I have a gripe about bathrooms in cafes and restaurants of Paris.
One of the big differences between Europe and the U.S. is how they treat electricity use. In Europe electricity is used more preciously and efficiently than the U.S. In France, one of the biggest differences is in almost all commercial and apartment buildings, the lights in hallways, vestibules and stairways work on a motion censor or a manual switch on a timer. Now this is a great way to save energy and clearly the U.S. could learn from this system and save whopping amounts of energy instead of having lights on 24/7.
Now there is a drawback to this system. If say you are walking down five flights of winding, narrow, uneven steps in a Paris apartment building after attending a dinner party where copious amounts of irresistible wine was consumed, invariably the lights go out while you are in between floors, throwing you into complete blackness like a cheap horror movie from the 1960s. Mind you the nearest light switch is eons away on the next floor and your are desperately groping the walls in the dark, trying to hold on so you won’t roll down five flights of stairs, looking like a crumpled mess with blood drooling out of the side of your mouth on the bottom of the stairway, again like a cheap 1960s horror movie.
The lighting system is the same for most bathrooms in cafes and restaurants throughout France. So you go to your favorite bistro and have a few glasses of wine or Champagne, you become a little giddy, a little silly, a little loose but all that drinking makes you have to go. You ask “Où sont les toilettes ?" (Where’s the toilet) in your best half French accent with a bit of a slur and the waiter tells you it’s downstairs or upstairs.
Again, you risk your life climbing up or down impossibly designed stairway so you can go do your necessary business. Since toilets are in compartments of their own, the area can be minuscule, with barely enough room to sit. In your half drunk stage you have a difficult time figuring out the physical maneuver in how to get your pants down or your dress up without hurting yourself or being a contortionist. You finally figure it out the hard way so you now have managed to sit down and are ready to go. It’s just about to happen when voila! The light goes out and you are pitched into blackness again. So now you are desperately groping in the dark like a cheap 1960s horror movie (didn’t I already say that twice?) for the light switch but you realize you forgot where it is. Is it inside or outside? So not only are you panicking about where the hell the light switch is but you are now afraid that your business might have landed someplace it wasn’t supposed to. Now I have a little secret that will save you in this embarrassing situation, which I discovered by accident. So I was in the same predicament a while back and I moved forward to get up on my feet and the lights went back on. My forward movement alerted the motion censor. Problem almost solved. Now I have to keep rocking back and forth much like a prayer movement in certain religions to keep the lights on; not the most comfortable position to be in. You finally finish what you have to do, struggle to get your clothes back on and mount the stairs again. Now your exhausted and feel the need to the visit the chiropractor because all of the physical maneuvers have made you pull a muscle.
So now I have three requests I want to put out to all owners of restaurants and cafes in Paris.
1. Can you please extend the timer for the lights in your toilet spaces for more than 30 seconds, perhaps three to five minutes? I know this could cost you more money for the electricity and it doesn’t help the environment, but it would sure make things go much smoother, saving your customers from possibly being in an uncompromising position. You can even add another 10 centimes to my bill and I promise to do something extra to reduce my carbon footprint to make up for the excessive electricity use.
2. Can you please put the light switch inside the toilet room, preferably with a backlit or fluorescent colored switch, so in case my business takes a little longer than expected, I know how to switch the light on?
3. Can you please extend the size of your toilet room just by a few centimeters? I am not your average skinny, compact Parisian and actually weigh over 120 lbs., plus the last time I visited your establishment I twisted my lower back trying to get out of the toilet area, resulting in two trips to the osteopath which cost me 180€.
Oh, and I have one other request I forgot to mention: Can you please install a paper towel dispenser instead of those hellish state of the art dryers that make you feel like hands are going to be ripped out of their sockets with blood spraying out of them, like a cheap horror movie from the 1960s?
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This is one of the funniest things I've read. And so true!
I don't think they can do much about the size--most WCs are in fact stuck in closets.
Posted by: Taste of France | August 07, 2017 at 10:40 AM
I was reading this over morning coffee. . . needless to say, I almost sprayed coffee on my computer screen. So sorry to laugh a a true predicament, however this was laugh out loud funny. You are correct about the US, we do tend to keep the lights on. Perhaps we have seen too many of those 1960's horror movies.
Thank you for making me laugh this morning. ~ Cheryl
Posted by: Cheryl Turner | August 07, 2017 at 04:54 PM