“Gross.” That was the word that zipped through my brain when the bathroom stall door swung open. My stomach turned, my nose wrinkled, and I teetered on the edge of a dry heave.
We’ve all been there. In a moment of urgency, we rush into a public restroom, choose a stall at random, only to discover… let’s call it an “unsavory” scene. I don’t need to go into specifics. This paragraph alone has probably already triggered a traumatic memory or two.
“Why would you do that and not flush?” my 5-year-old exclaimed when he saw what lay before us.
Honestly, I was wondering the same thing.
No matter how many times this universal experience happens to me, my instinct is always the same: step back and find another stall.
But years ago, someone told me something I’ve never forgotten. While we were discussing the perils of potty-training children in public bathrooms, a dear friend said, “I have a theory that what you do in a public restroom says a lot about what kind of person you are.”
Sure does, I thought. If you leave a mess behind, you’re a gross jerk.
But that wasn’t what she meant.
She was talking about the person who finds the mess.
Who knows how many people walk into a stall, see something disgusting, and immediately move on to the next one? But it only takes one person to press the flush lever and change the trajectory for everyone else. Problem solved.
The same goes for the empty toilet paper roll with the replacement roll balancing precariously on top of the dispenser. Or the overflowing trash can with paper towels piling onto the floor. Most people walk past it. Some people contribute to it. But sometimes all it takes is one person and 10 extra seconds to make things better for everyone who comes after them.
Once I thought about it that way, I couldn’t unthink it.
What kind of person did I want to be? The kind that quietly handles the problem? Or the kind who leaves it for someone else to deal with? The kind that puts toilet paper in the dispenser, or a chronic roll-balancer.? The kind that pushes down damp paper towels–and immediately rewashes my hands–or the kind that pretends not to notice?
It’s trivial, funny, and even a little gross. But she was right. You find out a lot about your own character in the public restroom.
At the time I first had this discussion, I wasn’t feeling particularly brave or confident in my own life. I was uncertain about a lot of things. But maybe, I thought, courage starts smaller than we think. Maybe being willing to deal with an unpleasant, unseen mess says something about your ability to handle bigger messes of everyday life: motherhood, responsibility, complicated decisions, hurtful mistakes.
Character is built in the little moments no one sees or applauds. In the moments no one talks about. Because let’s be honest — flushing a toilet after a phantom non-flusher is a strange thing to brag about. But those moments can prove something to yourself. And if little eyes are watching, they teach something too: integrity often looks mundane. It looks like doing the inconvenient thing simply because it’s the right thing to do.
That doesn’t mean it always comes easy. Six years later, I still don’t relish being a “toilet-flushing vigilante.” But time after time, I steel myself — sometimes with eyes clamped shut and breath held — to take care of the problem.
“I don’t know, honey,” I told my son. “But I guess we get to be the heroes who fix the problem.”
He chose another stall.
I flushed with my foot.
Gross? Absolutely. But want to be a person who values quiet integrity, and raises kids to do that same. The kind that accepts discomforts without applause, for the good of those who come after. I think most of us want that. And it can start in unlikely places—like a messy public restroom.
