Sure, it's small potatoes... until it's your three-year-old on the edge of a wet-pants freak-out.
As Madison residents spend this month furiously thinking up counterplans for using the $150,000 that our city commissioners are willing to entertain spending to subsidize a job-killing community thrift store, I submit one modest proposal, on behalf of the moms at the Thursday play-group: an outhouse at Totland Park.
Check that name: Totland Park. As in tots, the demographic with the least bladder control. Located in the totally residential northeast part of town, the little kids' park has no outhouse, no changing room, not even a public restroom or gas station within walking distance. There is a sandbox... but no, we don't want to go there. Parents facing the inevitable "Gotta go!" (and it will happen within ten minutes of arrival) who want their little ones to stay at the park long enough to work up a sweat have to send their kids to tinkle behind the greenery (and I've seen that happen).
We know the City of Madison is deeply concerned with stemming any tide of public urination. Yet the absence of public plumbing at Totland Park creates an awkward situation for our littlest whizzes. Let's avoid teaching them to blush in the bushes. Let's spend a fraction of Madison's mad money to plunk a porta-potty in the park. It can't cost that much; I'm sure that, compared to flushing $150 grand into a publicly subsidized junk store, it's a piddling expenditure.