in light of the traveling i've been doing lately, and because a lot of us will be away from home for the holidays, i thought this might be an interesting poll.

When you work in the construction field, you can do your business in the most interesting places.... public restrooms are a luxury.

yes, but i am a firm believer in fully covering the seat in toilet paper first. i have also stressed to ray's girls about how important this is, and it's funny to have them come out and say "janie, i remembered to put paper down!" all proud of themselves. hey, i don't teach bad lessons all the time ...

Unless they're in noticeably bad condition, I don't give it much thought.

I am a WIZARD, no pun intended, in finding public restrooms.

For the most part, public restrooms don't bother me. Nasty ones can be found at the parks and beaches (read: no doors on the stalls!). Most other places are fine to use when needed.

I will say this - college students are flat-out pigs when it comes to using campus restrooms. Water everywhere, paper towels strewn across the floor, and countless students never wash their hands. Goes to show you can teach a person ANYTHING but common sense.

yeah, me too.

however, i will only use johnny-on-the-spot in extreme cases. i can't stand those things. gross. that kind of goes for park and shady rest stop restrooms as well.

oh, and i know some women do the whole squat and pee thing so that they don't have to sit, but i don't get that. i don't think i'm that talented. how do you squat and remain relaxed enough to pee?

If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie wipe the seatie!
~m

once again, just one of the many examples written here as to why, i thank god that i'm a guy.

some others were related to "foof waxing"...ouch.

No way. I hitch our bathroom to the back of my car whenever I have to travel.

I use the public restrooms, but only if they are clean. I won't go into details of other circumstances - but usually if I find one that does not meet my criteria, I can find one pretty easily that does.

it's interesting to see how many men are responding to this...

i say use em when necessary, but i refuse ones in parks, i refuse johnny-on-the-spots, and i'm always a squatter unless it's super-clean, and then i go with papering the seat up.

ugh.

so my answer: Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go...

I might add that I use my feet to flip the seats up and down, when necessary. I also find hotels the best bathrooms, with hospitals, believe it or not, running a close second.

Aren't options kind of the same thing?

[marginally relevant hj]
I took my son Chris, who was 15 at the time, to the Woodstock '99 music festival. This 3-day musical camping extravaganza, which included Rage Against the Machine burning a giant American flag, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing his bass buck naked, and gangs of drunken dehydrated college boys setting everything they could get their hands on aflame, truly highlighted my good judgment as a parent and role model.

Among the myriad failures in planning by the festival's promoters was sanitation. There were not anywhere near enough porta-sans for the 100K mostly crazed young 20-somethings that showed up for three days of music and partying in the searing heat. By the second day, the stench and sitting conditions inside them were positively gruesome. We could hold our breath and run in to take a leak, but there was absolutely no way we were going to take a dump in one of those foul booths. I had no idea how the poor women in attendance were managing. Finally, sick with constipation the morning of the third day, we took a shuttle bus into the nearby city of Rome NY and located the local hospital. The ER nurses took pity on us despite our disheveled appearance and let us use the bathroom. I have never been so happy to see a clean toilet in all my life.
[/marginally relevant hj]

Ahem!

If you came to Mt. Airy... you could definitely use the restrooms. I cleaned them everyday for a coupla months... they're tip top.

Anyhoo - I go when I have to go.

-tiny tanks

#1 Anytime, Anywhere. (I'm a dude. Its not a problem.)

#2 It better be a HUGE emergency! Like life and death. (I'm very fond of my home turf)

oh, we know that, k.j.. in fact, i believe we have a recording of that confession somewhere around here.

Where's that picture of Santa pooping down the chimney...?

lmao (a great moment in OtR concert history)

karin (from stage in new york to kylie): "where'd you go girl? i was looking for you"
kylie: "ummmm, i had to go potty."

so embarassing.

i was tipsy(and half heart-broken)... i said "potty". sheesh.

i hate pubic bathrooms but sadly it sometimes cannot be avoided

NOW! i've been to peoples houses that make the public restrooms look pristine!

peace,
zayne

I've used "public restrooms" in the Amazon. Nothing scares me.

Oh yeah, I hadn't even thought about some of the public restrooms in other countries. My favourite was the one in Mexico. It was an outhouse that wasn't balanced right, and someone had to stand in the doorway so you didn't fall in the ditch.

Oh, and then there was the one that had a hole in the side, and kids playing in the field right next to it.

And then there was the outhouses in Bali. They had plumbing - and squat pots.

*cough*

Molly's fault.

Starbucks have pretty clean restrooms too. They even have the nice precut toilet sit covers to use. On the other end of the spectrum are the toilets in Taco Hell. They are what I like to call "Trainspotting" toilets.

::shrugs:: if I can use the back-exit (before it became a REAL back-exit) Cornerstone Festival port-a-potty (they forgot about us and gave us THREE and never cleaned them out) in the black of the night, with a dying flashlight clenched between my chin and chest and using the 'straddle technique', then I can use ANY public restroom (almost). I don't really care. I don't pee all that much, so it's not usually a concern, but I don't usually make attempts to hold it until I get home if it's convinient to use a public restroom. I do have particular stalls that I prefer sometimes though...like a 'lucky' stall or something. I find airport bathrooms the most disturbing, despite their little plastic coverings and automated flushes.

