I Like Taking My Shits Here
There are sentences you’re not supposed to say out loud.
“I like taking my shits here.”
Read that again.
It’s crude. It isn’t polished. It isn’t the sort of sentence you’d expect to open a piece of journalism.
It’s also completely true.
I’m sitting in Orchard Park Shopping Centre in Kelowna. I don’t really need anything from the mall. I rarely buy anything here. Most of the stores sell things I can’t afford or don’t need. Designer brands have never impressed me much. If someone is going to convince me to spend money, it had better solve a real problem.
Today, the thing that brought me here wasn’t shopping.
It was the bathroom.
Not because I had an emergency.
Because I wanted the dignity of not wondering what I was about to find.
When you’re homeless, a clean washroom stops being an invisible convenience and becomes infrastructure.
You start building your day around places that have functioning sinks, soap that actually dispenses, toilet paper that isn’t gone by noon, doors that lock, accessible stalls that work, and enough room to maneuver a wheelchair without feeling like you’re solving a geometry problem.
Most people never think about any of those things.
I do.
Every single day.
The shelter washroom serves dozens of people living under enormous stress. It gets heavy use. There are times I’ve found the toilet seat wet before I even start. There are times I’ve flushed midway through using it because I’m trying to reduce the chance of plugging the toilet, knowing that can create splashback. Those aren’t dramatic stories. They’re just the quiet realities of shared emergency living.
So today, after coffee with Chris, after talking about writing, ham radio and trying to build a future that still feels a long way off, I found myself thinking something I’ve thought many times before.
“I think I’ll use the washroom before I leave.”
Not because I had to.
Because I wanted to.
That difference matters.
The accessible family washroom here has an automatic door. It locks properly. The push buttons are where you expect them to be. There is room to turn my wheelchair. There is soap. Running water. Paper towels. I wash my hands without thinking about whether the dispenser works or whether someone emptied it yesterday.
For ten minutes, I get to use a washroom the way almost everyone else in Canada uses one every day.
Without planning.
Without anxiety.
Without lowering my standards because I don’t have another choice.
That’s what dignity looks like.
It isn’t glamorous.
It isn’t expensive.
It isn’t complicated.
It’s soap.
It’s water.
It’s a clean toilet.
It’s enough space for a wheelchair.
It’s a lock that works.
It’s leaving feeling cleaner than when you arrived instead of wondering what you touched.
People sometimes ask what homelessness has taught me.
It has taught me that civilization isn’t measured by luxury.
It’s measured by the ordinary things most people never notice until they’re gone.
A clean bathroom.
A safe shower.
A place to charge a phone.
A chair where you can sit without someone telling you to move along.
Today I came to Orchard Park because I didn’t want to go back to the shelter yet.
I had nowhere else I needed to be.
No shopping list.
No errands.
No appointments.
Just time to fill.
The mall became a place to exist for a little while without feeling like I needed to justify my presence.
That’s a strange thing to write.
It’s even stranger to realize it’s true.
So yes.
I like taking my shits here.
Not because it’s exciting.
Not because it’s funny.
Because for a few ordinary minutes, I’m reminded what normal feels like.
And if that sentence makes someone uncomfortable, maybe the problem isn’t the sentence.
Maybe it’s that in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, a clean public washroom has become one of the places where a homeless person can most reliably find a little dignity.
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