Public Bathrooms. Scourge of the Earth.

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Is there anything more unpleasant than these things? It's not so much the filth and ungodly stench but the way they are set up. And seeing people not wash their hands after pissing. Is it really that much hassle to wash your damn hands? Are people in that much of rush?



And I don't know why the doors of the stalls can't be flush with walls. I guess the contractors that install them think they're saving a tonne of money by leaving that one inch of material on either side of the door. And God forbid the door would actually go all the way down to the floor.



Actually, the thing I find most troubling about public washrooms are urinals. I really believe we are bit more civilized than pissing into a hole in the wall next to some jackass that insists on making inane small talk with you. I swear to God the next time some freak asks me about the weather when I'm at a urinal I going to turn and piss all over him while shouting, "How the weather!?! HOW"S THE WEATHER!?! IT'S F.UCKING RAINING, BITCH!"









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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 71
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by InactionMan

    I swear to God the next time some freak asks me about the weather when I'm at a urinal I going to turn and piss all over him while shouting, "How the weather!?! HOW"S THE WEATHER!?! IT'S F.UCKING RAINING, BITCH!"



  • Reply 2 of 71
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    I was in a public shitter today and someone had splattered an entire chocolate pie all over the floor, wall and seat.
  • Reply 3 of 71
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    That wasn't chocolate.



    InactionMan: You're American, aren't you? I swear to god we're the most germ-phobic, anal retentive culture on earth. People are pigs, but wash your own hands, use a bit of paper towel on the door handle on the way out, and release that neurosis.



    Asimov's _Caves of Steel_ had a wonderful bit in the first chapters about future bathroom customs based on extrapolation from current ones. Speaking in a men's loo was *taboo*, not just upsetting to some individuals.
  • Reply 4 of 71
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    That wasn't chocolate.



  • Reply 5 of 71
    chinneychinney Posts: 1,019member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha



    InactionMan: You're American, aren't you? [...]





    Actually, I thought that he was a Canadian...I believe that he mentioned that in the InactionMan vs. Racoon thread (that was a good one), but my memory may be faulty here.



    Re the actual topic of the thread: there are many people who are complaining about the disappearance of the public loo. The fully public loo is indeed becoming rarer, leaving desperate people to rely on the good graces of restaurants and coffee shops (not always granted to non-patrons) or to do it in the street (this is happening in places). A well-maintained public toilet is a valuable service...they should be preserved and extended.
  • Reply 6 of 71
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    Everyone once in a while you unfortunately have some skin that hits the porcelain. Sometimes it's just out of your control.
  • Reply 7 of 71
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    The *NEATEST* public restroom I've ever seen was in Amsterdam.



    There are a couple of constraints that public loo designers have a problem with:



    1) It provides shelter to people who want somewhere to sleep



    2) Most people just want (need?) to urinate, but restrooms take up a lot of space



    3) They use a lot of water, generally



    4) They offer privacy for various illegal acts such as dope peddling.



    5) They get grimy





    The ones in Amsterdam were single sheets of metal, in a spiral, from about 6" off the ground to 7'. You walked in around the spiral until you were in the center, which was about 8' across. You peed on the wall. It ran down, off the bottom, into a drain grate that followed the interior curve of the wall.



    It solved *all* the problems above.



    1) No roof



    2) The whole thing was maybe 14' across, tops. More like 12'.



    3) No water, gravity flushed it



    4) No real privacy, you can see people's feet underneath



    5) Rain washed it clean periodically





    Simple, elegant, natural... and it would *NEVER* fly in the puritanical US. :P



    Ladies, think if you had *twice* the number of toilets available...







    On the other hand, with everyone in their own stall, why the heck do we have separate gender bathrooms?? No one can see you doin' the deed, so who cares? Never understood that one.
  • Reply 8 of 71
    rageousrageous Posts: 2,170member
    I wonder how many times one sneezes or coughs into their own hands yet does not wash them then? I'm a very clean person, and I always wash my hands when I sneeze or cough into them. But sometimes I go without washing them after pissing. It's not like I pissed on them, and I in actuality the skin on our hands, feet, and face are far dirtier than on the genitals. Big whoop. I don't go shaking hands and serving meals afterwards... oh well.



    Yeah, public bathrooms are beyond disgusting.
  • Reply 9 of 71
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Something I noticed in our department... many of the foreign students would wash their hands *before* using the toilet, but not afterwards. This was commented on between some of us once, and everyone was thoroughly disgusted, until I pointed out that if you shower, then put on clean underwear, your genitals are likely cleaner than your hands, so all you're doing by touching them with dirty hands is getting your privates all germy. If you wash first, and only urinate (pretty inherently germ-free), your hands haven't gotten any dirtier. Wacky thought, huh?
  • Reply 10 of 71
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    I work in a hospital so from time to time I will wash my hand before I take a leak.
  • Reply 11 of 71
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    That wasn't chocolate.



    InactionMan: You're American, aren't you?




    Chinney is correct. I am a Canuck. I guess Toronto's nickname of "Big Smoke" is not so well known outside the borders of Canada.



    Kickaha, I'm really not one of these germaphobe's. Just would like my fellow man to be a cleaner in the public loo. I really don't think about this at any other time. A friend of mine use to wash his hands with Purell 10 or 12 times a day - and this was Pre-SARS Toronto. HE was a germaphobe.



