Yesterday, the three of us were sitting in a restaurant with a friend (okay, tasting
room of a local brewery where you can call a restaurant and have them deliver
your food), and I mentioned the story of a couple at a Starbucks who decided to
quickly change their baby’s diaper in the seating area since there was no
changing table in either restroom (more
on that here) and got treated pretty poorly – an employee tossed a rag at
them and told them to clean up after themselves.
Then, to my chagrin, I realized the boy needed a change
himself. I assessed the situation in the women’s room – the single room was big
enough to fit a rhinoceros but had no stall and no changing table; just a
filthy concrete floor crawling with dust bunnies. I came back and DH and I decided
to conquer this as a team.
Here’s how I envision the diaper changing if we could do it
Indy 500 style, which we did:
- Lock the door
- Person 1 holds the child standing in the air
- Person 2 pulls down the pants, unfastens and removes the diaper, disposes of the diaper (Quick! We don’t want the child to pee on Person 1), grabs the fresh diaper, fastens it on the child, pulls on the pants, and puts the socks and shoes back on.
- Both persons tell the child he’s doing a Great Job! Such a good boy! Wow!
- Persons emerge 30 seconds later with freshly-diapered and slightly bewildered child.
But, you know, more often than not there is no Person 2 to
help you accomplish this feat. That’s why public places with restrooms that are bigger than my bedroom
(or any size, for that matter) should really invest a teensy bit of funds into a
changing table. Really. No, REALLY. You’re doing the general public a big favor
and admitting that small children do, in fact, exist. Even in tasting rooms.
