The Place to Pee
It's eight-thirty on the last day of the yearly Amsterdam Light Festival and everywhere I look people are queuing up for warm beverages. I came prepared, my bag heavy with a cocoa-filled thermos and a small bottle of rum. As a herd of people moves past me toward a big blue ball in front of the Hermitage, I suddenly realize: I have to pee. In hindsight, all that hot cocoa was probably a bad idea. But where to go?
My friend wanders on to the next art installation and I follow, leaving the cafes and restaurants behind. Now there are no toilets in sight and it’s nine o’clock—only one hour left until the lights dim. Why did we go on the very last day of the festival? Why didn’t I pee at the station, where peeing costs only seventy cents and leaves me with my dignity intact? If I start on a restroom quest now, I will miss out on most of the art.
While we strategize, trying to decide on our next move, I hear a trickle of water hitting the canal. I look over only to see a guy quickly zipping up his fly. This bothers me. Not just because I don’t want to see some random guy peeing, but because I envy him. I know that I could never pull that off. The fine for urinating in public is over a hundred euros and, even worse, I’m wearing a jumpsuit.
Instead, I have to rely on the buggy site for public restrooms. The digital map shows Amsterdam covered in promising symbols: purple circles, green triangles, and red squares. In total, there are six types of restrooms to be found in and around the city. I locate myself on the map and spot some green dots near me. But what does that mean? According to the legend, it’s an “Amsterdam curl.” So a type of urinal. Well, great.
I grudgingly unselect the “standing” option and refresh the page. A small number of red and orange squares remain. I click on an orange square that is relatively close by. “Toilet in a parking garage, only for car park users.” So is it not a map of public restrooms? I untick the orange squares as well as the bright red squares situated in the city center, close to the station, but far away from me.
Finally, only the green triangles remain. These disabled-friendly restrooms are open twenty-four-seven, cost fifty cents, and are every claustrophobic’s worst nightmare as they open and close automatically. But not to worry, the maximum amount of time you could be locked inside is just fifteen minutes, the online description fails to reassure me.
The nearest green triangle is located in a park. My gut tells me to avoid parks at night, but my bladder disagrees. So we abandon the festival and rush towards our new destination. The park seems to be straight out of a horror movie. The kind of scene where you would yell “Nooo, are you stupid?!” at the main character when they decide to enter. And so we go in.
In the shadows cast by trees and the dim light of street lanterns, everything seems suspicious. The park is largely deserted, except for two guys smoking on a bench and an old man walking his dog. But the toilet is on the other side, past the pond, shrouded in fog. Or am I now imagining things? As we approach the stall, I see the door is ajar. It’s a small gray groom, but not a restroom. There’s no toilet.
Another setback. Why did we walk this far for nothing? Why is this toilet, which is clearly not a toilet anymore, even on the map? I consider peeing behind the stall, but as I approach the bushes a group of guys settles on the bench opposite. I give up. It’s past ten, the festival is over, and we still haven’t found a restroom. Defeated, we returned to the central station.
I’m reminded of an earlier quest when I jumped a turnstile in Utrecht to use the station restrooms. My reasons were quite valid: it was the middle of the night, I didn’t have my public transport pass, and all other toilets were closed because of COVID. Still, I got fined. But rebelling against the lack of accessible and free toilets for those who can’t pee standing up is hard to do when you need to go. So even though it felt unfair, I abandoned the festival, took a subway, and paid the seventy cents … just to have a place to pee.
Appeared in The Boomerang, February 2022
