Recently, I travelled from ORD to YOW on United Express. My wife tagged along as she had a burning desire to visit YOW. I should mention she is pregnant with our first child right now and, I suspect, that her desire to see Ottawa was less on the "Ottawa is great!" side and more on the "Travel before I end up on the D/L." As a result of her pregnancy, she (understandably) needs to use the loo about every 10 minutes. (Okay, so perhaps I am exaggerating a bit - maybe it's every 15 minutes.)

Regardless, we're in flight about 30 minutes and she heads off to the loo and I think nothing of this. We're flying an older CR7 with the 1-2 seating configuration. Since she was adamant that she wanted her own "space", we opted to sit in the Alpha seats 16 and 17.

As she is coming back from the loo, she informs me that I MUST go use the loo. I thanked her for her concern and said that I need not use the facilities at that moment. She replies "Damn it, go to the loo! Tell me your impression."

I admit - I was rather terrified of what I might find. I was envisioning a restroom that looked like closing time of a 5:00 am bar on a Sunday morning or something of this ilk. What I found was even more amusing. Avoiding the whole general condition issue, I find a placard on the mirror that the "Sink Faucet has been permanently deactivated. Moist towelettes are available for your convenience."

Am I alone in finding this horrid? I mean really, no soap and water? And are moist towelettes really for my convenience? I know that I tend to be a bit OCD (at least according to my wife) - especially when travelling (who doesn't carry their own personal spray pen of hand sanitizer??), but this seemed to go above and beyond. I thought it was a travesty that I couldn't get any coffee when the FA told me the plane galley hadn't been serviced. This seemed to pale in comparison to not being able to wash my hands!

Is this how all of the regional airlines are working these days? I'm fortunate in that I don't do much "Regional" flying. Most of my UA flights are bigger tin or longer hauls. Has anyone else encountered this? Or is this regional worse than most??

(Okay, so I was trying to attach the photo from my crackberry and can't make it work. The placard and the shot of the sink full of moist towelettes (for my convenience!) is worth 1,000 words.)