In The Ladies' Room.

[Cartooniverse]

I'm at work, in a corporate office setting today. Because it's very early, there is some general cleaning happening in the rest rooms. As I headed to the Men's Room, I saw the Ladies' Room door held far ajar by a janitorial cart.

They've got big cushy chairs in there. They've got wallpaper and floor lamps....and...carpeting. It's soothing and inviting in there.

The Men's Room is clinical, cold and small. White tile, brushed stainless steel. I'm jealous. Nay, seething with jealousy. Aside from perhaps the need to sit down in a comfy chair to nurse your baby ( a virtual impossibility in this corporate office, since there are no child care areas anywhere, and so the odds of lots of women nursing is close to nil ), why is it that ?

Before I become engulfed in the fiery agony of flaming for attacking women who are in the midst of their periods, I understand the need for some comfort and quiet sometimes. I've been married for almost one hundred and seventy-five years. I get it.

Why can't men enjoy the same level of quiet and moments of creature comforts???

Cartooniverse

[Slainte]

You get the cheaper haircuts, we get the bathroom chairs. :p

And I hate to tell you, but we even have a couch in the bathroom at one of the buildings that I go to.

[Why A Duck]

Let's say there was a couch in the men's room, would you use it?

Would you want to be known as Cartooniverse, the guy that hangs out on the men's room couch?

[twickster]

We can't give you nice furniture, you'd just pee on the seat of it.

[peritrochoid]

Originally posted by twickster
We can't give you nice furniture, you'd just pee on the seat of it.


Oh, that was bad! Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad! :p

Just plain mean!

I'm offended! ;)

[Mama Tiger]

It's a holdover from the days when ladies retired en masse to the ladies room on social occasions for some makeup touchup and lots and lots of gossip. Oh, wait, we still do that. ;) Well, some office buildings haven't figured out that it's unproductive to make it easy to do that in the ladies room at work, too. And I'm jealous myself -- not many offices are that well equipped today.

[justcallmegrace]

Some bathrooms still have the old "fainting style" couches in them.. Ladies used to wear corsets, and couldn't always breathe very well etc, and when out in public would feel faint and go and pass out in the bathroom for a few minutes. In the bathroom so they could keep their delicate dignity intact. A couch is much better than a dirty floor, esp in a white dress. :D

Personally I would escuse myself from the Sunday sermon, and use the couches in the bathrooms at church to sleep on for the next hour and a half.

Oh and since there is always water around sinks, it gives a great place to rest that brand new leather purse without water stains. :D

"grace"

[herman_and_bill]

No names and no cite but I saw an office products supply catalog that had ladies room couches or sofas because the laws in certain areas required that ladie's rooms were to have a sofa.

Hey Cartooniverse, next time you are there early switch the signs.

[Spellbound]

Our restroom at work doesn't have a sofa.
I think too many of the women would actually "hang out" there.

But I must say, that it takes a woman longer in the restroom due to all the hullaballoo we have to go through in order to even GO in the first place, especially when working.

I mean.. think about it, we don't just unzip and yank it out. We have to unzip/unbutton, extracate ourselves from nylons, sit, do our thing, then repeat the process... therefore, anyone that has to go AFTER that person, has to wait longer. And I haven't taken any polls on it lately, but it's easier for me to "hold it" while I'm in a sitting position.

[ArtyDooDoo]

My husband used to work in an office that had a couch in the mens room. one day someone pooed on it. they didnt have a couch in there after that.

[Spellbound]

*snicker*

[FairyChatMom]

I never understood it myself. Of all the places I would choose to sit and relax/reflect/ repose/recuperate, a bathroom isn't anywhere on the list. There is a small couch in the ladies room where I work - if I make a pit stop on the way to the car, I'll pile my stuff on the couch, but I don't think I've ever sat upon it.

[Fretful Porpentine]

Most ladies' rooms are also clinical, cold, and small. At least at state universities they are.

OTOH, my grandparents had their fiftieth anniversary bash at an officer's club where the ladies' room bordered on palatial. My girl cousin and I spend most of the evening sneaking my boy cousin in and out, until the janitor caught us in the act. (I was thirteen and had just been allowed my first glass of champagne. That was a fun evening.)

