A Lawyer With Crohn's Disease Got His Own Law Passed So He Can Shit At Whatever Employee Only Bathroom He Wants And It Still Didn't Work
Before we get into this, Crohn’s Disease sufferers have long been an ally of the IBS fellowship. I want the Crohn’s community to know that the IBS Diaries go out to you too. We’re all family here. We fight for one common goal and that is to not shit our pants, or at least to make sure no one has realized we’ve shit our pants. If we ever see you struggling on the battlefield we’ll pick you up and we hope you’d do the same.
The Boston Globe —Stephen Marcus burst into a Starbucks store in downtown Boston one day this past spring with an urgent request. Marcus, 64, a longtime lawyer, has Crohn’s disease, which sometimes triggers a sudden and acute need to use the bathroom.
In 2012, Marcus had helped get a state law passed requiring retailers like Starbucks to open employee-only bathrooms to people suffering from inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis or other medical conditions. It’s hard to believe this founder of a law firm would fail to cite his legal rights or to flash his medical access card — or leave without getting a reply to his desperate demand for a bathroom. But that is what Starbucks would have me believe.
In its telling, Starbucks didn’t deny Marcus access (and thus violate the law); it was Marcus who went weirdly running into the street before employees could react.
“Weirdly running.” Yeah it’s called the shit sprints. Tends to happen after a human denies another human of using a toilet. Despite your behavior, we’re still nice enough to run away so that we kindly don’t shit on your floor. Mr. Marcus is a true leader for Inflammable Bowel America and deserves to be covered as such. Let’s break down Stephen’s volume of The Irritable Bowel Syndrome Diaries here in a fair light to all of us who are also fighting the war.
Marcus had never before invoked the law. But on May 10, as he walked to a meeting in suit and tie, the dreaded symptoms struck. Marcus spotted the Starbucks at the corner of Tremont and Boylston streets and made a run for it. He figured it was his only hope of avoiding a messy disaster brought on by his chronic and incurable disease.
A.k.a the grace period commences. As always, let’s run through the possible repercussions of forfeiting the fight at this time and place for Stephen.
Potential witnesses: Starbucks Baristas. The baristas are probably always finding themselves on the potential witnesses list. People are taking down their laxatives while chilling in their lobby all day. Your bowels don’t stand a chance against some of those drinks, doesn’t matter who you are. A large ice coffee from Starbucks is a straight body cleanse. I’m begging baristas for the bathroom code within the first 5 minutes of blogging in the lobby 8 out of 10 times.
Pants situation: We got into suit shits a little yesterday and my opinions on them haven’t changed since. Dealing with the suit alone may deserve its own grace period. Between all the buttons and all the added layers it’s just too much to be dealing with during the final countdown. Nail biter every single time.
Current form of transit: Foot. They said he was running which is never good. Stephen is definitely a veteran who knows what he’s doing, so that means he’s running because it’s absolutely necessary.
Nearest restroom: The Starbucks. Now go in there, retrieve the code without even stopping, and bury that bathroom brother.
Crohn’s is a different monster we’re dealing with here, but based on the details, it seems as though Stephen has roughly a second left in the grace period. He’s 4th and long. Stephen knows that if there is so much as one obstacle in his way it’s all over for him. If he wants to have a dying chance, all the elements have to work in his favor. There has to be an open bathroom, an easy code to unlock the bathroom, and of course permission to use said bathroom.
Here is his recollection of the exchange he had at the Starbucks counter:
“I need to use the restroom right away,” he said.
“I need to use the restroom right away” should always be a strong enough opening line. Keywords: right away. Stephen doesn’t want to express how urgent the situation is, nor should he have to, but all veterans of the game like him know that it’s necessary in order to gain quick and easy access. For anyone to respond to that with anything less than “yes” or “it’s that way” would be cruel and unusual punishment.
“We don’t have any restrooms,” an employee replied.
Businesses have lost me as a customer because of those final words. For you to say it’s employees only is one thing, but to tell me you don’t have any restrooms is preposterous. Normally my line is “well, where do you go then?” An oldie but a goodie. You already know they’re gonna tell you they go to a neighboring place, but you still say it anyways because fuck them that’s why.
“You are required under the law to allow me to use the employees’ restroom,” he said, his voice rising.
Using your outdoor voice in grace period OT can be sketchy. You’re yelling to increase your chances of gaining bathroom access, but screaming can poke the beast. It’s an out of options move and you hate to have to use it.
Marcus said he held up a wallet-size card, signed by a physician, certifying his medical condition and citing the 7-year-old bathroom-access law. (Fifteen other states have similar laws.)
But one of the employees told him to go across the street and down the block to a restaurant with public-use bathrooms, according to Marcus. Marcus dashed out the door, but it was too late. “Within 10 feet I had an ‘accident.”
Let us take a second to bow our heads in a moment of silence.
Marcus said he continued to the restaurant, where he cleaned up in the bathroom. “It was totally humiliating and totally unnecessary,” he said.
Marcus isn’t looking for money. “There isn’t a dollar amount that will restore the dignity they took from me,” he said. What he does want is for Starbucks to join him in a public awareness campaign on bathroom-access laws, including displaying decals at their stores. (The number of Americans diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease has steadily increased and is now estimated at 3 million.) Starbucks has declined to do so.
It’s hard not to be mad online right now. Stories like this are gonna wind up in textbooks one day. Complete unacceptable treatment of a person already in turmoil. We’ve all been Stephen Marcus once before. We feel your pain, but all we can do now is move on and prepare for the next battle. Thank you for sharing your story with us.
Now the real question is how do I get my hands on a piece of paper saying that my bowels are certified irritable? I need that 9 years ago.