Last Friday I posted a submission about a woman who was astonished and perturbed that strangers didn’t help her as she struggled to wash/clean up her poop-covered child in a Walmart sink. There were multiple layers to that post - if I had to count I could probably come up with like 30 - but the overarching point I wanted to make was this: It’s not okay to bathe your child in the sink of a public restroom after the child has had explosive diarrhea. NOT OKAY!

A few people on the Facebook page disagreed with me. “Hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do if a kid is covered in shit!” they said. “Been there, done that,” was the gist of far more comments than I’m comfortable tallying up. I took to Twitter and wrote this, to which several people replied, “Ehhh, whatta ya gonna do? If the kid’s a mess, you wash him off!” So, basically the same thing (although several people on both sites thought it was disgusting, too, of course).

The more I read, the more it became clear to me that many, many parents have done this in public restrooms and think it’s fine. They might not think anyone should feel obligated to help them like the mother in the post, but the poop/sink-washing stuff isn’t such a big deal. Who knows? Maybe some of you readers are even pro-sink. Maybe when I joked that all bathroom sinks have had poop in them, I wasn’t off-base! One person said, “A lot of sinks have had vomit in them, and that’s really not so different.”

{…..momentary pause to register my happy place….}

After recovering from that gross justification, I started going through new submissions, where I found this smelly gem (sent to me prior to the Walmart post going up):

Kimberly’s so focused on the cleanliness of her baby, she’s making jokes about swishing her around in the toilet. Haha, now that would be gross, right? Getting body parts “clean” in something that’s had shit in it? Yeahhhh. 

(submitted by Anonymous)

**UPDATE: A commenter wonders, “What do people do in those bathrooms with automatic faucets and nothing but air dryers?”