CLEVELAND — Reporter Cal Pontiac was on location researching a story and needed a bathroom break. He ducked into Connie’s Cupcakes nearby and was pointed to the accessible public bathroom by the cashier. That’s when he found out the horrifying truth: Their accessible bathroom was just a hole in the ground.
“They even gave me an access code for the door,” Pontiac says. “But when I got to the bathroom behind their building, there were no doors, no outhouse, not even a toilet seat. It was just a gaping hole in the ground.” On average, the US only has eight public toilets per 100,000 people, according to the Public Toilet Index. Meanwhile, bathroom urgency is an all-too-common problem for people with some disabilities. Thankfully, Pontiac was prepared.
“I always keep a pack of adult diapers in my car for emergencies just like this. The good stuff too, super-absorbent, unisex sizing, huge Cleveland Cavaliers logo on the side so folks know I support my home team.” He had experience encountering holes in the ground that were supposed to be bathrooms. However, he said that this one was different.
“I went back to the hole to dump the rest of my … dump, I guess, and I noticed a slight wail coming from the bottom of the hole? Like some ethereal nightmare was trapped down there, mad that it didn’t capture my soul. Root tendrils started crawling their way out of the hole like a Lovecraftian mouth. I saw visions of toilets all over the world, marble ones, gold ones, outhouses on the prairie, you name it. I think it’s some type of network and it needed my poop. I dumped the contents of my diaper in there and it went quiet. So yeah, if anyone needs an accessible public bathroom around the area, Connie’s Cupcakes has a haunted hole behind their building and the access code is 7944. Go Cavs!”