[norinew]

It probably does make more sense for a ladies' room to have a chair or sofa, as it is much more common for a woman to have to "wait her turn" than a man. However, whenever I've been in ladies' rooms with these kinds of amenities, I've always assumed the mens' room would be equally nice. Guess I might have been wrong.

[koeeoaddi]

Originally posted by FairyChatMom
I never understood it myself. Of all the places I would choose to sit and relax/reflect/ repose/recuperate, a bathroom isn't anywhere on the list. There is a small couch in the ladies room where I work - if I make a pit stop on the way to the car, I'll pile my stuff on the couch, but I don't think I've ever sat upon it.

You beat me to it FCM. I've heard this gripe from men forever and all I can do is assure them that I have personally never benefited from this injustice.

Not to nurse my baby. Not in the grips of a migraine. Not doubled over with womanly pain. Not for a chat with my pals, a cup of tea, not even to catch my breath. Never ever ever have I sat on one of those cushy chairs or God forbid, stretched out on an inviting Ladies Room couch.

Get in get out fast is the name of the game. I don't get it either.

[Soul Brother Number Two]

Many of years ago there was a very silly SNL skit about the ladies room, where Bill Murray snuck in and there was a fountain and massage and skiing and a funny song that went "The ladies room, the ladies room..."

[AbbySthrnAccent]

Originally posted by Slainte
You get the cheaper haircuts, we get the bathroom chairs. :p

And I hate to tell you, but we even have a couch in the bathroom at one of the buildings that I go to.

Does anyone ever sit on the furniture? No matter how "nice" and "clean" the facilities are, something about the fact it's in the room with the toilets creeps me out. I have never sat on a chair or sofa no matter how fancy the accomodations were.

[Horseflesh]

Mrs. Flesh and I work at the same company and I know that there's a couch in the women's restroom. Wife tells me that it's not uncommon to hear someone throwing up from morning sickness. The couch is a good place to lay down and calm your stomach but still close enough to the Porcelain God if you gotta throw up again.

[Jaade]

Originally posted by AbbySthrnAccent
Does anyone ever sit on the furniture? No matter how "nice" and "clean" the facilities are, something about the fact it's in the room with the toilets creeps me out. I have never sat on a chair or sofa no matter how fancy the accomodations were.

I heard once that toliets in Ancient Egypt were in the kitchen where the servants prepared food....talk about disturbing thoughts.

~J

[bittersweet]

Originally posted by Spellbound
*snicker*

*snickers too*

What would cause someone to poo on a couch in the men's room? And to not even clean it up? Ew. I mean, just...ew.

Perhaps that was their way of protesting the whole essence of couchiness.

[Blonde]

Originally posted by Horseflesh
Mrs. Flesh and I work at the same company and I know that there's a couch in the women's restroom. Wife tells me that it's not uncommon to hear someone throwing up from morning sickness. The couch is a good place to lay down and calm your stomach but still close enough to the Porcelain God if you gotta throw up again.


Yep, you nailed that one - the sofas are there for pregnant women.

[International Playboy]

I've heard rumors of a couch in the ladies' room at work for several years now. Used to be that someone would comment that "so-and-so" had to go lie down for a few minutes in the rest room. At first, in this day of "equality," I thought that was giving women unfair favor over men.

But thinking it over, I decided that I would never use such a thing in the men's room. I mean, our restroom is so foul most of the time. We have a person or persons who forget or refuse to flush the toilets after a big load. I've also seen both the toilets and urinals stuffed with with paper towels and for a while, candy bar wrappers in the toilets! And this is a government buliding full of so called "engineers."

I wish we had a separate sink area, a kitchenette or something, to rinse coffee cups and eating utensils. And I will never brush my teeth in there like I've seen some people do. (I once saw a guy lather up and shave his head in there!)

No the atmosphere in our men's room is so unpleasant, I can barely stand sometimes, to go in there for normal business. I certainly don't want to hang around there more than necessary.

[Cartooniverse]

Interesting. I've taken to brushing my teeth most vigorously after meals, and after my morning iced coffee. While I find the use of a sink in a rest room as a source for mouth-water to be totally disgusting, I have no problem standing before the sink and brushing, and expectorating my oral effluvia into said porcelain resevoir. I just take in a cup of filtered water with me, to rinse with.

