Airplane bathroom.
I’m flying out of the country for two months today, which is fine considering I’ve been in the country for the last two months. Once my time in Europe is done, I’m full-time in LA. Not important, just letting you know why I’m in an airplane bathroom. Can I rant? The Airbus A321neo has the most poorly designed bathroom I’ve ever seen. It’s expected you’re going to walk out of there embarrassed because it is so crammed and slanted that there is no way not to feel like you took too long. The toilet paper holder is nearly on the floor- gross. There is about 6 inches between you, the door, and any given wall. And if you’re careful enough not to make a mess, someone else already has, meaning it looks like your mess. Lovely stuff. Now the meat and potatoes. The LAX bathroom by gate 35 in terminal 3. Clean, fine, bright. But… no baby changing table. Meaning the vanity meant for influencers and moms of adults to brush their teeth, hair, and ego, is the only option. This didn’t even occur to me until I had an hour to kill and a straightening iron in my carry-on. I set up and started, and with one section to go, a 30-something mother and toddler came in supposedly looking for a changing table, and with my lack of investigation, I cannot say for sure there was not one available in the handicap stall. But, without much search, this mom set her eyes on me. Knowing for a fact there was a family bathroom in the hallway, I didn’t move. I thought this stuff was common sense. But am I at fault? Knowing I’m only vain in the deepest darkness of privacy, I felt compelled to pack up and leave, but I didn’t. Fighting every maternal and kind urge in my body, I stayed because I felt I had the right to the space in some sense. It was a clean countertop, and would it have been unsanitary to change a child in that spot? And unfair to the cleaning staff at LAX? Such a hero, I am. I stayed, but she never walked in or out of a stall to investigate. Maybe I misread it all, and she just brought the child with her, and the stare was about how vain I must be to straighten my hair in an airport bathroom. It got me thinking about our obligation to older married mothers as young single women. Do we have one? Is it our responsibility at this stage in life to accommodate because they chose to have a child and we have not yet, in our most fertile state? With eggs practically fresh out of the hen, is it my duty to procreate? And when I do, will the 24-year-old in the LAX bathroom by gate 35 in terminal 3 unplug her straightener and make way for me?
