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Seeing Yellow

As joyous as it is, parenthood can be a little like a handicap in many ways. Never mind that getting around isn’t as easy as it was when we were more able-bodied (30 minutes in baggage claim looking for a working elevator?!) but new challenges seem to present themselves on a daily basis. Take this last weekend. I spotted a flyer for a Thai festival in London at the tube station. What fun, I thought. The girls will love the music and dancing and I can’t think of anything better than a mussel pancake prepared fresh on a hot July day without the aid of any refrigeration whatsoever. I’m in!

Small glitch in my plans; hubby has to work. On a Sunday. All day. Not one to let little obstacles get in my way, I decide to go anyway. Except that there are no stair-free tube stations near our house. Gotta get the stroller onto the train somehow and you can’t rely on the generosity of strangers on a Sunday. But that’s okay. It’s only a little over 4 miles from our house. I can’t get to the gym today anyway, I’m thinking, so we’ll hoof it. No problem. Has anyone spotted the hole in this plan yet?
Just under 2 hours later we’ve arrived. The girls coo and squeal. They are delighted by the noise, the colors, the little children whipping around on scooters. We find a shady spot on the ground and spread our blanket. Zoe eats her lunch without complaint; Eva refuses hers but fills up on some combination of Cheerios and dirt. It’s probably time to go home but I need to hit the loo quickly. Uh oh.
How does one get a double stroller into a Porta-Potty? Do I ask the table of strangers nibbling on Pad Thai and nursing cold beers to babysit? Hardly. So we leave. At a quicker-than-comfortable pace, visions of Homer Simpson’s “total kidney blowout” running through my mind. Jogging across the bridge to Victoria Station, I dash inside, scanning the room for a toilet sign. There it is! Downstairs. Hmm. Disabled toilet to the left! But the guard stops me at the door. I’m not disabled. Just a parent. There are toilets and baby-changing facilities at the other end of the station, some 150 yards away. Fumbling in my pocket for the 20 pence required to get in the door, I finally make it to the “baby room” only to find it’s just that. A table and a diaper genie. No toilet. Back into the ladies room, I find rows of stalls, but no handicapped stall big enough for me and my stroller. (No, that would have been the disabled toilet, thank you) So we left. With some very adult words being muttered under my breath. And we ran down the street until we found that little slice of America, complete with it’s Americans with Disabilities Act potty: Starbucks.
4 bucks for a latte, you scream? Giant potty, I retort. For an American living or traveling abroad, Starbucks is like a little slice of home in so many ways: skim milk, gigantic portions, and huge toilets. God Bless America.

Dr. Lara Zibners, Jul 25, 2010

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