Category — Etiquette & Bathroom Fun

Years ago, a friend and I travelled to Greece, where all of the guidebooks told us we didn’t flush the toilet paper, but rather placed it in the garbage adjacent to the toilet.

Our reaction was pretty much yuck, but we dutifully obeyed, fearfully of crippling the Greek plumbing system.

These days, we wouldn’t need a guidebook, we’d simply head to WhereDoIPutThePaper.com and check out the entry for Greece:

In Greece, it’s paper in the bin time again I’m afraid. The Greek plumbing system can’t take paper and it’ll be bunged up and flooding if you try to flush the paper. Newer, up-market hotels should be able to accept the papery deposit, but in most cases it’s best not to risk it.

Now what did I just tell you? WhereDoIPutThePaper.com boasts entries for countries from Afghanistan (“If you can find a toilet in Afghanistan, well done!“) to Zimbabwe (“ toilet paper is expensive and you’d better be prepared to hunt around for it as there’s massive shortages.“), and a whole lot in between – go check it out!

via Metafilter

Shaanxi Normal University has installed 6 female urinals for its students to use in an effort to conserve water.

Unfortunately, students are not big fans of the urinals, which require a disposable paper funnel to aid in the aiming process. Who would have imagined that awkwardly peeing into a disposable paper funnel wouldn’t be fun?

Read at Shangaiist (via Fark)

The bad news is that Kenny Lao, founder of Rickshaw Dumplings, doesn’t exactly have a luxurious bathroom.

The good news is that it’s about to get a whole lot better. Dubbed New York City’s Worst Bathroom (surely there are much, much worse?), Kenny’s facilities are now the subject of an Architizer design challenge.

Up to the challenge? Winners get a $5,000 design fee and the joy of seeing their design come to life.

via BoingBoing

Apparently, this plaque was posted above the urinal in the bathroom of a store selling diamond engagement rings, reportedly a Spence Diamonds store in Vancouver:

Nice little bit of reverse psychology?

See at BoingBoing

I have talked about BikeSnobNYC and his numerous contributions to bathroom etiquette previously (here, here and here). Today I have a good news/bad news situation.

Good News: BikeSnobNYC is at it again, using cycling as a metaphor to describe bathroom etiquette (Or is it the reverse? His blogging priorities are becoming increasingly unclear). He describes wheelsucking (aka sucking the wheel) thusly:

… it’s just rude–it’s like sidling up behind someone at a urinal and putting your hand on his shoulder, or even joining in uninvited and “crossing the streams.” … I said something along the lines of, “You shouldn’t sit on wheels like that” (in the same way you might say to the guy at the urinal, “Hey, you mind backing up a little bit?”)

Bad News: If he keeps it up, the immense popularity of BikeSnobNYC’s blog is likely to drive the IBCE right out of business.

PS: He’s 100% correct – you shouldn’t be doing any of those things!

The wonderful GigaG submitted an interesting story about some Excite employees meeting Bill Gates at a urinal while visiting Microsoft way back in 1995.

what is the appropriate bathroom etiquette? I had a massive internal struggle. Do I reach over the urinal barriers to extend a handshake to Bill? What would he do if I did?

Augh, no! It’s bad enough that a conversation with poor Bill was started, but shaking hands at a urinal? Come on, is there anybody that thinks this is a good idea?

I had complete urinal performance anxiety. I had not been able to pee up to this point. Nothing was happening in the presence of the man who brought us greatness like Microsoft Decathlon and the Blue Screen of Death.

I’ll bet! I hope Bill had better luck peeing after being interrupted this way. At least Microsoft apparently has the bathroom savvy to install urinal partitions…

Betsy writes the following:

And what about port-a-potties? Is it okay for random passersby to use the one in your front yard while your house is under construction? What is the protocol for evicting same passerby (timing is an issue here). Seriously, what about those guys who eat lunch right after using one?

That’s a tricky question. My immediate reaction was that using someone else’s construction port-a-potty is bad etiquette. The thing is though, bathroom etiquette is always a two way street. We’ve all been out and about when the sudden and desperate urge to go sets in. If it’s urgent, and if there are no other public bathrooms around, I think it’s okay to use that port-a-potty. But you’d better keep it clean! This is somebody else’s workplace bathroom after all.

Think of the alternatives – would you rather these passerby knock on your door for access to your guest bathroom? Oh, and the lunch thing? As long as they wash their hands Betsy, as long as they wash their hands…

As mouthpiece for the ICBE I’ve had the pleasure of appearing on the radio, in print, and even once on television over the last 15 years. It’s extremely rare that I actually get to sit down to a face-to-face interview though, but I was lucky enough to do just that with Randy Dotinga of The Voice of San Diego recently.

Over the course of the interview we covered a lot of ground. I think this is one of my favorite answers, in regards to why I originally started the ICBE:

What were you hoping to accomplish?

Obviously if I wanted to get rich or pick up chicks, it was a really bad idea. There was no reason it was a good idea, and it’s still probably not a good idea. But I can’t let go. I can’t stop.

Go there right now and read the whole thing. Seriously, it’s quite possibly my favorite interview ever.

I’d say don’t forget to check out the photo, but you can’t exactly miss it. And no, I don’t know what I was doing at the time.

A big thanks to Randy for looking me up, and thanks to Sam Hodgson who spent 30 hot, sweaty minutes with me in a bathroom in Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. (Don’t look at me that way, he was taking my picture, on the hottest November day on record in San Diego.)