Last summer, while vacationing in Colorado Springs, I talked husband Ray into revisiting some of the places we had traveled with our sons when their ages were in single digits.

While no amount of persuasion could coerce him to reprise a visit we once made with the kids to The North Pole featuring Santa’s house and a petting zoo at the base of Pike’s Peak, he reluctantly agreed to accompany me to Seven Falls.

When we were there decades ago, I thought the falls were pretty impressive. Even more impressive was the fact that, with kids in tow, we climbed almost 300 steps to the top of the falls.

The stairs are still there, but you won’t believe this someone blasted a shaft into the mountain and placed an elevator in it! At the base of the elevator, there is a small gift shop. The elevator delivers you to another gift shop on the observation deck where you can view the falls and, if you wait for dark, watch the colored lights play over the cascading waters. You also can look down on the roof of a humongous gift shop between the elevator and the falls.

While I have always believed that gift shops are an essential part of life, there is a greater essential that the architects of Seven Falls overlooked. They planned only one bathroom, and it is a good two-block hike from the falls and the gift shops.

Whoever heard of a gift shop without a bathroom? Don’t they know that the one way to keep women browsing for hours is to provide a pit stop especially when there is the sound of running water nearby?

As Ray and I made our way to the remote restrooms, we noticed that people like us who were going TO walked in purposeful, silent concentration with long, quick strides. People coming FROM were in an obviously more-relaxed state, smiling and chatting as they happily strolled back to the falls.

The most casual observer recognizes that the line to any women’s restroom is always 10 times longer than the line to the men’s. That is because the assembly line system provided for men ensures quicker service. However, while the men’s restroom had no line at all, there were a couple dozen women shifting from one leg to the other in front the ladies’ room, the door of which held a crudely lettered sign: “Out of Order.”

As I fumed about the inequity of accommodations, a clearly desperate woman cast me an agonized glance and said, “Maybe we could scale one of these mountains and find privacy behind a pine tree.”

“I’ve got a better idea than that,” I said, “we’ll use the men’s room.”

“Can we do that?” asked another woman.

“Sure!” I said, “Just watch us.”

We required cooperation from Ray and a few other men who agreed to tell us when the room was free of males and guard the door once we were inside to bar other men from entering. I am still irritated at the man who rushed in ahead of us and camped in the room for about 10 minutes.

“Hmmmm,” I remarked as the minutes rolled by, “maybe we won’t WANT to go in there when he finally comes out.”

For female readers, I’ll explain that men’s restrooms do contain stalls as well as the porcelain assembly line against the wall. Also, ladies, file this information away in case you ever need it: Regardless of the urgency of her situation, a woman cannot repeat, CANNOT take advantage of the assembly line men use so effortlessly. Trust me, I’ve seen it tried.

As distressing as the Seven Falls experience was, it wasn’t the worst I’ve encountered in a bathroom. While visiting the Mayan pyramid at Coba on the Yucatan Peninsula, my sister Lesta and I took advantage of the world’s most primitive bathroom and paid cold hard pesos for the privilege. But even that less-than-sanitary encounter wasn’t my worst.

No, the top of my list for horrendous bathroom experiences goes to the little Johnny-on-the-Spot at the first and last demolition derby I attended. Once inside, the dim light revealed a convenient shelf where I placed my purse. For the record, Johnnies-on-the-Spot HAVE NO SHELF just a small plastic imitation of an assembly line for males.

Not to worry. I needed a new purse anyway.