Here in our part of Scotland what we know as restrooms in the U.S. are sometimes labeled “WC” for “water closets.” Woe to the unsuspecting tourist who desperately needs a toilet and has no idea what the small “WC” sign on a building means.

Toilets in this part of Scotland are called “loos.” And the toilets are frequently labelled “male” and “female.” Humorous considering the fact that they clearly do not reproduce. Finding public toilets as you head north from here to the Black Isle is as difficult and frustrating as finding the end on a clear roll of tape.

Public toilets are so scarce that travelers must resort to extreme measures when they can’t hold it any longer. Or at least—I have. Leaning against the back of a vacant building. Hanging onto metal racks for support in the back of a closed store. Hiding behind the open door of the car on the side of the road. Not. Fun.

However, for folks like me—necessary. If I were not so adamantly opposed to drugs I could make a fortune peeing for drug tests.

And, when one can find a public toilet—dangers abound. The metal hardware has been painted over so many times that when one latches the door it’s a fight to get it open again. And, because the partitions stretch from floor to ceiling—there is no way to climb over or go under when the door won’t open again. On one road trip, it took two men and a handful of tools to extricate Alan from a toilet stall when he couldn’t open the door. The men had to unscrew and take the hinges off the other side to let him out.

Me? I’m so claustrophobic that I take my chances with not locking the door. If some desperate fellow traveler bustles in and plops down on my lap—I’ll just hope they have good aim.

And cold? Scotland never has what a Texan would consider a summer. When it gets over 70 degrees, folks complain that they are “broiling.” Many of the WCs along the way are not heated. Cold metal seats, cold carved granite seats—they are out there, folks!

Some bathrooms—even in a large hospital across the water still have big tanks of water hanging on the wall under the ceiling. A long tube runs down from the water tank to the toilet bowl. It flushes by pulling a chain with a wooden handle at the end.

Many of the more modern toilets have buttons on the top. The buttons are divided in half. The user is supposed to push the big part of the button to flush poo, and the smaller part for pees. The problem is that those buttons are hard to press down—especially for older folks. It is perplexing to me that the hospital across the water with the tanks on the wall would install push button toilets when so many of their patients lack the strength to push the buttons.

Perhaps it’s in poor taste to write a blog about toilets—but I don’t think so. God has marvelously created us. Our bodies are designed to take in and let out. We can’t survive if the process stalls.

Our bodies are not one member, but many members. “God has set the members, each one of them, in the body as He pleased… those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.”1 Corinthians 12:22.

When I first arrived in Scotland from the U.S., I used to aggravate Alan by calling Scotland a “third world country.” But I’ve been stuck in one of those public toilets myself—with no one within hollering distance to help. Toilet dramas have found their way into several of my Miz Mike books and other books of mine which are set in Scotland.

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