photo by: Submitted

A barn-themed restroom is featured at the Footprints shoe store, 1339 Massachusetts Street, in Lawrence.

If pigs could fly . . . they still might not be as indispensable as the one inside the bathroom of Footprints, the longtime Lawrence shoe store on south Massachusetts Street.

That pig — a tile version on the bathroom wall — has a toilet paper dispenser hanging out of its rear-end.

Soon, it may have an award hanging around too.

The bathroom at Footprints, 1339 Massachusetts Street, is one of nine finalists in the country vying to win the title of “America’s Best Restroom.”

“They are all beautiful bathrooms,” Mick Ranney, owner of Footprints, said of his fellow competitors in the competition that is organized by the giant janitorial company Cintas. “But ours is certainly the funkiest.”

The shop’s restroom has a definite barn theme to it. That fits in well with the agricultural-based murals that have long adorned the walls of the Birkenstock retailer. But those agriculture murals didn’t just naturally lead to a barn-themed restroom.

There’s a dream to thank for that.

Ranney went to bed one night and dreamt of a bathroom that was full of barnyard animals. No, he said he doesn’t remember what he had before bedtime that night.

But, when he awoke, he had the idea for what he was going to do with his shop’s outdated restroom that featured a plywood floor and phone booth-like square footage.

“It was $20,000 at the time, and that seemed like a helluva lot of money,” Ranney said of the cost to build the bathroom approximately 20 to 25 years ago.

photo by: Submitted

ile barnyard animals are all over the walls of the restroom at the Footprints shoe store in Lawrence, which is a finalist for the best restroom in America.

The bathroom has been around that long, and has built a following well before it entered the Cintas competition this year for the first time. Ranney recalls that in the days before cell phones, people actually would come into to the store with a camera and ask to use the restroom.

Many times, multiple people enter the restroom at once, despite it being a “one-holer,” as Ranney describes it.

Ranney said the most common sound he hears coming out of the restroom, fortunately, is laughter.

Indeed, there is plenty there to catch your eye and perhaps tickle your funny bone. There’s a fluffy lamb, a scraggly barnyard cat, corn husks on the floor, a cowpie off to the side of the toilet, and a 3-D horse’s head above the sink.

Inside the mouth is a mirror — so you indeed do have an excuse to look at least one gift horse in the mouth.

Ranney, who has been in the Lawrence retail business for 46 years, said he decided to make this year the one that he entered the national bathroom competition. Some time back, his neighbor mentioned that his hometown of Lucas, Kansas had won second place in the bathroom contest.

That Lucas bathroom, according to the neighbor, was actually inspired by the Footprints bathroom. Upon learning that, Ranney “figured maybe we should enter this contest.”

To win the national competition, the store — which isn’t in a barn but is in an old 1870s limestone grocery story building — has to best eight other restrooms stretching across America.

Among the competition is a pink, marble-laden hotel lobby restroom in Salt Lake City, a New York facility with views of the Manhattan skyline, and a restroom at a Dallas restaurant that is adorned with koi fish and water lilies on the walls.

Cintas officials picked the nine finalists based on nominations and standards of cleanliness, design, innovation, and functionality. Votes from people across the country will determine the winner. People have until the end of Friday, Aug. 15 to cast their votes online. Voting takes place at bestrestroom.com/vote.

A victory would be another round of publicity for the store, which already has a wide regional following among fans of its signature shoe line, Birkenstock sandals. Ranney said he indeed would enjoy the attention, but win or lose, he’s confident he’s going to come out on top in the category that matters most to him.

“They are far more institutional,” Ranney said of his competition and most bathrooms in general. “But I think ours is far more interesting.”

photo by: submitted

Tile barnyard animals — plus a distressed farmer — are all over the walls of the restroom at the Footprints shoe store in Lawrence, which is a finalist for the best restroom in America.