I stepped into the shower with my socks still on the other morning around 7 a.m. That was a new one, even for me. Just another reason not to get up too early in the morning. Things start to go wrong sooner. Besides, I’m a news reporter in Key West, where at any given hour, half the population is hungover. I promise you more news happens after 9 p.m. than before.
But I digress. Happy New Year, Key West! Welcome to the Key West Weekly in 2026. We’re really glad you’re here and we deeply appreciate the readers and clients who keep a locally owned newspaper in business.
You’re currently reading my New Year resolution, which is to try to write more columns this year. So you’ll all be the first to know when I run that resolution into the ditch. (No need to send me emails to point it out. I’ll know it, too. I’m looking at you, Dad.) But for now, I’m 2-for-2 for 2026.
So let’s start today with a topic that my mom, in particular, will detest.
Public restrooms. Ladies, we need to do better. For the greater good.
What is it about, say, turnpike rest stop bathrooms that make so many women just disregard human decency and lower their standards to something on par with farm animals, port-a-potties or the trough-like, communal urinal in the men’s restroom at a UFC fight?
We’re better than this. I know we are. But when it comes to public restrooms, an astonishing number of women clearly sink to the lowest possible standards.
Stan and I spent a total of about 30 hours in a car over the Christmas holiday, having flown from Key West to the Jersey Shore on Christmas Eve. After spending a perfect Christmas with my folks, Stan and I hopped into their Kia Sportage and pointed it south for two days, driving it down to the Melbourne, Florida area, where my brother bought a condo so our folks can escape the Jersey winters. (Yes, Kevin is the golden child.)
My parents are 78 and still have their mental faculties (mostly). They’re not yet entering their ATM pin into the TV remote, but Kevin, Stan and I don’t see any reason for them to spend 17 hours on the road. We also don’t want to put my mom through the nightmare that is my dad in the passenger seat, gripping the “oh shit” handle for two days, convinced every brake light a half-mile ahead signals his impending doom. In short, we were happy to keep a couple of 78-year-olds off I-95 this holiday season. (You’re welcome.)
So I was recently in a series of service plazas and public restrooms.
At one stop, after 10 p.m., there was no one else in the large restroom. And yet the first four stall doors I pushed open revealed unflushed toilets. Not clogged toilets. Not gross or overflowing. Just unflushed.
Does the broken window theory apply not just to struggling neighborhoods, but also to unflushed toilets at state-funded service plazas? Does one unflushed toilet eventually blight the whole facility?
What happens to make people decide not to flush when they’re in a public restroom compared to their own home or someone else’s?
That lack of decency has a ripple effect. Because ironically, the same women who don’t flush a public toilet will certainly never enter a stall with an unflushed toilet. So they go door to door seeking a freshly flushed commode — and then they fail to provide the same courtesy to someone else. It’s a self-perpetuating problem.
I get it. No one likes public restrooms. My mom has a particular aversion to them (also to used clothes from thrift stores, consignment shops and yard sales. (Apparently, she questions the long-term efficacy of the cootie shot she got in 2nd grade.)
Our recent road trip made clear that we can do better, ladies. Let’s be civilized in the coming year — says the woman who just got in the shower with her socks on.
Happy New Year, Key West. We’re all in this together.