Having shared just a smidge more than was likely necessary, I'm inclined to agree with International Playboy here. Most men's rooms are unspeakably foul. Then again, the Wifestrocity and The Fem-Bot both confirm the fact that the overwhelming majority of ladies' rooms are equally horrific.

Never seen a sofa in a men's room. Never seen a stuffed chair. The ONLY chairs I have ever seen are in hoity-toity men's rooms in hoity-toity hotels and the odd Salon Privée that I've been in. That chair is used by a fellow whose job in life is to insist on handing me a paper towel to dry my hands off. I also am offered over seventy-three different cologne's , talc's, deodorants and skin bracers. If I chose to wipe my hands on the back of my pants out of sheer defiance, I'm obliged to Tip the man for the priveledge. Apparently there are rules concerning water on hands in men's rooms, and I missed that memo. It's incredible.

Okay, this leads me to the follow-up question. Is this business of hygeine by blackmail and coercion unique to men's rooms, or do the ladies also find a demonical matron ensconced by the sinks in the ladies' loo ?

Cartooniverse, who does NOT in any way shape or form wish to be known as "Cartooniverse, the guy that hangs out on the men's room couch, but I have to admit that Why A Duck made me snort at the idea. :p

[Cartooniverse]

Originally posted by herman_and_bill
Hey Cartooniverse, next time you are there early switch the signs.

Done.

:D

[Eve]

The best ladies' rooms were at Lord & Tayor's in Bala Cynwyd, and Rumplemayer's in New York. They looked like French whorehouses: sofas, mirrors, gilded Louis XVI chairs and tables scattered about. One felt just like Zsa Zsa Gabor in those ladies' rooms . . .

[AbbySthrnAccent]

Originally posted by Cartooniverse
Okay, this leads me to the follow-up question. Is this business of hygeine by blackmail and coercion unique to men's rooms, or do the ladies also find a demonical matron ensconced by the sinks in the ladies' loo ?


They are in the ladies room in fancier hotels and establishments as well.

[MPangloss]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Why A Duck
[B]Let's say there was a couch in the men's room, would you use it?

absolutely..there would be fridge right next to it and a tv mounted on the wall.

[lieu]

Honestly, I think the men's room needs a fainting couch worse than the ladies room does. Just today this great big tall guy came in and blew an NBA fart right at me. Sonuvabitch was a trailblazer from his land o' port and the foul thing nearly knocked me over. I was sitting down when he let fly but still it would have been nice to have a couch I could have slumped onto.

[MetalDog]

Where I work we have a toilet on each floor. Not big floors, but we have a toilet for each. There are only two women working there, me and the receptionist/secratary/all that boring paperwork stuff no-one else can be arsed with woman. We're both on the ground floor, so that's our bog.

Now, I know all the toilets are identical and I know they get cleaned out thoroughly every night by our two wonderful cleaners. However - the ladies always smells more or less okay and has a clean and spangly look about it, despite my collection of comics and tech catalogues in one of the cubicles.
One night, while changing a fan on the server, I couldn't be bothered to walk down. I was the only one there, so I went into the first floor bog.

Oh. My. God.

How do you do it, guys? We've only been in the building a few months! The smell of shit is ingrained into the very substance of the room. An overall atmosphere of pervading evil - it was a presence watching my every move with overbearing malignancy. If I worked with a bunch of fat slobs who only ever ate meat dripping with grease I could understand it, but you maniacs get more exercise than I do and the fridge is full of healthy eating!

That and both cubicles were full of porn and car mags, but I can't really cast stones on that account.

I think men are like foxes. They stake their territory by having unbeliveably persistant poo smell. Don't even get me started on my male flatmate's concept of what consititutes a clean bathroom.

[herman_and_bill]

Originally posted by Cartooniverse
Done.

:D


Did you try the sofa out?

[teela brown]

I dunno - if I were ill, the last place I'd like to be is on a sofa listening to other women whizzing and pooping a few feet away.

