In my humble opinion, stopping at a highway rest area is the creepiest and most uncomfortable of all public bathroom experiences. You never know who you’re going to run into and the chances for something truly strange happening goes WAY up when the sun goes down.
But, judging by these stories, it appears that restrooms of all types are a breeding ground for odd behavior. So I guess you just have to roll the dice and take your chances if nature calls…
Folks on AskReddit shared their stories from the restrooms of the world.
1. Take it elsewhere, please.
“When I was younger, highschool age, I had been constipated for a few days, I got the urge while I was in the mall and went to the bathroom. It was empty when I got there and was having a rough time pushing this meteorite out. Then I hear some people walk in, a man and a woman talking, then they started making out. Now I was a pretty shy kid, so I tried hard not to make noise and be noticed.
Next thing I know I can see through the crack in the stall that the girl is taking off her pants. I guess it escalated to the point where I was getting nervous which caused the giant sh^t I was trying to take to rocket out. They of course noticed, and she says “oh sh^t someone’s in here” then they rushed out.”
2. The creeper in the ceiling.
“When I was a kid, my parents worked in a university as professors and I would go to their offices after school until they finished work and we would go home.
Importantly, the men’s and women’s bathrooms were right next to each other. And they had the type of ceilings which are tiles resting on a grid-type metal grid.
One day, I was about 10 years old, I went to the bathroom. I was sitting on the toilet in the stall and for some reason looked up, directly over my head.
There was a guy looking down at me. He had climbed up from the men’s side, removed the ceiling tiles, and was peeping at the female college students as they went to the bathroom.
Apparently I was the first person that looked up.”
3. A false alarm.
“I walked into the bathroom at a hospital Food Court, was in dire need to relieve myself. As I walked in, I heard some thumping from one of the stalls, like someone was gently pounding on the stall walls. Then I saw two pairs of shoes, one in front of the other, under the closed stall door. Due to my need to empty my bladder, I decided to ignore what I saw and took care of business.
As I was walking out, the stall door opened, and one of the food court employees came out, alone. He had been changing into his uniform on his way to work, including his shoes. I actually had thought it was two guys having s^x in the stall. He must had thought I was crazy as I walked out of the bathroom laughing hysterically at myself.”
4. Screaming bloody murder.
“My sister always believed in the importance of teaching her son, even from a young age, to use the correct terminology for genitalia. There was no “that’s your pee pee” or “those are your privates”. It was always “that is your p*nis”.
So the day before Christmas Eve we are doing some last minute shopping, my nephew was mostly potty trained at this time, but still wore a diaper just in case. She goes off to do some shopping and I take him to the washroom for a change as he has had an accident.
As I’m wiping him clean, he screams bloody murder in a washroom full of people “AUNTY DON’T TOUCH MY p*nis”.
I was f*cking mortified. Worrying that people are thinking I’m molesting him. So I say loudly (yet kindly) “We have to make sure you’re clean!”
I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life walking out of that stall. And to top it off, I was like 19 but definitely looked younger.”
5. A little pep talk.
“I was out drinking one evening. Went to go to the bathroom and there were 3 ladies blocking the guys bathroom. They told me I couldn’t go in. It was the only bathroom in the place and I had to piss bad. I waited about 20 seconds then pushed past them. As I walk in there is one dude at the end of the line of urinals with his d*ck out not facing a urinal.
He’s giving it a pep talk saying things like “come on bud you can do it” and ” don’t let me down again”. I take quite a long piss and he keeps talking to his dong the entire time. I exited the restroom and told my buddy what happened. He had to see it for himself so he went to the rest room. Same girls outside trying to stop him and same dude in there still trying to sweet talk his wang into doing something.”
6. Words of wisdom.
“I walked into a public bathroom at a beach and found a big bearded guy nervously staring at the ceiling above the stall while using the only urinal. As I stepped past him toward the stall, he screamed “STOP!”
Since his hands were full of d*ck, he could only gesture upward with his head. I looked up and saw a very large pigeon sitting in a nest in the corner. With a super thick Slavic dialect, bearded guy says, “Never trust a mother bird.” He washed his hands, still staring at the nest, and backed out of the bathroom.”
7. The man was a wizard.
“Sitting on the toilet in a Denny’s bathroom. The large plastic toilet paper holder was just missing the cover, so when I pulled on the toilet paper roll it fell off and rolled perfectly under the stall wall and fell over right behind the feet of a man standing at the urinal “next door.”
The man must’ve seen it because I instantly hear him say “ope, I got it!”
“Thanks!” I said, expecting him to finish his business then help me out.
What I did not expect was for him to bend down to pick it up right then and there… but not how one normally bends down.
