Kathleen Norton

Bring the Lysol!

Humans have finally invented something more amazing than space travel, organ transplants and even double-stuffed Oreos.

It is the public toilet that never gets dirty and will rescue cringing, squatting women everywhere.

Nothing can top this until we isolate the gene that turns people into Paris Hilton.

If you’ve never seen one of these toilets, called Sani Seats, you don’t know what you’re missing. The seat is completely encased in plastic. Wave your hand at a sensor and the plastic rotates around to new covering for every startled user.

That’s  exactly what I was when I rushed into ladies’ restroom at O’Hare Airport in Chicago not long ago.

It was just in the nick of time because on the flight from Albany, N.Y., I had snatched up every cold drink and ice-cube I could get my hands on to offset the hot flashes that gained steam as the plane gained altitude.

I opened a stall door, scanned directions on the wall, waved my hand and presto! I had a sanitary and germ-free commode. And in an airport bathroom of all places!

Don’t believe me? Click here and you’ll see a You Tube video from O’Hare.

More extensive research (six seconds on Google) has turned up no other locations and this has put an unfortunate crimp in our future travel plans. I want a stopover in Chicago at any cost and my husband is not happy that an upcoming trip from New York to Ireland may begin with a detour to the Midwest.

He doesn’t understand. For men, squatting is a non-issue.

He didn’t grow up with a grandmother who was a commode commando. A woman who thought you could get Typhoid with your Tutti Frutti if you stopped to use the toilet at Howard Johnson’s.

A woman who killed so many trees papering the inside of stalls that she was named a menace by the American Society of Tree Huggers and Weirdos.

I think of her every time I enter a public restroom. And in her memory I am starting a foundation to bring the hygienic O’Hare toilet to every woman in America, one restroom at a time. To donate, go to: http://www.grandmawouldbeproud.com

We’re starting with New Jersey because that’s where my grandmother lived and where I was born. It also seemed like a good place to begin a toilet crusade.

But if you can’t wait for us, go visit the bathrooms at O’Hare.

Wave your hand. Watch the plastic go around. And squat no more.

The miraculous Sani Seat is here to save us all.