The Loo Review

Last night RantWoman and RantMom went to the symphony. RantWoman and RantMom were both a little cross and tired and cranky from early mornings and long and busy days out in Seattle's heat wave. That is one reason RantWoman will spare her readers her views of the first half of the concert. We are both glad we stayed for the second half. We are glad we visited the loo in between, but RantWoman has decided NOT to spare her readers her views of the women's loos at Benaroya Hall.

RantWoman's basic point: the women's loos are generally clean and in good operation. However, every time RantWoman visits a women's restroom at Benaroya Hall, she finds herself wondering what mind-altering substances contributed to their design.

RantWoman has an eccentric frame of reference. RantWoman really does not expect the warmed hand towels and panoramic top-of-the-worl, masters-of-the-universe views she has enjoyed out the windows of the women's rooms at the Columbia Tower Club. (RantWoman has heard that the men's rooms at the Columbia Tower Club are considerably plainer and has no opinion about anything to do with that.)

RantWoman is not even expecting the "Women's Lounge" level of amenities at a couple downtown department stores. In fact, RantWoman would be happy with the level of brisk functionality she has observed at one or two local cinemas. How is that? Please bear with another serious nerd moment.

Once upon a time in graduate school, RantWoman took a class in operations research. RantWoman was not really the most brilliant student ever in the course, but she definitely remembers a whole lecture about women's restrooms, the poisson distribution, and assorted related themes. First, on average it takes a woman 1/3 longer than a man to perform the things that happen in a typical bathroom visit Second, people's demands for the restroom at public venues tends to be quite lumpy: large numbers of people tend to want to use the restroom during small intervals of time such as concert intermissions.

These two facts impose certain requirements about the number of stalls and also sinks needed to make a restroom serve it's peak demand most efficiently. RantWoman remembers the learned professor going on enthusiastically for a good while about all this; RantWoman also remembers thinking of a bunch of subtleties RantWoman decided it would be good to have actual women in the picture helping optimize

Ah, but then there is another set of constraints, how many women can get into and out of the restroom. RantWoman remembers her college classmates who took programming classes all having to program some variation of ecological equilibrium problems where numbers of beings such as rabbits or coyotes enter and exit an ecosystem at different rates that turn out to be dependent on numbers and behaviors by the other. RantWoman would point out that an analogous problem affects the efficient flow of people through the average restroom The average restroom can only serve a set number of people including the ones at the stalls, the ones at the sinks, the ones waiting and the ones trying to enter or exit. RantWoman has observed that if a restroom has two doors, one for entry and one for exit, the number of people who get to use the restroom in a given of unit of time is higher than if everyone entering and leaving is going through the same door. Last night, RantWoman ALMOST offered a dissertation about all this to the usher who kept yelling at the line of women at one restroom to please not leave the door open.

RantWoman was using the simpler of the two women's loos, the one that has a door to the hallway at one end of the restroom so everyone netering and leaving has to try to circulate in the same space. RantWoman's mood was already foul enough that she opted to invite RantMom to come avoid entirely the loo with sinks on one side of an entry and stalls on the other side. Women can line up in the sink area while waiting for stalls, but everyone needing to wash their hands has to cross the line of women waiting just to get to the sinks and then back out the door. RantWoman has that one her AVOID list.

RantWoman understands that she is talking about architecture where small adjustments in space usage can have big consequences for money and other users of a building. RantWoman knows this and she is not getting paid big sums of money to think of alternatives in this situation. RantWoman however is generously and helpfully grumbling for free!

Restrooms aggravations are probably not enough to scare Rantwoman away from Benaroya Hall, but she really would not mind in the least having fewer restroom aggravations so she gets to fill her daily aggravation quota some other way.

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After the concert, waiting for the bus home, RantWoman realized that since the Light Rail opened, RantWoman has been spending a whole lot less time at the lovely symphony music suffused bus stop out inf ront of Benaroya Hall. RantWoman, alas, has not yet sold RantMom on the thought of riding the Light Rail to Columbia City, walking over to Rainier and catching the 7 back north. This would satisfy RantWoman's preference for knowing that RantMom is safely off her bus before RantWoman herself gets off; RantWoman was grateful that the bus vibe was mellow and that the Mariners fans, though disappointed by a loss where considerably less drunk than sometimes! Hey, standards, are standards.