Primark

           So today we are traveling to the sort-of new retail megastructure in Downtown Boston, Primark. Primark is relatively new European clothing retailer. Decent quality stuff for pretty cheap. I personally like European-style cloths, I think they fit me better. It probably has something to do with the fact that not everyone in Europe is a thick like us. I wish I was of a bigger build so that it wouldn’t be so hard for me to find cloths that fit me. But that is not the point of this, we need to get to what really matters, the bathroom.

            Ok so Primark took over the old Filenes in Downtown Crossing. Now there are four floors of clothing in this place, and roughly three and a half is dedicated to women’s clothing. So if you are a dude looking for a large selection, you will get one half of one floor. The rest is for the women. Now the restroom is located on the fourth floor. Getting up there is a pain in the ass. You have two options, take the elevator, or take the escalator. If you are on the escalator, chances are you will be just as cramped as you would on the elevators, except you won’t have to wait as long to get up there. At least you can gauge how slow your moving on the escalator. When you wait for the elevator, it seems to take an eternity to get to your floor. So I would advise that you take the escalator.

            Now once you make it up to the fourth floor, there are signs that point you to the bathroom. Although they are very hard to follow. The whole store is confusing like that. But a good way to find the bathroom is to look where the employee break room is. It is down that hall that you can find the bathroom. Great so you found where you are going, and you walk down the hall and what do you find? A single door, that houses one bathroom. It is multi-gendered, so there are no men’s or woman’s restroom here, just one shared bathroom. Considering the size of the store, I thought maybe I got lost or something and found the employee bathroom. But after reassurance from a Primark employee, I indeed found the bathroom. Well this is going to be different.

            I don’t even know what came over me to go through with this review. I could see the single file line gathering behind me, and I knew I was going in there to see what brown could do for me. So after what seemed like forever, it was finally my turn! I felt like a benchwarmer who the coach finally called in to play at the big game.

            I opened the door and what did I see? I saw a single solitary toilet in the far left corner. Now I got to say that this bathroom was massive! I mean you could have totally fit like two or three toilets in here, there is no need to have just one solitary toilet in this bathroom. Hell you could have cut it up into two bathrooms and maybe alleviated some of the bathroom lines, but then again, maybe that is how they do it in Europe.

            So I looked around for a coat hook, and found none. Well no worries, this bathroom is so large it does not really matter. You can stick your stuff on one side and they will be out of the way of any poo-water.

            So as I laid my booty down on the toilet, I started with the dirty deed of flushing out my colon. It could not have been thirty seconds into my poop before someone started knocking on the door. I had a feeling this would be a running theme. Sure enough just about every minute or so, there would be a knock at the door. Now I could have been in this bathroom for about four minutes’ tops. I must have spent a solid minute wiping my ass, and not to gross you out or anything but it was akin to wiping a wet marker. Try as I might, I just could not rid my anus of my poo-remnants.

            So in the process of all of this, I kept hearing these weird gurgling sounds coming from the pipes of the toilet. I thought it was kind of odd at first and I thought maybe there was another toilet located close by, but sure enough it was coming from this very toilet. I was starting to panic in here. Not only was the toilet making weird noises, but the shitty one-ply toilet paper was ripping me a new one. To make matters worse, my asshole refused to dry up. I thought I was going to run out of toilet paper, but thankfully I got rid of this awful duce-residue.

            As you can imagine, the knocks at the door got louder and more frequent. I even had what appeared to be an employee ask me if everything was alright. I assured him that I was almost done, but my asshole was like a wet marker so I would need an additional thirty seconds. I do not know how that employee took it, and I have to come to terms with the fact that I could never see his reaction.

            Now that I was done I went over to the manual sink and washed my hands up. Lo and behold right next to the sink was the cream of the crop, the Dyson Airblade. I took great joy in running my hands up and down the inside of this futuristic air dryer while the sounds of knocking grew louder and louder. I gathered up my bag and I headed out, only to see the line grew three times its’ size since before I got in there. I hope the stink didn’t offend anyone… Who am I kidding? I hope I gagged that bitchy lady who gave me the stink eye as I walked proudly out of that bathroom. Nobody fucks with my shit-time, and I mean nobody.

            So now that I was done doing what I do, much to the horror of everyone standing in line, it is time to get to The Secret Shitter’s Five Star Review.

Number of Stalls: 1

Accessibility: 1

Stall Comfort: 3

Cleanliness: 3

Toilet Paper Quality: 2

Décor: 1

Busyness: 5

Overall Rating: 1

            This bathroom is just as bad as the one-star rating indicates. I don’t know what is worse, having a drab all white design, or having fifty people knocking on the door while I am trying to take a dump. I get it that this is a shared bathroom, but you would think with a store of this size there would be two separate bathrooms for men and women to alleviate the strain on the line. I am not even sure if the employees have a separate bathroom to be honest. It looks like they put no effort into the design and placement of this bathroom. It almost feels like they went “oops, I guess we need to put one in here”. With four floors of retail space, that means it can hold quite a bit of people inside. When there are that many people sharing one bathroom, bad things are bound to happen. Shame on you Primark! I like your cheap clothing options, but your bathroom situation would offend Satan himself. This is absolutely the worse bathroom I have encountered outside of The Walgreens on School Street. Hell even Faneuil Hall’s hanging-on-for-dear-life door beats this bathroom. I have a feeling I would have had a better shitting experience if I had asked to use one of the Port-a-Pottys in the construction site next door. I would have at least been able to shit in peace.

            Now that you know about my experience, why don’t you tell me about some of your own in the comment section below. While you are at it, why not purchase our book, The Secret Shitter’s Guide to Boston Volume 1 on Amazon and keep it in your purse or bag and never fear shitting again. Until next time, Peace.