Daveed Reviews

The Mens Room

Nearly time I use a public men's room, I leave shaking my head at the mess and the stink we men leave behind. There are a lot of things about the public men's that puzzle me, but first and foremost, I don't get why men are such freaking slobs when they know that someone else is going to clean up after them - even more so if that someone is getting paid to do so.

For the sake of this discussion, I am going to exclude out-houses, rest stop and gas station restrooms, and any other restroom that we typically expect to be a sewer. In fact, I'm going to rise high above the stereotypically stinky restroom and start with the public restroom in the building where I work.

It's a small building, relatively speaking: 2 floors, maybe 5 businesses and less than 20 guys. Professional guys, not 20 chimpanzees (who, by the way, are notorious for flinging their fecal matter), not 20 inbred brothers from Mississippi (who, by the way, have never seen a terlet that flushed). No, these 20 guys are supposedly educated, weren't raised by gorillas and, one would presume, would have a shred of courtesy and decency.

Let's start with the small things: boogers. It seems that men (and I am assuming that all men everywhere are represented by the 20 in my control group) only think to pick their nose when they are standing in front of a urinal, holding their pecker in one hand. I've never experienced this myself, but one would think that the urinal activates a deep seated, hypnotic command to start mining. Problem is, when you've got your willie in one hand and a booger on the other, where does the harvest go? On the wall, of course, just like you would that 20 pt buck, for everyone to see and admire.

Another urinal issue is that people tend to use it as a trash can, from the dry cleaner tag that was discovered when trou was dropped to gum that the flavor has been chewed out of. I always thought the urinal was for fluid only, but I guess I'm wrong, because when I see trash in the urinal, it's always gone the next day; somehow it makes it through the urinal screen and the blue block that must have been designed with only back splash in mind.

Why is it that the burliest of men always cower in the corner, back turned away from the world in case, heaven forbid, someone actually sneaks a peek at Mr. Happy? What they say must be true about the girth on one’s body negatively impacting the perceived girth of the twig.

How come most men feel it necessary to defile the urinal before/while urinating? This usually takes the form of coughing up a green one and spitting in the urinal, like this gesture is really showing the urinal who’s boss.

I never get why some guys use the stall for number 1 when a there’s a vacancy at the urinal. These must be the same guys that cower in the corner, so, instead of me making fun of them for cowering, I'll make fun of them for standing in the stall. Perhaps these guys have experienced the passionate throes of Prison Love and feel safer peeing in a locked stall?

I’m especially disappointed at the amount of trash on the floor in the stalls at my office restroom. Usually this trash takes on the form of wadded up, unused toilet paper (thanks at least for that) or candy wrappers. Hello? You’re sitting on a trash can that flushes! Do you have any idea what the ladies are putting in their toilets? I think a little extra TP can be handled nicely by the 26 gallon commercial flush, ya know?

I used to think that the restrooms that had no privacy stalls were off limits for me. Not that I want to be on display while evacuating, a la Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket, but toilets with no stalls would keep everyone a little more honest, don’t you think?

Ever notice how many guys don’t wash? Maybe it’s my OCD popping up again, but I’m surprised that our office building hasn’t been quarantined for some kind of fecal bacteria outbreak: Turd Flu.

Finally, I never get the guys that come in and use the restroom while they are chatting away on their cell phone. I can only think of a hand full of people that I have the balls to talk to on the phone while taking care of business and none of them are people I call for business. It’s bad enough to see someone talking while standing at the urinal – they just don’t flush (thanks, bro) – but when some guy is squatting on the porcelain throne and talking…? It’s too much. He must explain the pause while he pushes as a moment he’s deep in thought. I guess that dude never flushes, either, as that would be a dead give away. “What was that noise?” “Oh, that? I’m listening to a presentation on the causal analysis of the global warming trend on the water temperature at Niagara Falls and how it's affecting the economy in Turkistan. It’s really quite intriguing…”

Ever wonder what the bathrooms at these guys homes are like? Think there’s wadded up crack wipe in the floor of Icky Mike’s can? Boogers on the wall and…well, maybe if you knew Mike, that wouldn’t be so far fetched, but what about the rest of those guys?

posted by daveed @ 10.1.06