Let’s start with the obvious: gas station bathrooms are disgusting.
They smell like a combination of wet cardboard and ancient sins. The lighting is always brutal, the sink always soaked, and the lock on the door either broken or so complicated you’ll question your mechanical aptitude. There’s a 50/50 chance the toilet paper is just a brown paper towel in witness protection.
And yet—somewhere between the flickering fluorescent lights, the Sharpie confessions etched into stall doors and the occasional glory hole—I’ve come to believe gas station bathrooms are one of the most honest places in America.
No pretense. No curated aesthetics. No scented candles or farmhouse signs reminding you to Live, Laugh, Love. Just a mirror you didn’t ask for, showing you every wrinkle and dark circle under your tired eyes.
They are the great equalizer. Rock stars, truckers, college kids, retirees on their way to see the Grand Canyon—everyone pees here. Everyone struggles with the faucet that only works if you karate chop it just right. Everyone wonders if they should just hold it until the next town.
Lesson One—You’re Never Too Good for Rock Bottom
You know that moment—you’re mid-road trip, greasy with hours of fast food, and you shuffle into the bathroom with the key that’s attached to a wooden block or a spatula or, in one memorable case, a dog collar.
You enter. You see the horror. And you think, I have a college degree. I own linen napkins. I am not supposed to be here.
But you are. And you will squat (cause there’s no way your sweet cheeks are touching that toilet seat). And you will survive. And you will leave a little humbler than when you walked in.
Gas station bathrooms are where your ego goes to die. And thank god. Because once your ego’s gone, you’re free. Free to be weird. Free to be wrong. Free to be a human being who sometimes just really, really has to pee. I’ve never left a gas station stall where I didn’t feel the ecstasy of pure liberation.
Lesson Two—People Leave Themselves Behind in Writing
Some bathrooms are blank. But some are treasure troves—confessionals without priests, time capsules of heartbreak and rebellion. I once read a phone number scrawled next to “for a good time,” followed immediately by “not that good tbh.” I’ve seen poetry, arguments, inside jokes, and one very detailed political rant written entirely in purple gel pen.
In the absence of a comment section, this is where we speak.
We forget that writing in public used to be normal. Cave paintings. Train station love notes. Napkin poetry. Gas station stalls are one of the last places people leave unfiltered thoughts for strangers—raw, reckless, unedited.
And sometimes, when you read them, you feel a little less alone.
Lesson Three—A Little Kindness Goes a Long Way
One time, somewhere in west Texas, I walked into a bathroom expecting the usual: despair.
But instead, I found this:
- A fresh roll of toilet paper
- A tiny vase with one fake daisy
- And a hand soap that smelled like actual lavender
It probably cost someone $6 to do all of that. But I remember it five years later.
There is grace in the grimiest places. And sometimes, when someone goes out of their way to make a literal sh*tshow just 10% better, it reminds you that you can do the same.
Even if no one thanks you. Even if no one notices. Even if it’s just a daisy taped to the sink in a room no one wants to be in.
Lesson Four—The Road Doesn’t Care What You Look Like
The lighting in gas station bathrooms is unkind at best. Your reflection looks like you lost a fight with a tumbleweed. Your skin yellowed under tepid wattage. Your hair drab. Your soul slightly out of alignment.
But somehow, you look more you than ever.
Because the road doesn’t care about your angles, it only cares that you showed up. That you’re moving forward. That you’re doing your best with what you’ve got, even if what you’ve got is a lukewarm Dr Pepper and a ketchup stain on your shirt.
In Praise of the Pit Stop
Gas station bathrooms are not sacred places. But they are real ones.
They’re the pause between destinations. The unfiltered middle. The moment you admit that you’re tired, that you maybe shouldn’t have had that gas station egg salad sandwich, that you’re human.
So here’s to the cracked tiles, the suspicious soap, the graffiti prophets, and the occasional, improbable daisy.May we all learn to be a little more honest. A little more kind.
And a lot more willing to stop when we need to.