So far I haven't died using one.

The grossest one (with plumbing) installed thus far has been the one at this store where I worked...all the old people in the town would come shop there first thing and have...uhh...their morning constitutional in our bathroom....and I think most of them tried to not-sit while doing it. Guess who was in charge of cleaning....

Also, just for a note...I'd say that going in the woods is about 50 times better than using an outhouse...my dad has a share in this cabin in southern illinois...and the hunting guys just have an outhouse for the necessary stuff...and some lime powder...and an old magazine....I mean come ON!!! Of course, I guess in the dark of the night you know that your tush isn't making friends with poison ivy.

Oh yes, there was also "los Banos" (also in Mexico). THOSE were scary. Basically they were the toilets (outhouses) we used in our campsite - but our campsite had like 2000 teens in it. Every year, my group made a "sacrifice" to the bano god - ie threw a watermelon into one of the toilets. One year, first thing we did was decorate one of the new outhouses. Yeah, that was the most popular one of the row that year.

if you gotta go, you gotta go. but the woods is fine too if the plastic box looks creepy (and fewer spiders)

Other than wondering about the obvious sanitation, etc... I went to a concert in a old hall here in Springfield, Misery. The men's room was down stairs and to my chagrin, the waist high urinals were back-to-back without a wall inbetween. I never saw so many guys studying the ceiling in my lifetime!

Skoegahom...

[quote name='DJDelicious' post='163196' date='Dec 13 2005, 11:50 PM'][/quote]
yeah, me too.

however, i will only use johnny-on-the-spot in extreme cases. i can't stand those things. gross. that kind of goes for park and shady rest stop restrooms as well.

oh, and i know some women do the whole squat and pee thing so that they don't have to sit, but i don't get that. i don't think i'm that talented. how do you squat and remain relaxed enough to pee? [/quote]
In Iraq that's all we have! So you either master the squat or you risk blue-water splashback. EEEEWWWW. It's amazing what you get used to...

oh, bless your heart...and your bladder.

welcome to the orchard! when you have a chance, you should let us know more about you in the member bio section. we're a friendly lot....most of us.

I am TOTALLY going to start a mom's club to boycot all resturants that don't have a DIAPER changing station in their bathrooms.
It's like encouraging you not to bring your young child in to eat there with you. A lot of chinese food places are like this and Arbys.

McDonald's, however, gives moms and babies their own space and corner in the bathroom. They RULE when it comes to consideration for dirty diapers. LOL (of all people, right?)

Go read the book Fast Food Nation and it will give you a much different reason to boycott McDonalds.

Super e-Coli Me.

Just wondering: what the hell is with this obsession with covering up the toilet seat before you will rest your dainty derriere upon its rim? It's just a toilet seat. You aren't being asked to lick it, just sit on it. Your ass is generally not considered a terribly sterile surface to begin with. Why should it not touch public plastic?

If the seat is dirty, wipe it up. Easy. (If not so easy, then yeah, maybe you might want to find another stall.) Did people do this seat-covering thing in the 70s? I distinctly remember one childhood commercial proclaiming "you don't get AIDS from a toilet seat," and wondering what THAT was all about.

I don't recall any flesh-eating viruses being planted on public toilet seats in the past, nor do I think a layer of toilet paper would be much protection. And why was Stanley Ipkiss rimming his prison toilet bowl with Kleenex...?

i swear, i work with some of the stinkiest people in the world.

i just went to wash my hands, and it smelled like something died in there.

Forget the paper, use the "hover method", then clean up the raindrops. Actually, there are things you can pick up from a toilet seat but it is highly unlikely.





This topic came up last semester in the Sociology of the Family class I was taking, and how this is an example of how society reinforces or dictates cultural stereotypes. Several men in my class, 2 of whom were single parents with primary custody, felt that dad's needs are ignored. No one in class had ever heard of or seen changing tables in men's rest rooms.

I haven't been in any men's rooms that I can recall, but I have seen places with designated "family" bathrooms that either parent can go in with small children and they have changing stations.

Yeah, those family restrooms ROCK!

And it's not only women's restrooms... they really need to have more changing stations in the men's restrooms too!

This is completely accurate. At the restaurant where I worked last summer, the counter in the men's restroom was about four inches wide on either side of the sink (not to mention always covered in water, even if it had been wiped dry an hour before). The women's restroom had no changing table, but at least had a counter big enough to work in emergencies.

This one guy came up to the host stand one afternoon, baby in tow, asking if there was any way he could use our restroom to change his daughter's diaper. (The restaurant is located on a schmancy strip of shops with no public restrooms, aside from the ones in restaurants, so we were one of his only options.) I felt so bad that I wiped down the counter in the women's restroom, let him in there, and stood guard with another host until he was finished. Poor guy was so grateful.

travelling a lot, and reading this thread, i've noticed the lack of changing tables in public bathrooms -- yes, in women's rooms.

i also noticed the lack of a hook to hang keys/coats/purses on. that is annoying, although not quite as much of a sanitary hazard as having no changing table.

The Men's room where I work has a changing station that folds down from the wall.

The Men's room at Fudrucker's has the same. I can't recall any others since I don't have a baby.

And Libby, you can catch crabs from a toilet seat as well as genital warts--both of which a protective layer of paper will prevent (if draped properly).