    I think I'd be happier with tiny private stalls. Like Handicap washrooms - for the rest of us. If I don't know what you are or are not doing in the bathroom then it won't bother me.



    Urinals have got to go.





    Completely off-topic: Apple's spell check seems to think Kickaha should be spelt Chickadee. I decided to leave it the way it was though.
  • Reply 12 of 71
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by InactionMan

    Chinney is correct. I am a Canuck. I guess Toronto's nickname of "Big Smoke" is not so well known outside the borders of Canada.



    No problem, I just run into that sort of approach to restrooms more often in the US than anywhere else. Budapest? Italy? Try two footpads on the floor and a hole in between. Literally. And not everyone has great aim. :P



    Quote:

    Kickaha, I'm really not one of these germaphobe's. Just would like my fellow man to be a cleaner in the public loo. I really don't think about this at any other time. A friend of mine use to wash his hands with Purell 10 or 12 times a day - and this was Pre-SARS Toronto. HE was a germaphobe.



    Yeah, I have a friend like that. Guess who catches every cold to come down the pipe? I swear it's because his immune system is weak from underuse. :P



    Quote:

    I think I'd be happier with tiny private stalls. Like Handicap washrooms - for the rest of us. If I don't know what you are or are not doing in the bathroom then it won't bother me.



    Urinals have got to go.




    Weird, I've got no problem with urinals. Heck, give me a tree, and I'm happy.



    Quote:

    Completely off-topic: Apple's spell check seems to think Kickaha should be spelt Chickadee. I decided to leave it the way it was though.



  • Reply 13 of 71
    crusadercrusader Posts: 1,129member
    Hmm, my favorite place to pee is the U.S. Capitol. The bathroom I used in that building was pristine. Terry-cloth towels! Marble sinks! Good stuff. I like department store bathrooms, Khols isn't too bad, but stay the freak away from Wendy's restrooms. A few years ago we had some homeless junkie die in one, and it took like 15 hours to discover him. Ugh. In high-school I just use the administrator bathrooms; if they don't want us using 'em, lock the bloody door.
  • Reply 14 of 71
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    It's terrible watching a big bug crawl between your feet when you're trying to float over the bowl.
  • Reply 15 of 71
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Crusader

    Hmm, my favorite place to pee is the U.S. Capitol. The bathroom I used in that building was pristine. Terry-cloth towels! Marble sinks! Good stuff.



    Ah, our tax dollars at work... :P
  • Reply 16 of 71
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    I found someone shooting heroin in a stall in a train station in Rome. He never even looked up when I opened the door on him because he was so focused on shooting up.
  • Reply 17 of 71
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Scott

    I work in a hospital so from time to time I will wash my hand before I take a leak.



    I do periodic work in hospital ERs for paramedic school and I wash my hands constantly. I'm not a germophob, but a hospital is one place I won't mess around.
  • Reply 18 of 71
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Upon my return from a trip home, I wrote the following on my website:



    Quote:

    I want to apologize here at the outset for the lack of any real specifics in what follows. To describe the situation would be both completely unnecessary and potentially damaging to anyone reading it. I know that I don't even want to remember the experience I had, and the only reason I'm writing this is as an act of catharsis.



    On Friday, while in the airport bathroom in Cincinnati, I had a bit of a revelation. It's not as if this were something I didn't already know, nor do I want to imply that this is something I was experiencing for the first time. It's just that my experience today was so intense that it forced me to see the significance of all this.



    I'm sure that there are many men out there who, like me, are perfectly willing to admit that we're often very disgusting creatures. We make foul noises. We emit even fouler odors. But no matter how vile and disgusting I may think I am, the moment I take to an airport bathroom stall, it is an absolute certainty that, almost immediately, two other, much, much fouler men will occupy the stalls on either side of me. And they will be the foulest creatures to have ever walked the planet. They will emit noxious fumes that no human being should be able to contain in his body. They will somehow manage to create sounds the origin of which I quite simply don't want to know, but if I had to guess, I would have to assume they were each giving birth to a giraffe.



    I'm OK with the normal barrage of bizarre people with freakish bathroom ticks. There was the guy who I once heard grab some toilet paper, take care of things, then flush, then grab some paper, clean, flush--every single time he used a piece of toilet paper he flushed it immediately. There was the guy who made all the right sounds for going number two, but whose feet, I noticed, faced the wrong way. I'm OK with these people. It's the other ones who freak me out. The ones who sound like they were foley artists on The Exorcist. The ones who I feel compelled, as my friend Todd suggests, to break with bathroom etiquette, knock on the stall wall, and say "You doing ok in there? You don't sound like you're doing so well..."



    Or maybe, "Hey buddy? Did an antler get stuck on the way out?"



    You all might also enjoy these poo stories.



    Cheers

    Scott
  • Reply 19 of 71
    at gas stations in america, the bigger the device the have chained to the bathroom key (presumably to keep you from stealing the key?) is equivalent to how disgusting the bathroom.

    after peeing in such a place i returned the key and said to the woman behind the three inch plexiglas "why have a key at all? are you afraid someone will steal the filth?"
  • Reply 20 of 71
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Scott

    I work in a hospital so from time to time I will wash my hand before I take a leak.



    And you are right to do so.
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