When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go. And when you’re eight months pregnant with a small human inside you, pressing on your bladder like the most relentless of torturers, you have to go right this freaking second or you will unleash what is not meant to be unleashed in public. But despite that obvious necessity, one pregnant woman says a Starbucks worker wouldn’t let her into the locked bathroom, even after she offered to buy something.

A woman from Phoenix tells News 12 (warning: video autoplays) that she was rejected multiple times at a local Starbucks when she was hit suddenly with the urge to go, as happens when you’re visibly enceinte.

She asked the barista at the counter for the code to access the locked bathroom, but she says he told her she had to buy something first.

“I said, ‘I’m pregnant, I really have to use the bathroom now,’ ” she says, but that he still replied no.

She went outside to tell her husband, who also tried to appeal to the employee to let her in.

“Again he said no. Went back and forth. The man was unrelenting,” she says. “My husband gave him his credit card and said, ‘Charge me for anything.’ The man refused. A woman standing behind said, ‘I’m about to make a purchase, give me the code and I’ll give it to her.'”

By her account, the worker refused again and this time, told them to leave and use the grocery store bathroom nearby, or he would call the cops.

Instead, she and her busband left and went to a Subway nearby to use the facilities. A manager called her later to apologize, saying she was shocked and that the incident was completely unacceptable.

Starbucks responded to News 12, saying:

“We failed to meet this customer’s expectations of us, and we have apologized and are working to make it right. This experience is unacceptable and not indicative of the welcoming and respectful service we strive to offer our customers in our stores.”

While yes, it can be annoying for workers to let anyone and everyone in the bathroom if they’re not buying, if there’s one exception to the rule it has to be pregnant women who need to pee approximately every fourth second. Seriously, if you’ve ever been around a pregnant woman, you know this to be true.

Pregnant woman: Starbucks wouldn’t let me use bathroom [News 12]

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