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       When it comes to a public restroom, all you want — all you need — is a clean, well-lighted place. Alas, that isn’t always available.

       In my experience, public restrooms have gotten a lot better over the years, but I’m still scarred by some truly horrific encounters. Picture it: You’re far from the interstate, away from any state-funded rest stop. You’ve held it as long as you can before pulling into a non-chain gas station that boasts two pumps and an unsettlingly robust assortment of Slim Jims.

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       After pumping your gas, you approach the cashier and ask about the facilities.

       A key is passed from behind the counter. It’s attached by a chain to a hubcap, as if someone might steal the key so they could gain access to this magical chamber. The restroom is around the corner, reached by walking past the mosquito-breeding experiment that is a midden of old tires.

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       You insert the key, turn it, open the battered door and are suddenly hit by a rolling cloud of odor that seems to possess a corporeal presence. Your brain tells you not to breathe through your nose, but your mouth screams, “Don’t bring that past me! Think of the taste buds!”

       And this is all before you’ve actually seen anything. You flip the light switch and in the flickering illumination of a buzzing fluorescent fixture you see: a stained sink and dripping faucet, a curling strip of sticky paper peppered with fly carcasses, a compendium of graffiti that is extremely specific.

       And the toilet? Oh, the humanity …

       This is all a very long way of saying that the new restrooms at the Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport are terrific. They are the very embodiment of clean, well-lighted places, so good, in fact, that they are finalists in the 2023 America’s Best Restroom contest, sponsored by Cintas Corp.

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       “This is high-stress stuff,” Paul Shank, the airport’s chief engineer, told me at BWI the other day.

       Shank didn’t mean the contest. He meant that designing restrooms for air travelers is stressful. You have to get it right. Passengers rank restrooms as an airport’s number one amenity, he said. (Number two, as well, when you think about it.)

       For months, Shank had a mock-up of a toilet stall in his office as designs were tweaked for the $55 million project. Passengers want clean, working restrooms, but they also want “ambiance,” he said. BWI serves 24 million passengers a year. The last thing they want before or after a long flight is a restroom that puts them in a foul mood.

       The newest restrooms are in concourses B and C. They’ll be joined later this year by new restrooms in Concourse D.

       Each set of restrooms has a men’s room, a women’s room, a nursing center and a family restroom. They’re bright and airy, with natural light and room for luggage.

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       Displays outside the restrooms indicate how many stalls are currently free inside, like those signs in parking garages. The stalls inside have lights above the doors: green for vacant, red for occupied. And they have something I prize: really good locks.

       The women’s restroom in Concourse B has 24 toilets and 14 sinks. The men’s has 14 toilets, 11 urinals and 14 sinks. Each stall is fully private, with walls that go from the floor to the ceiling. No asking your neighbor for toilet paper.

       The coronavirus pandemic forced some changes in the way public restrooms are designed. The surfaces at BWI are groutless: all smooth glass and porcelain that is easier to clean. Sinks, soap dispensers and paper towel dispensers are touchless.

       This is the contest’s 23rd year.

       “Sometimes the winner ends up being just clean and functional,” said Julia Walsh, marketing manager for facility services at Cintas. “Other times, the winner has more creative elements.”

       How creative? The 2019 winner was a men’s room at the Nashville Zoo featuring a floor-to-ceiling glass window with a view of the ball python snake exhibit. (I confirmed that the snakes can see in, too.)

       This year’s other finalists range from the Snowbasin Resort in Huntsville, Utah, where bathroom users are treated to countertops of Italian Carrera marble and crystal chandeliers, to the Rabbit Hole, a craft-cocktail lounge in Greenville, S.C., with an “Alice in Wonderland”-theme restroom, complete with an audiobook of the novel read over a speaker.

       You can see photos and vote at bestrestroom.com through Aug. 11. The winner will receive $2,500 in products and services from Cintas, a bathroom supply company, as well as a deep clean.

       You know, because Cintas sells products for cleaning toilets, shouldn’t it really be looking for the country’s worst restroom?

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