Front Row Center For "The Bathroom Follies"

Apparently there are two types of doors that are used on airplanes for the bathrooms. One is your basic turn the handle and pull type. The other is the type with a hinge that runs from the top to the bottom of the door and must be pushed in the middle from the outside in order to open. This was the type of door on the bathroom on my flight from Santiago to New York. My seat was right in front of the door. No one, nobody, not one person could figure out how to use the door. Myself and the other three people in my row were entertained by a constant flow of people needing to use the bathroom but unable to open the door. Most of them pushed at the wrong spot on the door, some with great force. Others, seeing a handle a good distance from the door tried pulling that to no avail. At first, a woman across the aisle from me offered advice to the people as they struggled. After a while, however, she was so convulsed in laughter that she was unable to help. Of course, once they got in many of them were clueless as to how to get out. We watched as these people banged and pulled and struggled with the door. Once these people finally got in they were so happy that many did not fully close the door which meant that the light did not come on. A couple of men actually peed and prevented the door from closing with their free hand or their backs. All they had to do was to close and lock the door to turn the light on, but that was clearly beyond their comprehension. One guy finally fought his way in and after a couple of minutes (really) finally locked the door. He of course could not figure out how to unlock it and once again the woman on my right had to get up to shout instructions to him. One guy brought his son to use the bathroom and stood outside holding the door open until he was finished. Because the state of plumbing in many parts of the country is so bad in the DR many people are afraid to flush their used toilet paper. They leave it on the side of the toilet usually in a waste basket. The plane has no waste basket nest to the toilet ( used paper is supposed to be flushed and their is a slot next to the sink for paper towels) so the people, and it looked like all of them, left all their used paper next to the toilet. What a stench.

My favorite bathroom customer, however, had to be the "Joe Cool" guy dressed in green pants, purple shirt and over sized sun glasses. He could not get in the bathroom and then he couldn't get out of the bathroom. An hour and a half later he again could not get in the bathroom and once again had to yell for help to get out. I would gladly have paid extra for my seat.