To avoid indelicacy, I'm going to assume you are familiar with boys' plumbing. Public restrooms for men use urinals because more of them can be crammed into the same space than toilets. Also, users get their business done more quickly with urinals.
The downside to urinals is that many men are inattentive and inaccurate when pointing their willies, so there is usually a lot of spillage in the area. A lot. Like a pond. Count yourselves lucky you don't have to enter a Men's Room to confront this mess.
Last year, I picked up a friend at JFK airport and used the bathroom there. I noticed a small image of a housefly at the bottom of the urinal. I realized the image was baked into the porcelain. Naturally I wondered why it was there.
Yesterday, reading The New York Times, I learned the answer. The urinals were made by a Dutch company which cares about environmentalism. They believed that giving men a target to shoot would reduce spillage and decrease the need for frequent cleaning.
Here's what the Times wrote, "Studies found that mistakes in marksmanship dropped by 80 percent as men kept their minds on their work." So, apparently, the flies serve a purpose.
Isn't that weird?
Here's the second story. Urinals often have "cakes" in them which are bars of disinfectant. I was in Penn Station in NYC when I noticed the cake in my urinal had advertising on it. As startling as that was -- I had never seen an ad there before -- the ad-copy made me laugh out loud.
The cake had a logo for a credit-card company trying to lure new customers with low interest-rates. Under the logo was this slogan, "Don't Piss Away Your Money."
I laughed! It was so unexpected and surreal. I was reading advertising in a urinal while hosing it down. The slogan was simultaneously vulgar and clever.
Is there anything interesting happening in the Women's Room you want to share? :-)
L-O-FREAKING-L. That's hilarious and weird.
ReplyDeleteAs for the women's room, I haven't encountered any funny advertising that I can remember. There are, however, plenty of witty signs about not flushing pads or tampons down the toilet!
Awesome. Ian never tells me this kind of stuff. So funny. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteSome women hover instead of sitting on the seat and therefore pee all over the seat. Then they leave it like that. RUDE. Grown ass women do this.
Xo
Tracy
The main problem with women's restrooms is that somehow, some women still don't realize that if you flush sanitary products, the toilet WILL back up. What's worse is finding a bloody tampon on the floor, but that doesn't happen too often.
ReplyDeleteSome women (at least where I work) will do this weird thing where they will be completely silent in the bathroom. Like everyone doesn't pee. I will go in, sit down, and then suddenly notice shoes in the next stall it freaks me out every time. I do my stuff, wash my hands, primp my hair if I need to and they won't make a single sound.
ReplyDeleteI understand having a shy bladder or whatever, but seriously it's weird.
Lately I have started making the assumption they are killing a little work time playing some games on their smart phones. ;)
DeleteYup, that's weird. :)
Deletei think thats what you call creative advertising. LOL. what a weird way to spend an ad budget.
ReplyDeleteI did ask The Teen why there was a machine selling the odd combination of Glow Sticks, tampons, breath mints, and gum in the ladies' loo the last time we went to the movies. (No condoms, what is wrong with these peeps?) But then she asked, "Who are the Village People?" and I couldn't speak to her the rest of the night or hear her answer :P
ReplyDeleteBut your tales from the front. WOW. Many of my friends won't pee in public restrooms as it is...this post would mean they could never leave home...lol.
Hahah don't piss away your money- that's great! In the women's restroom we sometimes have hair straighteners and hair dryers you can pay money to use (usually in clubs) but other than that mostly just profanity and graffiti!
ReplyDeleteHee! Both are cute stories. I love the idea of stamping a fly into the porcelain. That really amused me.
ReplyDeleteOccasionally on the back of the stall door there will be a plastic frame with advertising it in. Kind of like they almost give you a magazine, but the adverts are usually fairly dull in my experience.
Oh and some ladies bathrooms come equipped with a couch/chairs - for nursing babies, I believe, but it always felt bizarre to see a whole cushy couch or wingback chair in a bathroom.
I have no truly interesting bathroom stories other than people think it's a great time to approach you to talk/ask you something. Weirder when they're on their phones in a stall and it sounds like they're talking to you!
Your last point is a big gender-difference. Men *never* address each other in men's rooms, for fear of being pulled into a homosexual encounter.
DeleteThis takes the cake! Our culture is TOO saturated with advertising.
ReplyDeleteNice pun, Terri.
DeleteHaha I love the advertising story! I don't have any funny stories about the women's bathroom. Maybe I should be more attentive!?
ReplyDeleteYou're attentive enough if you don't miss the target. :)
DeleteHaha, that is awesome! In Tokyo there are often babyseats infront of the toilett. I think that's a great idea. And toilettseats in japan usually make a flushing sound because a lot of japanese women are embarrassed when people can hear them pee. At first I was a little bit confused where that flushing sound comes from, haha.
ReplyDeleteUrinals vs. toilet stalls in public toilets are structural sexism at its best: Men already need to pee less frequently because of their anatomy, and then they even give them more places to do so than in the corresponding ladies' rooms (because there usually will be stalls anyway in the men's rooms as far as I've seen, and not necessarily fewer than in the ladies' rooms). If I go to a concert or public talk I almost always have to decide whether I will use the restroom *or* look at the CDs and books they're selling / get something to drink during the break, because inevitably there will be a loooooong line with a looong waiting time at the ladies' restroom and so I won't have time for anything else during the break. Hence probably also the cliché that women always go to the restroom in pairs: That way at least you have someone to chat with while you wait... And then they make these waiting lines the stuff of jokes... it's an unfair world. :)
ReplyDelete("they" = mysterious forces of society, la-di-da.)
True example of oppression. I get so sad seeing the lines outside women's rooms. Once, I was attending a female-oriented concert and the venue temporarily converted all but one of the men's rooms into women's rooms (with cardboard signs). That seemed right.
DeleteHave you ever seen a bold woman, unwilling to wait, enter a men's room? I have. Then again, I live in New York!
rotflol ... nope, I seldomly use public restrooms and only if i'm really desperate but since we don't have urinals, our advertising is more in the way of posters. I enjoyed your stories though.
ReplyDeletehaha, you figure each guy stands there for a good 15 - 45 seconds?? great place for a slogan! don't the cakes cause more splashes?!
ReplyDelete[oomph.]
Anastasia of Beverly Hills-Giveaway
Good point, but in my experience, the slight splashing stays within the urinal.
DeleteIt's a little weird how much I enjoyed this insightful post! If a man opts for the toilet stall instead of the urinal, does that mean he has a bigger job to do, or is he just private about his bodily functions???
ReplyDeleteMy biggest public restroom pet peeve is nothing to hang your handbag on!
The only time a man opts for a toilet over a urinal is when he needs to, um, do more than pee.
DeleteMen are taught not to be "private about [their] bodily functions" and, from childhood on, to pee openly in front of others.
I sympathize with your complaint about no handbag hangers. Men's room floors are disgusting and I often wonder what to do with my briefcase. I certainly don't want to put it down in that mess.
In bathroom advertising is quite clever... i have seen it on the doors of stalls. You walk in, close the door and the advertising is right on your face, there is no getting away from it.
ReplyDeleteAlthough i usually prefer to read the graffiti on the walls - if there is any.
I love the fly idea. And the cake ad is great, too. Thanks for sharing. That's something I otherwise would never have known.
ReplyDeleteOne of the toilets in one of thebuildings I work in has a mirror directly in front of the toilet. I really don't want to see myself in that situation lol.
ReplyDeletesebbie