The people of Arizona kept their upper lips stiff when officials mortgaged off the state's executive office tower; they remained calm as lawmakers pondered privatizing death row. But then the state took away their toilets, and residents began to revolt. 'Why don't they charge a quarter or something?'' said Connie Lucas, who lives in Pine, Ariz., about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from here. 'There was one rest stop between here and Phoenix, and we really needed it.' Arizona has the largest budget gap in the country when measured as a percentage of its overall budget, and the state Department of Transportation was $100 million in the red last fall when it decided to close 13 of the state's 18 highway rest stops. But the move has unleashed a torrent of telephone calls and e-mail messages to state lawmakers, newspapers and the Department of Transportation decrying the lost toilets -- one of the scores of small indignities among larger hardships that residents of embattled states face as governments scramble to shore up their finances. 'People in this state are mad about this,' said state Rep. Daniel Patterson, D-Tucson, who has sponsored a bill that would allow other entities to reopen and maintain the rest stops. 'This bill may have the broadest support among members of any bill this year.' Arizona is not alone in singling out toilets. Colorado, Georgia, Vermont and Virginia are among states that have also closed rest stops, though Virginia's new governor, Robert F. McDonnell, has vowed to reopen 19 stops that closed last year. 'It's a safety problem, not only for us but car drivers,' said Clayton Boyce, the spokesman for the American Trucking Association, which has fought rest stop closings in Virginia and elsewhere. 'We think it is a pretty bad idea.' One of the newly closed rest stops is on U.S. 60 near Wickenburg, a little town about 50 miles northwest of here. The stop had served as a bit of a recreation area, too, with picnic tables and educational information about the nearby Hassayampa River, and the life of bats. 'That place was well used,' Bonnie Chapman, a waitress at the Golden Nugget, one of the few restaurants on Wickenburg's main drag, said of the rest stop. 'Locals even used it for picnics.' The Golden Nugget, not coincidentally, is now a place that sees a few more visitors needing something other than coffee each day. 'It's a long way to Phoenix from here,' Chapman said. 