Category — Etiquette & Bathroom Fun

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.)

If you are like me, then you’re fully aware that the New York Times exists, and is a reasonably well-regarded publication. However, if you’re like me you also don’t exactly read the New York Times on a regular basis, and so you may in fact, like me, have missed Bruce Feiler’s Family Matters column The Corner Stall where he featured none other than yours truly as part of a discussion on bathroom etiquette.

This is what I said:

Short of your wife going into labor, there’s really no good reason to be answering the phone in a public bathroom. Bathroom etiquette is about other people, and nobody wants to listen to your phone conversation.

Then there’s Dr. Richard Ling, professor of sociology at the IT University of Copenhagen and author of some book, which is presumably what merited his opinion here:

If I slip into the boys’ room at a dinner party to text my wife that I’ll be late or to check whether my daughter has returned from the movies, Dr. Ling said, I deserve credit for not disrupting my hosts’ dinner party, while also reinforcing my own family ties. In this situation, my latrine correspondence has clearly improved society, not harmed it.

A true modern-day hero if there’s ever been one.

Don’t forget to read the full column here

Jim makes incredible pancakes for his daughter, and because this is the year 2010 he documents them on a blog. You could probably already have guessed that this one was our favorite here at the ICBE…

Awesome Toilet Pancake

If you’re a man, then you’ve probably seen, but never really thought about, urinal screens dozens and dozens of times. Urinal screens, in case you are unfamiliar, are those little plastic things that go over the drain in a urinal and serve to prevent large items from going down the drain and/or keep a urinal cake in place.

Well your lack of though on the matter of urinal screens is what separates you from Carlos Segura, founder of Segura Inc. and designer of a series of urinal screen dingbats. In the artist’s own words:

The idea came from a simple glance at the obvious. With nothing to do while taking care of “business,” being aware of my surroundings has always turned into a positive. In this case, looking at the urinal filters gave birth to a set of dingbats.

What’s more, thanks to the fine folks at Nonsek, you can now create and purchase a fine t-shirt of your very own covered with these urinal filter dingbats!

That’s right – why walk around in a plain old boring t-shirt when you can sport something like this?!

$18 for a custom urinal screen shirt – not bad! Want to make your own? Just look over there on the left, select Peepod by Carlos Segura and fire away!

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Allow me to be the first to confess: I don’t really get a lot of art. But I do know a cool picture of a bathroom when I see one…

Woman Undone – Urinal by Michael Meyersfeld

Brian writes the following:

I walk into the bathroom at work. I notice money laying by the foot of an occupant in the stall. What is the ediquite for notifying the unknown person that he has dropped money?

Generally, talking in the bathroom – at least for men – is strictly forbidden. Something like cash on the ground certainly presents an exception to this rule, and opens the door for the bare minimum of conversation required to convey the message.

A wrinkle though! This particular cash is at the foot of somebody in a stall. In this case, you should wait until the very last second until trying to alert the person to their mistake. Talking into a stall is different than talking to someone at a sink or urinal. So wait as long as you can because they may notice the cash all on their own when they start to tidy up for example.

Thing is, you’ve got to leave the bathroom eventually, and people can be busy in a stall for quite some time. If you’ve finished your business, thoroughly washed your hands and made sure you don’t have a wad of food in your teeth, it just might be time to say something. A simple “dude, don’t forget that twenty” will suffice (or maybe “dude in the middle stall” if there are multiple simultaneous poops occurring).

And if it’s only a dollar, or some loose change, you might want to consider not saying anything at all.

Let me assure you of one thing: Australia is a hotbed of bathroom technology and etiquette. Don’t believe me? Just go check out the ICBE’s page on Australia. Recently, Southern-Hemisphere Bathroom Correspondent Neil wrote his second in a series of communications on Australian bathroom habits.

On the subject of automatic toilets…

Firstly, one of your other Aussie correspondents reports on the increasing number of automatic toilets around Australia. One of the great mysteries to me, having used many of these in various parts of the country is why they always have the same soundtrack playing. It is always an electronic sounding version of Burt Bacharach’s “What The World Needs Now”. I’ve only ever visited these establishments for less than the length of time it takes to play WTWNN and so don’t know what comes on next. Burt must be very proud.

On the matter of using a lemon tree as a urinal…

Secondly, in your commentary on the lemon tree urinal I presented to you on my last visit to your site, you suggested that one wouldn’t want to be facing another person also “taking a leak”. Not so! We are a very tolerant society in this respect and if you have been sitting around enjoying copious amounts of liquid refreshment, such decorum is often the last thing on your mind. Sure, you want to be standing far enough away from your friend so as to keep your feet dry but front on while not ideal, is acceptable under certain circumstances (e.g. when it’s dark, for example).

Awesome Australian euphemisms for taking a poop!

· Having/taking a poo/crap/shit (fairly standard)
· Snapping one off
· Backing one out (a favourite of the trucking fraternity)
· Laying one down
· Damaging the Doulton (a famous brand of porcelain plumbing products)
· Spray painting the Doulton (used when the consistency of waste matter is somewhat watery)
· Drop a blind mullet
· Going for a hollow log
· One in the departure lounge
· Letting go a chocolate hostage
· Dropping friends off at the pool

Backing one out is something I’ve come across here in California, but many of these are new to me. My personal favorite: Dropping friends off at the pool.

Awesome Australian Euphemisms for poop residue, and a brief aside about juvenile poop-related hijinks in Australia…

That which is left behind after said activity is sometimes known as a Bondi Cigar (supposedly because sewerage floats in our most famous Sydney beach and they look like cigars) or a Polly Waffle or a Chokito. The Chokito and Polly Waffle are (were?) two Australian chocolate bars that were rough in their appearance (unlike say a Mars Bar that always looks appealing). Delinquent lads enjoyed unwrapping these bars and throwing them into public pools or swimming pools at friends parties, thus emptying the pool when people saw them. Most amusing …!

As always, a fantastic dissection of bathroom culture by our friend Neil.