, I had a breakthrough, which I think correlated with the beginning of my drinking career. Come to think of it, though, I didn’t get that much better in public restrooms. It was mostly in the street. When I am falling into a combine because I can’t deal with any more school, I hope the scenes that flash before my eyes are all of the times I’ve peed in alleys, behind dumpsters, and in someone’s yard, alarmingly close to their hydrangeas. Because I’d really like to know.

What is extra-special alarming is the Modern Bathroom. When they made over my school building they put in these horrifying, space-age heads of doom everywhere. They are so efficient that they do not let you decide which facilities and functions you want to use, because they clearly know what’s best.

Want to wash your hands? Good luck with that. There is a whole row of faucets and you better hope they are in a good mood. You cannot bend things to your will in this bathroom, the way you can with older, more feeble-minded ones, for this bathroom runs on those magic sensors that are supposed to anticipate your needs before you even have them. But instead they maddeningly woosh on and off so you only end up with part of one hand wet.

And the toilets flush “automatically,” which means “while you’re sitting on them” and (god forbid) the second you’ve dropped something into one. This means that if the bathroom is not too full you will get that horribly misty breeze effect and the fleeting sensation that the liquid is being sucked out of your body. If the bathroom is full and there is a line, then the toilet will not flush at all, leaving the next occupant to curse you, assume that you are too stupid to be visible to sensors, and that you had asparagus last night.

At this point I actually miss the bathrooms in the art building, because I felt like I could trust them. They were humble. They quietly proclaimed, “Many failed artists have peed here!” I never thought I would say that.