How to avoid getting a flesh-eating bacteria from gas station bathrooms this summer
There is a gas station in Beaver, Utah, that has a giant rocking chair outside the entrance. The “Chair Gas Station” as my family calls it, is one of my favorite places on planet Earth. It’s the place we stop every time we drive to St. George, Utah, the infamous vacation spot for every central Utah family looking for a drivable destination.
We have all, at some point, bought into the delusion that we can make it to St. George — or Moab or wherever we’re headed — without making a bathroom break. And we have all been wrong. As much as I would like to blame my children for the need to stop every two hours, I know that it is me, and my proclivity for guzzling beverages, that is responsible.
So we’re at the Chair Gas Station a lot.
I treasure the Chair Gas Station not just because it has every kind of snack imaginable, and it’s there for us in times of great need, but also because the bathrooms are immaculate. There is no greater oasis for the weary traveler than a clean restroom. There’s also nothing that takes the wind out of my sails, deflates my hot air balloon, or pierces my proverbial tire with a nail quite like a disgusting restroom.
I’ve seen things I can never unsee in some of these restrooms of ill repute en route to various road trip locations. And I’ve genuinely worried I would contract some rare but deadly flesh-eating bacteria that would puzzle doctors and make me patient zero for some new outbreak. I do not wish that kind of anxiety and suffering on anyone, so I’m offering some wisdom on how this can be avoided on your next road trip. Here are some tips that can help you and your family avoid a terrifying toilet.
Avoid any restroom that requires a key to a separate entrance around the side of the building.
The adage “out of sight, out of mind” was no doubt coined by someone who had just used one of these outside-entrance water closets. People aren’t going to clean something if they don’t notice it’s dirty, and if they don’t see it, they won’t notice it’s dirty. And that key? The one that has to sit on the bathroom floor while you do whatever you've got to do? There’s nothing filthier on Earth than that key.
If there’s a cleaning time signature sheet, they’re hiding something.
If something that should be obvious has to be stated, that thing is not what it claims to be. Like, if someone has to follow a statement with “that was a joke,” then the joke wasn’t funny. If a bathroom has a cleaning checklist with signatures and time stamps on the door, that bathroom isn’t clean.
Same with perfumey air fresheners.
A clean bathroom should smell of bleach and cleaning products. It should not smell of aerosol imitation lilacs with undertones of filth. I want my nostrils to burn from chemical cleaning product fumes, not the alternative.
Bigger is better.
We in Utah, and the lucky people in 11 other states, are blessed to have Maveriks — a local gas station chain — right off most freeway exits. The beauty of a Maverik is you know exactly what you’re going to get, and what you’re going to get is cold drinks, clean bathrooms and surprisingly, pretty good sandwiches. I once ate a Maverik turkey sandwich on a bench outside a Maverik on the Nevada-Utah border that I swear is one of the best lunches I’ve ever had and not just because I had had nothing but road trip snacks for the previous 10 hours in the car.
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Other states have their own versions of Maverik, and in my experience, are as enthusiastic about their gas station franchises as we are about ours. Mostly because these chains tend to have the cleanest bathrooms. (I hear great things about the Wawas back East.) As much as I want to support small businesses, when it comes to where I do my business, I need there to be a standardized method of cleaning issued by a large corporation.
As road trip season commences and we pile our families in our cars, I’m confident with these tips we can all have safe, pleasant, and flesh-eating-bacteria-free journeys in any direction.