[Cat Whisperer]

Originally posted by MetalDog
<snip>secratary/all that boring paperwork stuff no-one else can be arsed with woman. <snip>

This is my job description. I think I'll put this on my résumé. [/hijack]

[Kakofonous]

In my workplace, the guys definitely have the number / luxuries advantage - but man those things are nasty. There isn't a women's bathroom on my floor - but there's a large men's room near me. There are showers in there that I was recently terrified to find out that people actually use. The main door is always propped open and some of the most unpleasant sounds come out of there.

The closest women's room is actually in another building - but that one tends to get skanky during the school year. All of the women tend to use the women's bathroom that's a floor down and on the otherside of the building. I wouldn't want to eat off the floor or anything, but we (and our wonderful evening custodial staff) manage to keep the bathroom quite tidy.

[ArtyDooDoo]

Originally posted by bittersweet
*snickers too*

What would cause someone to poo on a couch in the men's room? And to not even clean it up? Ew. I mean, just...ew.

Perhaps that was their way of protesting the whole essence of couchiness.

Another experience he had with poo on a couch is when he worked for a company called Robins Parking. He had to go and collect the coins from the parking meters. One of these places was a large parking lot behind a building. A group of homeless people were living back there and had an old couch sitting with their assorted items.

They had been using the couch as a toilet and had been pooing on it for the whole week between the last time he was there and this time. He and some of his coworkers had to haul it out of there.

Apparently there was really really a lot of poo on it.

[SanguineSpider]

Women RULE, don't you get it yet?

Sheesh...


You have to ask why we get couches, carpeting, soft lighting, wallpaper... we're WOMEN!

"I am woman, hear me roar!"-- some chick

[Horseflesh]

Originally posted by MetalDog
How do you do it, guys? We've only been in the building a few months! The smell of shit is ingrained into the very substance of the room. An overall atmosphere of pervading evil - it was a presence watching my every move with overbearing malignancy.Please note the post directly above yours. And who posted it.

[Jervoise]

Originally posted by ArtyDooDoo
They had been using the couch as a toilet and had been pooing on it for the whole week between the last time he was there and this time. He and some of his coworkers had to haul it out of there.

Apparently there was really really a lot of poo on it. Perhaps it was a statement; a protest á la lieu.
Or maybe it was performance art, a piece for me and you
Nevertheless, it was creative shit -- it was some ArtyDooDoo.

[Fern Forest]

Wow, that's straight out of Dilbert. Two women are talking about watching a movie on the big screen TV in the bathroom and one of the women calls the blue couch. Then Wally walks up to Dilbert and says "Look, the men's room has soap!"

[Sapphire Bullet]

One of the ladies' rooms on campus has sort of a waiting area next to the bathrooms. Sort of like a foyer to the stalls? There were several times I went in and saw girls laying on the couch studying. Basically IN the bathroom. Mere FEET away from toilets. It isn't as if there weren't other quiet areas in which to study.

Weird. Weird weird weird.

[Eureka]

The comment about the closest ladies room reminds me of my undergraduate days. A lot of my classes were in the Alumni Hall of Engineering(AHE) which was directly across the street from the Science building. AHE was 5 stories high, but built on the side of a hill so that the third floor was the one where the front door was. The 3rd floor had the only ladies I ever located, on the rare occasions it was closed for cleaning when I wished to use it, I'd head across the street to the familiar bathroom in the science building. When the 3rd floor AHE ladies room was closed, there was a sign near it describing the location of a bathroom in the basement, but I was never sure that it was more than a coat closet at a greater distance away. AHE had been built before the college decided to permit women as students and so they had converted a men's room to the women's room on the 3rd floor. The other thing which amused me was when there was an open house and lots of visitors were expected. Signs would direct men to the 2nd floor for a restroom, but I bet half of them used the 4th floor restroom without realizing it.

[Kalhoun]

A neighbor of mine worked the night shift at a place that had a couch in the ladies room. He used to go in there and catch a quick nap or read on his lunch hour.

One morning, the day shift came in to find him dead on the couch. Helluva way to die. On the couch in the ladies room at work.

[ArtyDooDoo]

Originally posted by Narrad
Perhaps it was a statement; a protest á la lieu.
Or maybe it was performance art, a piece for me and you
Nevertheless, it was creative shit -- it was some ArtyDooDoo.

LOL!!!!:D

[frookah]

Im a girl.

But.