I can guarantee he was midstream when he leaned over backwards like f*cking Neo in The Matrix. I see his legs bend forward then see his hand reaching down behind him. He bends over far enough to grab the roll, stream still going (it was a urinal with water in the base so I could hear it) he grabs it and perfectly rolls it back over to me, GIVES A THUMBS UP, then stands straight up again.
Un-f*cking-real.”
8. Culture shock.
“Went to a public bathroom at a restaurant stop in rural China.
I was peeing on a squatter toilet and a woman come in and squats on the one beside me. There is no barrier between us- we could touch hands if we both put our arms out. Anyways, she starts taking a dump with all the noises and I had to get out real quick.
More of a culture shock thing since she was completely fine with it.”
9. OH MY GOD.
“Some guy in the Seattle Greyhound station OD’d in the women’s bathroom and I had to call 911.
The paramedics moved him to the lobby where he died while we were waiting for our bus. I was 16.”
10. Maybe it was a ghost?
“I was driving between Houston and Austin and stopped at a gas station to go pee.
I do my business and start washing my hands when I looked up and saw a man covered head to toe in burn marks staring at me from a stall. I didn’t hear or see anyone when I went inside so I literally jumped and ran out of there.
I still feel bad about it but I like to tell myself it was a ghost so I don’t feel like such an as$hole.”
11. Halloween horror story.
“It was in my small college town, somewhere around 2015. It was Halloween, and I was stumbling back towards my dorm more than slightly intoxicated when I very urgently needed to pee. I’m not one for peeing in public, so I started looking around for places I could stop for the needed pit stop. There was a bar still open on the main strip I had to walk past, so I decided to shuffle in and try to get to the bathroom before a staff member could ask me to buy something.
It was empty inside… people had mostly headed off to their separate Halloween parties. I somehow made it to the bathroom without incident, but immediately paused in place. Inside the bathroom were four men in hooded robes, standing silently and facing each other. I’m internally a little weirded out but also laughing, because Halloween shenanigans I’m sure. But then they all start moving, as though animated at once.
One starts washing his hands for waay longer than is necessary. One is just drying his hands for waay longer than necessary, and I’m relatively sure it was never even wet in the first place. One of them is holding an M&M wrapper and he’s peeling it into small pieces, flitting them to the inside of a nearby uirnal and placing others in his pocket. He then handed me one of the torn pieces while asking me, “Do you fear death, my dude?” This guy’s delivery was simultaneously one of the most hilarious and eerie things I’ve ever heard. Something about his inflection upwards on the my dude, combined with the stone-cold way the sentence began… I was unsure how to respond. I think I told him something like “hard to say, I’ve never almost died.”
He nodded as though my words were profound and affecting. They then all returned to their robotic strange bathroom rituals, not quite ever progressing in their respective tasks. I washed my hands, dried them, and walked out before any one of the men had finished whatever it is they seemed to be doing.
The bathroom door clicked shut behind me, and suddenly I’m back in the sleepy bar ambiance. Counter’s being wiped, and chair stacking was beginning. I shuffled out and away into the Halloween night, with no clear idea what the hell just happened. I’m sure they were just kids having some Halloween fun, and they were probably on some kinds of mild drugs..? Whatever it was, I still remember it these several years later.”
12. Barging in.
“A guy tried to barge in on the stall I was sh^tting in after I said it was occupied but I was almost done.
He tried to open the door again and I pushed it open into him and asked him if he was deaf or stupid. I relate the tale to my friends back at our table.
As I finish, the dude walks up to his table across the bar…and starts signing to his friends.”
13. Good job, Aaron.
“I went into my university bathroom and started hearing a low groaning and the guy started saying “You’re doing such a good job Aaron” over and over again.
I walked out and went straight to a different bathroom.”
14. Something’s fishy here.
“This was in the mid 80’s at a bar in La Jolla, CA. I was taking a piss and two guys walk in, go directly to the stall and lock themselves in it. The following conversation took place:
“What you got?”
“Ok, this bag is 10, this one is 20 and this one is 50”
Pause
“Ahhh, what the f*ck”
Snorting noises ensued.”
15. Can you share your snacks?
“I was in a public bathroom and needed to change my tampon and of course the packaging is loud af.
There was a mom and daughter in the stall next to me and the little girl very loudly said “mom she has snacks in there can you ask her if I can have some snacks”.”
16. Screams of agony.
“I had the pleasure of hearing some poor soul trying to pass a kidney stone in a movie theater restroom.
His screams would have scared the sh^t out of me if that wasn’t why I was in there in the first place.”
Yowza…I thought I’d seen some odd things in bathrooms in my life, but these are on another level.
Okay, now it’s your turn…
Share some weird stories about things you’ve experienced in public bathrooms. Let’s keep this thread going!