The smallest bathroom in the WORLD.

Lately I've been jumping through a lot of hoops just to get my proper identification cards and open up an Ecuadorian checking account. Perhaps I'll detail the excruciating process in another post but for now let me just say that getting anything done in Ecuador that involves the government is a fool's task. Or maybe an unemployed person's task. They do not make it easy for you.

So, I was on one of my many journeys through various government buildings when I realized I needed to use a bathroom, badly. Readers beware: this is a story about a bathroom, there will be bathroom humor in it. The building I happened to be in was very large and must employ a couple thousand government workers. I figured that they would have at least one bathroom for the public. I was right but the bathroom I found can hardly be classified as such. I have never seen even a closet this small.

Inside I found a sink and toilet in bad condition. The sink juts out over the toilet and almost to the wall, I had to squeeze past it and could barely do so. The toilet is tiny. A fat man trying to use this bathroom would have to be pried out of it using the jaws of life. Standing up to use the toilet (and I wish that was all I needed to do) would have been impossible. There was so little room to move I had to unbuckle my pants with just one hand and use my new friend gravity to get them down. Then, in an Olympic feat of dexterity and skill swing myself around the sink and onto the toilet. This process was much harder to repeat in reverse. There was no soap to be found in that bathroom, only the household cleaner Ajax, so I used that instead. I find myself wondering what the architect was thinking when he drew the plan for that bathroom. Probably he realized too late the building did not have a public bathroom and took a small chunk out of some one's office to make one. No human being would do that on purpose, would they?