If you’ve never been in a Lowe’s…maybe you just prefer mom-and-pop hardware stores. I can’t fault ya for that. Maybe you don’t own a home (doesn’t seem so silly paying rent instead of a credit score-crushing mortgage anymore, huh?)…or maybe you just prefer one of the other corporate home-improvement stores. I’m not brand-specific when it comes to my choice of a hardware store, Lowe’s is closer to Waffle Farm.

If you’ve already seen the pictures, you’re probably wondering “What’s the deal with picture number four?!?” or “Why would he post that?”—fear not, I briefly entertained the same thoughts. Then…enlightenment…I re-read the brand of toilet seat cover dispenser…and started laughing again. Puns may suck, and puns as brand names might not work so great, but if you make toilet seat cover holders what are you gonna do? Can you imagine the group naming sessions for toilet seat cover dispensers? “Rest Assured” seems like a much better idea than anything I would come up with (I don’t think you could print—or sell—anything I’d come up with). The bathroom is decorated in tans and browns (with blue notices in-line with the Lowe’s brand), and they have two kidney-shaped sinks that I think are pretty cool…complete with sensors for saving water. For a clean bathroom with a few cool aspects, I give ‘em three-and-a-half rolls.

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Whew! I’m all caught up and just doing yesterday’s (9/9/09) postings…that took a lot outta me! Hmm…maybe a poor word choice for this site…

This bathroom is done in warm earth-tones and the light is on the dim side (but not terrible). I suspect they’re conserving energy because I’ve seen more and more restrooms “going dark.”

So I’m not sure what the deal was but I ended up using both the stall and the urinal yesterday. I tried to get a picture of the one stall I didn’t use since it was pretty bad…but the stall was too dark for me to get a picture without using a flash, and I would have had to censor it (in all reality, it’s probably a good thing it was a dimly lit bathroom).

However, while I was in the stall, they sent somebody in to do what I assumed was a routine cleaning, and they flushed the one toilet (it took two or three flushes) and replaced the paper products in the other stall as well as the paper towel holder. As luck would have it, my stall ran out of toilet paper at just that moment (don’t worry, I had grabbed the last piece to open the door with). I was gonna give this a 3.5 because they got in there and took care of what they had to take care of (you’d think this would be standard practice everywhere but in my experience it isn’t), but then I realized that both of the toilet paper rolls were out in the stall I was using. Getting knocked down a half roll for that…

If ya gotta go…

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Man the flushing sucks (or doesn’t?) though. I’m all for wanting to save the earth, and I’m all for limiting water usage. However, I don’t think you’re saving much water when the flushing is so weak that it takes 4-5 flushes to make sure the bowl is clean. Maybe it was just the stall I used (some poor sap in the handicapped stall was not having a good morning…and I wasn’t up for either waiting for him or using the toilet when he was done). Since I never test more than one toilet (come on, how silly would that be?), I have to base my review on what I do use.

If you haven’t guessed yet, I feel kinda bad about having to give this bathroom a low review, but the reality is I probably wasted about 10 gallons of water (give or take a couple) on a system that was either clogged (which might explain the cloudiness of the water coming up after the flush…really reminded me of precipiates in college chemistry courses—as a side note, you wouldn’t believe how long it took me to find that word lol) or just weak. Either way, it was a real pain to have to flush the toilet that many times. On top of that, the soap was watery (I guess you gotta make up for the cost of the extra water usage somehow).

On the up note, Brookfields really does keep the restroom clean, didn’t see any grafiti (pretty impressive considering the surrounding area) and it’s of average appearance. Normally they’d get a 3-roll rating, but the number of times I had to flush that stupid toilet costs ‘em half a roll. If that poor guy in the only other stall in there was more miserable, and/or funnier, I might have credited back that half-roll. Sorry pal, been there and done that, but potty humor is my thing (probably pretty obvious, since I run this site and all…).

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Wow…

…just…wow…and I mean that in the absolute best of ways.

Now…this isn’t some crazy kitschy bathroom (though it would be a lot more fun if more were…but I think I beat that dead horse to it’s seventh or eighth death last post).

However…it is a gas station bathroom…and usually that phrase “gas station bathroom” evicts terrible horrible thoughts, thoughts that the toilet might eat you (or at least everything living on it) and the fear that washing your hands might be worse for you than not.

This is the nicest cleanest gas station bathroom I’ve ever been in. Ever. If you’ve ever gone with me on a roadtrip, you know I use gas station bathrooms almost more than professional truck drivers/travellers/college students on road trips. Probably more than some of them do. Yeah, I’m that guy. Seriously, these guys should be on the list of bathrooms gas stations should aspire to have.

Now, you’re probably thinking “Big deal…they’re in Lincoln, CA of all places…how busy could they be?) Well…I’ll answer that for you. With 12 pumps (no, not quite as big as the superstations on Interstates and freeways, but bigger than a lot of gas stations I’ve seen in major cities), they’re almost always packed. They stock the counter with two employees throughout most of the day—and still have a line. They’re right off Highway 65, which is a connector freeway between CA70 and I-80. Nonetheless, they manage to keep the restrooms clean. Much cleaner than many of the smaller and similar sized gas stations I’ve seen do. I was literally shocked walking in…I’ve been to the station before but never had to use the restroom, so I never noticed (gotta buy gas, silly!).

So this is my first-ever four-roll review. You might be asking yourself “Why would a plain gas station bathroom get the first 4-roll review? That’s just silly…” Fair question, I suppose…and of course I’m going to answer it. Like I said earlier…this should be what other gas stations aspire to. In any public place, you have to work hard to keep the restrooms looking nice, even harder at gas stations and fast food places because you tend to invite a greater range of people, including those who care less about what they do behind closed (and locked) doors. The nearly complete lack of grafiti (there were some words scratched on the mirror) and the overall cleanliness of the bathroom means the hard-working people at Chevron at Twelve Bridges Lincoln deserve four rolls.

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