London’s newest cult? And my public toilet meltdown

A couple of days ago I experienced a societal malfunction and cried my way around the Soho theatre district on a sunny Saturday afternoon! Ugh, I just wanted a matcha fromTOKKIA, the Vietnamese matcha café in Covent Garden.

When you have the luxury of going into central London on weekdays, you forget how bad it is on the weekend.

Chaos begun as I pranced from the depths of Green Park tube station, intending to first wander up Regent Street and visit the new double-decker Skims flagship! It was so needlessly instagrammable and obnoxious; staff were managing a queue, winding down and around the side of the building. I love Skims, but this isn't Chanel! Although, I'll give credit where credit is due: that shop interior is perfection. Kimberly has class, because inside it felt like a Beverly Hills wellness cult I couldn’t afford to pay indoctrinate fees for!

Soft-touch matte neutrals everywhere, and a mirrored circular changing room that looked like a modernised 1960s Hollywood vanity combined with an almost eerie retro mirror maze you could get lost in!

Warped, whimsy-club music pulsed through the air, as if in attempt to simulate micro-dosing ketamine at one of those trendy clinics Elon Musk frequents. The whole vibe was VERY LA. 

It had that new shop smell, too. And exclusive London swag. I’m obsessed with this chaotic Afternoon Tea design!!

Then I continued my Hot Girl Walk in my open-toe-Dune-summer-cork-wedges and chipped ballet slipper pink pedicure up Oxford street… However, moments after arriving by foot in Soho the air changed, I begun to feel sick and dissociate, my vision adopting a fish-eye lens. The sheer number of ruddy-faced drunkards spilling out from pubs onto the curb —and the noise and yeasty beer smell that accompanied them was too much. But it was the sight of those public urinals by Soho Square that was the last straw for my sanity.

I needed a bathroom of my own to seek refuge for a moment. Too much to ask? Apparently so.

London has a huge problem: no public toilets. Seriously, it's actually fucked up. My American bestie was appalled when she visited. One of the world's busiest cities, yet nowhere to pee or fill up a water bottle. “In America there are free public toilets on every block”, I was told. In London you have to buy something just to use a café's shitty, unkempt bathroom. I've become well adapted at remembering the few venues you can sneak into unnoticed to use their bathrooms, alas, there are none in Soho. 

So I scrambled around, it felt like trying to run in mud. Darting between men attempting to hit on me, and the rest of Soho’s finest. Every public toilet I found already had a queue of ten+ women snaking out the door. And I'm sorry, but a toilet with that much footfall is not going to be clean. I can't go into a toilet ten women have just come out of. That thought alone started to conjure a panic attack in my chest. 

Then I spotted a bar by the famous Soho sexual assault alley. Iykyk. The bar was dingy, dark and practically empty, so I wandered in sheepishly, hiding in its dimness. I walked down to their basement, only to find something even worse than a busy ladies' room: mixed-gender toilets!!

Maybe I'm being unfair, I told myself. Maybe men aren't disgusting and messy and gross.

But those fears of mine were confirmed the second I opened the door —which I instantly regretted touching. 

Now, I've been to almost every Glastonbury since I was born, minus the fallow years. So believe me when I say, I know a bad toilet. I know really bad toilets. The kind that's just a hole cut into a plank of wood over a trough of shit and vomit. The composting type that use sawdust to “flush”. 

I'm not saying these toilets were that bad, but they may as well have been for the reaction provoked by all the toilet paper, moisture and rubbish covering the floor. I couldn't believe they were already in that state before the bar was even busy. When were they last cleaned? 

Now I was really panicking. —And I had to touch the door again to let myself out!!! 

I marched into a theatre across the road. They'll have nice toilets.

Before I'd made it through the foyer, a short, moustached French security guard came after me.

"You can't be in here without a ticket! Do you have a ticket?"

I pleaded my case. I just needed the bathroom.

He told me to try KFC.

I couldn't even validate that with an answer. Imagine the toilets in a fried chicken, fast food restaurant! I wouldn't eat there, let alone use their bathroom.

Besides, I’m sure it’s a confirmed fact that you can catch an STD from a KFC toilet seat. Thats where the homeless go to copulate!!!!!

I walked away with tears welling in my eyes, distorting my vision. I tried one last place; Foyles on Charring Cross Road. I walked up five flights of stairs only to find another endless queue of women, and completely lose my composure.

Now, I have no shame crying in public. Crying has attained me many things in life —I’ve cried for diamonds. It's the final weapon in my arsenal.

Tears streaming down my face, I flipped my sunglasses onto my head, playing into the damsel in destress —though at this point, it’s hardly an act. 

I marched back up those theatre steps and burst into tears with the elegance of a hand grenade.

“I have looked everywhere unsuccessfully, pleaseeeeeeee let me use your toilets”. 

He picked up his walkie-talkie.

"There's a girl here crying. She wants to use the bathroom."

Before anyone could answer, a man at the reception desk, who had been silently watching this entire chronicle unfold, asked what I needed.

"A toilet," I blubbered.

He looked almost embarrassed for me.

"Of course she can use the toilet." His kind tone ushered me in. 

The security insisted on searching my bag first. 

I was ugly crying like Kim Kardashian when she lost her diamond earring in the Bora Bora ocean. 

I stumbled into the bathrooms, still weeping. Thank God they were as clean as I'd imagined. Sea-mineral scented hand soap. I washed my hands thrice for sanity and sanitary matters. 

A woman who worked there came in and asked if I was okay.

"I'm sorry, I just really needed a toilet and couldn't find one anywhereeeee," I wailed like a cat.

She looked concerned. I think she thought I was on drugs.

"I'm on my period,"

I lied,

trying to justify what must have looked like a complete psychological collapse.

"I won't be long."

I sat in that cubicle and instantly felt calmer. After using the toilet and washing my hands again, I grabbed a handful of napkins, and dabbed my face as I walked past what was now a small audience of theatre staff, who made sure I exited the building swiftly.

I continued to sniffle and cry while completing my walk to get matcha. I was still crying in the queue outside, so I crunched a clonazepam. It wasn’t until I stepped through the door that I snapped into a brief moment of composure and ordered my drink. 

“One iced Injeolmi vanilla matcha latte with oat milk and vegan topping”.