Category — Etiquette & Bathroom Fun

This afternoon I went to the bathroom. The particular bathroom I chose has a couple of water fountains right outside. As I entered I passed an individual having a drink of water, and was rather surprised when he then proceeded to enter the bathroom and go pee. Which struck me as a little weird. I can think of a few possible scenarios:

1) This individual was thirsty and had to go pee at the same time. It’s happened to me before, but I always choose to go pee first under those circumstances. I don’t really enjoy eating or drinking when I need to go to the bathroom.

2) This individual had to go pee, but on the way to the bathroom noticed the water fountain and was overcome with an intense desire to have a drink. Which is possible, but I know my own already mentioned lack of enjoyment of drinking while needing to pee would preclude this possibility.

3) This individual’s digestive track works extremely quickly, and he was simply peeing out the water which he drank at the fountain moments ago. Anything is possible I suppose.

Am I missing something or is this just weird? First you pee, then you drink – that’s the natural order of things. (Well, except for the whole deal of how drinking makes you need to go pee, but I’m talking about a timeframe of seconds here).

If postings have been a little sparse lately, it’s because we here at the ICBE have been spending part of our summer scouring the globe for noteworthy bathrooms. One such chance encounter occurred recently in the lovely city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In the hunt for a place for toddlers to play that wasn’t insanely busy and overcrowded (ie not the beach), we happened upon Chaldecott Park.

It was a lovely park with a lovely playground and a lovely sprayground and some positively not-at-all-lovely bathrooms. Aside from the fantastic stench, I was greeted with the following sight upon entering:

That’s right, in the year 2010 Chaldecott Park still features a bonafide trough urinal. Not only that, but the single toilet featured some rather curious signage:

DO NOT STAND ON TOILET – Thanks

As you may have expected I absolutely did not relieve myself in the trough, instead opting for the toilet pictured above. You will also be pleased to know that at no time was I even tempted to stand on the toilet, though evidently that’s a bit of a problem with the locals.

Here at the ICBE, we’re pretty passionate about the bathroom – or at least passionate about good bathroom behavior. So when we came across toiletdude7, it was as if we’d found a kindred spirit. The man is something of a YouTube toilet video legend, having recently posted his 200^th video review. From his YouTube profile page:

I’m a big toilet fan, have been one ever since I could remember. I’m not going to say all of my videos are perfect there may be a little no. 1 or toilet paper in the toilet, but NO no.2. I’ll try to put a couple videos a week on here. Gerber is my favorite brand, the older AquaSaver with the front flush is the best. Then, any open rimmed toilet like Artesian, URC, Mancesa, Crane, Universal Rundle, Briggs, American Stanard. Finally, the Gerber Ultraflush is the best pressurized toilet out there.

An image from Ice Challenge / Close Up

Rock on toiletdude7!

via Asylum

I have a confession – I don’t mind auto-dispensing soap dispensers, and I can live with auto-flush urinals. But we’ve said it before:

Auto-Flush Toilets are the Devil

Still not convinced? Check out this sign spotted in the wild by ICBE aficionado SM:

IF TOILET DOES NOT FLUSH AUTOMATICALLY,
PLEASE PRESS THE BLACK BUTTON
THANK YOU

Here’s what SM had to say:

Just let me flush it on my own in the first place, and we won’t have this issue. I can also pump my own soap.

Sing it sister!

You may have seen this image floating around in an email titled Contractor of the Year Nominees. It’s the kind of thing that sends chills down our spines (or occasionally icy fear into our hearts) here at the ICBE – disaster urinals.

What exactly was the person that designed this bathroom thinking? Were they 1 short of their urinal installation quota for the month? Do they simply not know how urinals work? Are they the evil arch-nemesis of the ICBE?

Thanks to Vfor the pic

I don’t mean to alarm you, but I have it on very good authority that Lance Armstrong just might be watching you pee. I assure you that nobody is more alarmed than us right here at the ICBE, and I furthermore assure you that we will not rest (except for the napping and the sleeping) until we have gotten to the bottom of this situation. Or at the very least until we have made a baseless yet inflammatory blog post on the matter!

Consider the evidence in support of Lance watching you pee:

1. Lance Armstrong owns a bicycle shop named Mellow Johnny’s
2. Said bicycle shop has a bathroom
3. Said bathroom contains a large image of Lance peering menacingly about (see below)
4. Said image may or may not contain cutouts in the eyeball area to allow Lance to peer through them
5. Lance may or may not spend large amounts of time peering through said cutouts

Thanks to BSNYC for the image

Well the evidence is overwhelming – Lance Armstrong is definitely watching people pee! The ICBE has been known to raise several dollars for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, with our intrepid founder spending several painful hours on a bicycle not once but twice in support of exactly this cause, so I can assure you that nobody is more shocked or horrified at this grievous breach of bathroom etiquette than we are. Now in fairness it’s kind of our job to be shocked and horrified at such things, but I can assure you that our shock and horror is on the extreme end of the scale even for us.

Earlier this afternoon I went to the bathroom. A quick pee, and I was washing my hands at the sinks. I was completely prepared for another uneventful trip, when the individual washing his hands a couple sinks down finished up and walked behind me to the paper towel dispenser.

Which is when I felt the spray of water on my leg (I wear shorts). Yuck! Now thankfully this individual was coming from a hand washing session, so I’m fairly certain all he did was spray me with relatively clean water, but that’s no excuse. We aren’t dogs, and we don’t shake ourselves dry – at least not en route to a paper towel dispenser and right beside a complete stranger.

If you’re going to shake, for goodness sake shake carefully!

This past week the ICBE took a field trip to Legoland California to better observe the bathroom habits of the tourist public in an amusement park setting. Also, they’ve got a ton of legos. Anyways, I was incredibly dismayed to observe one particularly shameful display of ignorance with regards to bathroom etiquette by the following individual:

What did this oaf do?

1. He entered the bathroom in the midst of texting, and then placed his cell phone down on top of the urinal. Gross!
2. He didn’t wash his hands after going pee!

What made the situation even more egregious is that this individual is a father. So not only is he practicing bad etiquette, but he is passing along these disgusting habits to a whole new generation. Next time you don’t wash your hands, please think of the children. And when you are done thinking, go back and wash your damn hands!

Public toilet seats are pretty gross. Even if they are clean and dry, they’re still the place where that hairy guy (or girl) just planted their naked butt, and now you’re expected to follow suit. If you’re anything like me, you probably want to place at least a small barrier between yourself and the seat, either in the form of one of those seat covers or a few well-placed pieces of toilet paper.

I’ll confess: I am 100% a toilet paper covering guy. Even when those seat covers are available, I never use them. I don’t have a good reason, so I’m simply going to blame force of habit. Anyways, the dedicated seat covers have one distinct advantage, and that is that they have a little tab which dangles in the water and whisks the seat cover away when you flush. Random strands of toilet paper on the other hand need to be herded into the toilet pre-flush.

So I was a little disappointed the other day when I entered a stall only to find the seat covered in TP. Now while it’s theoretically possible that some good samaritan had merely pre-papered the seat for the next user, I’d bet anything this was just some selfish lazy cretin who didn’t bother removing the paper they had just sat on.

Not cool. Once you’re done with that paper, get it in the bowl and flush it down.

There isn’t much at the intersection of religion and bathroom etiquette. All this could change however, as the ICBE adopts its new patron saint. Forwarded by intrepid reader wridge, I present to you a Marian devotion of the Virgin Mary – Patron Saint of Electricity and Fountains:

Picture taken at Catedral Basílica de Barcelona

In the absence of a patron saint devoted specifically to toilets or bathrooms, this seems like the next best thing!