In Washington: A Guide to Discomfort Stations

Saturday morning and you're out at the discount store with the family. Suddenly the three-year-old starts hip-hopping urgently from foot to foot, and you know what that means. In the men's room there is no toilet paper. When Daddy asks for some, the woman at the customer-service desk eyes him as if he were just the sort of geek to jam the roll down the toilet, flush twice and drown everybody in the store. The toilet, it turns out, does not flush well anyway. Also there's no soap, and the sink has one of those faucets you have to keep pushing...