Yes, I’m now going to talk about pooing and such like activities. After living in a campervan for a few months I have become quite familiar with the use of public toilets/restrooms, and have concluded there is almost no advantage of using them over a private one (apart from in the Sydney Opera house where the toilets are a thing of beauty)…
Mmm bendy sinks
However there is certain rules a lot of men (I will mainly be commenting about male toilets as I don’t tend to use the rooms which have a lady in a dress on the front of them) tend to not know; they aren’t written – until now.
Firstly grunting. What is up with that? Please don’t grunt while you waggle your little winky above a urinal waiting for it to expel fluid, if you can’t go, put it back, walk out and try again later. Don’t fucking grunt.
The protocol for choosing a cubicle is quite simple too. Typically there is 3 in a average mens room. You should always take one at an end leaving a space between. Only take a cubicle between 2 men if there isn’t an end one available in an emergency colon bursting situation, it’s just manners, we don’t need to check out each others shoes when out of cubicles, so we don’t need to do it when in them.
Flush the toilet. Seriously. It’s not difficult, it’s usually just a button these days, often with the handy instruction of ‘flush’ written on it. Push the big one too, not the useless eco button when you take a #2. I don’t want to see your stool festering away or fizzy gravy splashed up the walls, and neither does anyone else.
If you need to do #1 in a cubicle, please lift the seat first. And aim at the big white porceline container. It’s not hard. It’s not a swimming pool, splashing is not acceptable here.
If you do poop and your ginger wheelspins seems attached to the bowl attempt to flush numerous times rather than destroy the life of the next person needing to empty themselves.
Yes a toilet sign
Of course, you can’t expect the same standards in every country, so some allowances have to be made. Some may remember one of my early stories of finding a toilet scorpion invading and if you’ve ever watched Slumdog Millionairre, a toilet like that would make me think ‘this is dreadful and all of the worlds problems have just faded into insiginificence’ but luckily the closest I came to that was a ‘eco-friendly’ toilet (read: shit-pit) in an Australian camp site.
What’s the worst toilet experience you’ve come across on your travels?
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Luckily I haven’t come across too many shady toilet issues in my travels. However, I haven’t really traveled much of anywhere – so that point is basically mute. Men are just sort of nasty when it comes to toilet usage. However, women aren’t always toilet angels either.
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Haha! So funny, but so true. That toilet in Slumdog Millionaire is the worst. Public toilets are pretty awful. Even in women’s bathrooms, I’ve encountered some pretty awful ones while traveling. In Italy, all of the bathrooms (besides those at our hotels and hostels) had no toilet seats on them! Only the basic rim. We had to squat so we didn’t fall in the bowl. And on a ferry in Istanbul, I encountered my first squat toilet…that was not a fun experience.
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Chelsea – I guess it depends a lot on the person rather than their gender, I imagine there is less grunting in the ladies though.
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Emily – No toilet covers are annoying as hell! Tones the legs though haha. The first squat toilet (or even the first after a a while since your last one) is always an experience too :-)
I’ve always heard that women’s bathrooms are worse than men’s. (I know many people might find this hard to believe… and I don’t really have much experience in men’s rooms to back up this claim), but it kind of makes sense. Women have so much more “stuff” to dispose of in bathrooms – trash, toilet paper… other (ahem) “items”, seems like there’s a greater chance of all that yucky junk to wind up on the floor or other places. Ew.
Public bathrooms just skeeve me out in general.
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Have you seen the male “pee stalls” in Amsterdam??? http://bit.ly/a7nckj
This is a great post and gives us a great and true overview of the men’s bathroom. Lets face it … it is not difficult to do things the right way … but still …. cheers
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Ha! No I’ve never seen that before, although it is quite in fitting with the Dutch happy go lucky attitude. Looks like a phone booth.
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Enjoy Holidays – I’m sure there are a few out there who don’t know how to use the toilet properly, hopefully this post will help the world with that problem though ;-)
Q – That certainly sounds believable. Also men can urinate standing up, which in itself is more hygienic, rather than sitting down and spreading ass germs with others who have sat there before ;-)
Also compare queues in mens toilets to womens, and just from sheer number of people. The womens would be more dirty.
I would argue that women’s lines were longer because they take so damn long to pee. Guys and in and out much faster.
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That’s true Abbie. But part of that is convenience. Men can go in, walk to the nearest wall, undo the zipper and let rip.
Women have to navigate themselves into a cubicle. Pull a disgusted face at the toilet. Flush it. Wait for the flush cycle to end. Turn around and lock door. Adjust clothing as necessary. Place bag somewhere. Sit down and do the business. Wipe. Stand up and rearrange clothing. Turn around and flush. Turn around and pick up bag. Unlock door (pulling inwards on self, so having to manoeuvre bag around door opening in) and get out to get to the same point as the man.
This is all as I imagine of course, as I don’t study the toilet habits of women or anything.
That’s a weird combination, I laughing and nearly being sick at the same time after reading ‘fizzy grazy’. I have just had my lunch…..
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Consider yourself lucky that I didn’t include more photo’s in this post :P
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