Yeah, I know, I know, nearly three-quarters of the countries on earth are marred by McDonald’s golden arches, and today you can catch a whiff of secret sauce even as you’re careening through Guatemala City or schlepping through a Saigon suburb. I don’t care for this corporate colonialism either, but I confess, I’ve been to Micky Dees in more than a dozen countries. It’s not that I’m wild about their chow (although there have been times when a few French fries sounded a hell of a lot better than the goat broth I had been offered for breakfast). I never push through those thick glass doors to get my mitts on a Fillet O’ Fish. Nope, I love McDonalds for its bathrooms.

That clean white tile, those big rolls of toilet paper, the running water. It’s all good, especially when the rest of the country is wiping with newsprint and pissing down a muddy hole. Near the Great Wall, I’d scored a bag of the most delicious peaches on earth, and for three days had eaten nothing but those fuzzy, juicy orbs. Walking across the concrete expanse of Tiananmen Square, my stomach started to seize up. I sped up, and trotted through the hot, gritty streets of Beijing, searching for a place to relieve myself. I turned a corner and was pleased as punch when I spotted the fast food giant.

I whizzed into the familiar smelling, air-conditioned restaurant, and zipped past the counter, straight to the bathroom. I can’t say I am thrilled with the idea that a Big Mac in Prague tastes identical to its beefy twin in Des Moines, but the john is one place where all that uniformity is positively delicious. Sure, some have hand dryers, others use that icky sandy powdered soap, but all of them have little stalls with little doors on them. All except the McDonald’s in Beijing.

I pushed through the door to the restroom, and saw a row of shoulder height walls and small holes in the floor. No toilets. No doors. Not even some fake footprints around the hole to clue you in on which way to face. No other people in there. Just me and my churning American stomach.

I quickly backed out. Maybe that was the men’s room I hoped. Just as I was about to head into the other room with squiggly Mandarin letters on the door, a large black-haired gentleman exited, still tucking in his shirt.

Back I slunk to the room of holes and no doors. I entered the farthest stall, and saw that it had bits of paper and other gunk stuck to the floor. The next closest was a bit cleaner, so in I went. I searched again for a hint as to how to position myself. How was a foreigner to know which side of one’s body was considered more offensive than the other? Did the Chinese Big Mac eaters want to see a full moon, or my relieved American face? I unbuckled my jeans, faced the wall, and squatted down. It seemed relatively natural, after all the times I’d seen my California homies peeing against the side of a building.

I did my business, grabbed some TP from one of those large, luxurious American paper dispensers, and then zipped up. As I walked down the aisle toward the door, I realized that several women had come in. I quietly moved along, hoping that no one would notice me, their backs all turned. I passed the first occupied stall expecting to see a backside-- uh oh, she was looking right at me. What’s the protocol? Of course, you don’t stop and nod and greet each squatter. I just kept going, then stopped to wash my hands, listening to the two forward-facing customers who had begun to chatter and giggle as I passed.

Safely out of the bathroom, I started to laugh too. Another vignette in the hefty volume entitled Making An Ass Of Oneself In A Foreign Country. I headed toward the glass doors, back into the river of bicycles and smog and the dusty Chinese morning to explore the forbidden city. But instead I stopped, lured by the familiarity and the air conditioning, the gleaming Formica and smells of sizzling meat. I started in on my burger and watched Beijing rush by. It tasted exactly the way I knew it would—just like the billions and billions that have gone down toilets the world over.

Suzanne LaFetra isn’t much of a Big Mac eater these days, but she can occasionally be found ducking into a McDonald’s while globetrotting. She has studied with the Wild Writing Women, and is a freelance writer in Berkeley. Her essays have appeared in the SanFrancisco Chronicle, Solano Magazine, and in the forthcoming Travelers’ Tales collection Whose Panties Are These?