Public washrooms aren't usually the most pleasurable places to go. They're dirty, they're smelly, and they lack the comfort you're used to from your own personal 'relief space'. That being said, sometimes duty calls and you're forced to use a public washroom.
Public washrooms here in Manila are like playing that 'game' Russian Roulette. But instead of using bullets, you're playing with a roll of toilet paper. Sometimes the toilet paper is there, sometimes it isn't. But unlike Russian Roulette, you want the toilet paper to be there during your turn. It's not a very fun game when it isn't. Most of the time it isn't there; either people are stealing it or the cleaners have stopped refilling it altogether. Maybe they stopped refilling it because people were stealing it? It's hard to say, but all I know it's not always there and it's completely annoying to anyone, like me, who finds themselves in an emergency situation where having a nice friendly roll of TP would be helpful.
There seems to be various levels of TP non-existence. On the base level, there's no TP, never was TP, never ever will be TP until the end of time. On the next level there's the public washrooms that were generous enough to give you TP but for some odd, sick, and demented reasoning they put it OUTSIDE the stall. How is that suppose to help you? I guess they figure if it's outside the stall, in the plain view of everyone, you're less likely to steal it. Okay, I understand that logic but there's one very important thing they didn't consider: people will waste more TP this way. If you're forced to take what you need before you go into the toilet stall isn't it human nature to take more than what you need? Of course it is, you will always take more. There's no way to estimate how many sheets you are going to use so just to be safe, you grab an insane amount. It's better to have too many sheets than not enough right?
On the next level we have the washrooms that are nice enough to give you TP and they are logical enough to put it inside the stall but then they forget this very important thing called the toilet seat. These places annoy me because I feel like they're teasing me; they give me something I want and need but take something away in exchange. You cheeky bastards!
Some places charge you to use the washrooms. For a mere 5 pesos you can have the luxury of an exclusive paid washroom experience. Sounds good eh? Sounds like paradise huh? Nope, these places oddly are worse off than the non-paid toilets. I've paid to use washrooms in parks that not only lack TP and toilet seats, they also lack doors on the stalls. What is my hard earned 5 peso going to? I was in a washroom last week that charged a 5 peso entry fee but 10 peso per TP sheet. Gotta love that business empire!
To be fair though, some malls have semi-nice free washrooms with TP in the stalls. There's one mall I go to that not only has semi-nice free washrooms but also slightly-nicer paid washrooms. For 10 peso you can relax and do your business in a slightly cleaner environment with free-flowing toilet paper. Ah yes, luxury! I do wonder though what's stopping people from paying the 10 peso and then stealing 20 pesos worth of TP? Maybe no one has ever considered this. Maybe it's only me and my demented Canadian criminal mind!
