Words fail me when it comes to describing the hell that is my Walmart bathroom experience.

Seriously, there are no words.

BrightSide asked exactly what the problem was with Walmart bathrooms and I floundered for a moment, trying to explain the vortex of emotions swirling inside me.

On a sanitation level, Walmart bathrooms rank a bit higher gas stations (which are truly pits that we only frequent on an emergency basis).  There’s a range of cleanliness between the various stores, too — we have three Walmarts within 25 minutes of our house, but only one of them has a bathroom I don’t mind using.

Tidiness aside, Walmart bathrooms present me with a terrible dilemma, one that’s compounded by having two children of the opposite sex.

When the children were young, public bathrooms weren’t an issue.  (Unless my kid suddenly expressed an urgent need to use a toilet and there wasn’t one within 20 feet.  Then we had a problem.)  We all trooped into the ladies’ room and handled our business there.  Simple, right?

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Once T-man started getting older, though, things started getting more complicated.

He hit this in-between stage when he was around seven or eight — he seemed too old to take into the women’s restroom, but I was highly uncomfortable sending him into the men’s room alone.  Those were the years when finding a family restroom was critical to a successful outing.

But now that T-man is almost eleven, the situation has changed dramatically.

Ideally, all four of us are out and BrightSide would be in the men’s room with him.  My preferred backup is still the family restroom, though the kids take turns going in now.  (This kind of defeats the purpose of “family restroom” but whatever, man.  They’re kids, we’re a family, and some jacked-up shit goes down in Walmart bathrooms.)

These days I find myself confronted more and more often with a sticky situation: one (too-old-for-the-ladies’-room) boy, one (old-enough-to-feel-independent) girl, two restrooms, and both kids need to go.  Fantastic.

(And again, I have to interject here:  REALLY?!  We’ve only been doing this kind of thing for YEARS now.  How could you not have gone to the bathroom before we left the house?!)

I don’t like this situation anywhere, but I have to admit the freak-out factor rises when we’re in Walmart.  Because now I’m staring at two restrooms, ten feet apart, watching my children’s backs as they disappear into what suddenly seems like a dark abyss.

I have no idea who’s in there so I wait anxiously, bouncing on my toes as the questions start to ping my brain.  How many people are in there?  How old are they?  Are they the type to ignore or sweet talk or pick on kids?  Will my kids remember my instructions to yell if somebody bothers them? Exactly how quickly can I get into that men’s room?  And what are the odds that something would happen to each of them simultaneously?

See?  Walmart. Bathroom. Anxiety.  And Lord help us all if someone actually enters the bathroom while I’m watching because now I know there’s someone in there and they almost always look squirrelly for one reason or another…

Standing post outside the Walmart bathrooms is definitely the tenth circle of hell.

The kids have to pee and denying that is inviting urinary tract infections, so it’s not like I have a choice about saying yes.  By virtue of their ages, they have to go into separate facilities, and I’m only permitted in one of those.  (Though you can be damn-skippy sure I’ll be busting up in that men’s room if I hear any kind of commotion going on.)

So where does that leave me?  Pacing anxiously in my little three-foot spot, equidistant from each restroom doorway, ears straining to hear any sign of struggle or distress.  Trying to ignore the fact that running to help one will essentially leave the other to fend for him- or herself.

Vigorously praying that they’ll be in and out quickly so my blood pressure can stabilize again.

And if I have to go to the bathroom?  Forget it.  My heart can’t take the stress of either A) taking Bear in with me and leaving T-man alone outside, or B) leaving the two of them to protect themselves while I pee.

UTI be damned.