GALVESTON, Texas — You don’t have to be the King of Mardi Gras to enjoy these royal thrones.
This year, Mardi Gras revelers will relieve themselves at the choicest portable toilets the city has ever commissioned for the event, which draws thousands to Galveston for two weekends each year. Mardi Gras parades start Saturday on the seawall.
The city shelled out $7,200 this year for the top-of-the-line potties that have amenities tailored for each sex, Paula Ozmy, the city manager’s secretary and coordinator of the city’s Mardi Gras "potty plan" for the past 15 years.
Houston-based portable toilet company Texas Outhouse purchased the toilets special for Mardi Gras. For women, the company bought 28 new Pepto-Bismol pink potties, complete with hand sanitizer gel dispensers, purse and coat hooks, shelves for your belongings — or beer — and miniature mirrors for makeup touch-ups. The toilets, which intentionally lack the built-in urinals, also are designed with extra foot room so women don’t feel cramped, Jason Odom, operations manager for Texas Outhouse, said.
"We’ve got a lot of looks in town," he said. "People have never seen a pink portacan."
For guys, the company bought a pair of multi-men urinals to help cut down on long lines, Odom said. Though not as flashy as the pink potties, the six-man urinals are functional and popular among men who don’t want to wait around, Ozmy said.
Not only will the toilets be nicer this year, they’ll also be cleaner.
On both weekends, the company will run a command post stocked with extra rolls of toilet paper to combat emergency shortages (the city was troubled in previous years after a toilet paper thief snatched the rolls before the first parade rolled down the street). Texas Outhouse also has worked out a plan to restock paper and spritz the potties with perfume between each parade. The company will attempt to clean the toilets between parades, too, he said.
"All we want is for, at the end of the day, people to say that’s the best bathroom we’ve ever used," Odom said.