I have some special gene that most women seem to bloody well lack. I can pee quickly, wash my hands and be ready to leave before most men can whip it out.

My friends are still fiddling with lipstick, gossiping, yanking up pantyhose, reapplying layers of bandaids to blistered feet from nazi shoes, gawd only knows.

I sit on that little couch and wait, and wait, and wait.

[Lissa]

Originally posted by Sapphire Bullet
One of the ladies' rooms on campus has sort of a waiting area next to the bathrooms. Sort of like a foyer to the stalls? There were several times I went in and saw girls laying on the couch studying. Basically IN the bathroom. Mere FEET away from toilets. It isn't as if there weren't other quiet areas in which to study.

Weird. Weird weird weird.

There's a hotel that my husband and I frequently stay at that has one of these "waiting rooms." It's pure luxury. It's not really a foyer, but a seperate room with a door you must open to go into the stall areas.

There's a little shelf in there which has all sorts of women's products: powders, lotions, perfumes, free ladies' tolietries, and even makeup sample packs, in case of emergency touch-ups.

I've often speculated that one reason for the ante-room may have been a hold-over from the days in which ladies's modesty would not stand for a man accidently catching a glimpse through the door of women in a room with a toilet. With a luxurious sitting room, all men would see if the door opened were women lounging in luxury, not waiting for something as crude as a commode.

[katiekilldare]

Originally posted by Cartooniverse
Okay, this leads me to the follow-up question. Is this business of hygeine by blackmail and coercion unique to men's rooms, or do the ladies also find a demonical matron ensconced by the sinks in the ladies' loo ?
These frauleins also like to stake out spots in theme-y restaurants like Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Cafe.

Let me tell you what, after a few "Indecent Proposals" (margaritas with OJ) at Planet Hollywood, you tend to happily tip the nice lady who's there to hand you a towel.

It's also in those instances that I'm pretty happy there's a sofa in there.

[Knowed Out]

OK ladies, tit for tat. At gentlemen's clubs, there's a butler in the men's room who gives us towelettes. Top THAT!

[Ca3799]

You're just jealous, Knowed Out.

[Jennyrosity]

The ladies' in my office doesn't even have a functioning light and hasn't done for some 3 weeks. As we are located in a windowless basement - affectionatley known as "the bunker" - this means peeing in total darkness. Soap and hand-towels are shy and elusive creatures, very rarely spotted and then only briefly. However, I'm told though that the mens is equally ill-equipped, so at least all things are equal.

[kniz]

The answer to this dilemma seems to be clear:
The women get the chairs and sofas
The men get the urinals.
:D Simple

[MaryEFoo]

In California, there used to be a law that a business of over 35 female employees needed a "quiet room" with a couch for women. Then they passed a law requiring equality, and guess what, instead of the guys getting couches, they took away the requirement for women having them.

[MaryEFoo]

Ha, my last job site had three women and more men (10 max. on a floor), and they began using the women's room which was four steps closer to the area.

And their argument, presented to upper management, was that the men's room was so disgusting.

The women found a flaw in that argument, and prevailed.

Oh yes, the restrooms were identical, mirror images.

[Avarie537]

The ladies' room at Nordstrom downtown in the fine jewelry section has a separate (separate even from the normal "sitting room") "Mothers' Area," complete with overstuffed armchair in a nook for nursing, with a foot massager in front of it! (Well, it's been years since I've been there, but I expect it's still the same.)

[Cartooniverse]

Originally posted by Avarie537
The ladies' room at Nordstrom downtown in the fine jewelry section has a separate (separate even from the normal "sitting room") "Mothers' Area," complete with overstuffed armchair in a nook for nursing, with a foot massager in front of it! (Well, it's been years since I've been there, but I expect it's still the same.)

Okay, THIS I can appreciate and respect. Not all women are at ease nursing even very discreetly, in a store when there might be an area that is more private. I grok that.

As for the rest of the responses, I am highly bemused.

[TeaElle]

In the stately William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, PA, there is a gorgeous women's salon attached to the ladies' room on the main lobby level. It has royal red carpeting and the expected compendium of luxurious couches and chairs, but the cap it off, it's the best air-conditioned area in the city in the summer. I know numerous women, including my former boss, who eat their lunches there every day!