What the FUCK is your DEAL? Are you that fucking stupid?
I’m at work, and I have to pee. So I go to use the restroom, and while there, I smell smoke and burnt matches coming from the handicapped stall.
So I come out and see someone waiting for a free stall and say, “Do you smell smoke?”
And a voice from the handicapped stall:
“Oh, that’s just me. Don’t worry-I’m not smoking-I’m just burning paper to get rid of the smell.”
:smack:
I wanted to scream. But of course, other people around might report that an employee was hurling obscenities at customers. So I just said, “Um, Ma’am, that’s not allowed. Please don’t do that.”
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know!”
D’UH!!! What, did you shit your brains out or something? NO SMOKING includes BURNING TOILET PAPER YOU IDIOT!!!
Umm…I was under the impression that the “No Smoking” signs were there because cigarette smoke is generally considered evil, not because smoking is a fire hazard.
Someone in my office is apparently on a diet consisting of garlic-and-limburger stuffed skunk ass in a ptomaine haddock bouillabaisse, and suffers from rectal projectiles that can drive local real estate values beneath those of Yucca Mountain’s for an entire afternoon; and I, for one, wouldn’t mind if he set an entire old-growth redwood forest aflame in the crapper after his visits.
I just wanted to point out that I work with a number of Vietnamese women and the burning a match thing seems to be a part of their culture. I really don’t know what, if any, other cultures do this. Not that its a ritual or anything, but I think it is accepted practice. I have seen it many times over the years.
Not that it makes it an less annoying but just wanted to suggest a reason.
I disagree, I think it is only to prevent tobacco smoke, a carcinogen. If it was meant to ban all combustion, it would say something like “no burning” or “no open flames”. Which might be a good idea with all that methane floating around.
Seriously, I mean, come on! She was burning toilet paper. Yeah, she could throw it in the toilet to put it out, but does anyone seriously think that wasn’t a Darwin Award candidate?
My mom always lights a match in the bathroom after any smelly incidents; whenever I visit I find the sulfur stench in the bathroom far inferior to the simple natural smells of human feces. Not that I like the smell of shit or farts, but there’s something about match smell that is worse, to my nose.
I’ve never really found that lighting a match gets rid of the smell of effluvia. Instead it just makes the bathroom smell like shit and matches. I always associated the smell of snuffed matches with the festive Hannukkahs of my youth, so it’s rather off-putting to have it associated with feces like that.
I like the smell of a lit match, but it does seem that there should be something fairly obvious about not having an open flame in a public bathroom. Or in the store.
Guin, did you see her? I’m wondering how old she was. My mother works at a retirement home, and has constant trouble with this. It seems that some folks, years ago, were taught that lighting a match was the polite thing to do when one stanks up the room.
Then again, I’m talking about people who will wash and reuse plastic wrap… Trash can fires DO happen there. Often.
Ok, it’s a gross violation of cultural norms to light any open flame anywhere in public, but of all the places to do so, a public restroom would be just about the best. There’s water everywhere, and nothing burns: presumably everything’s covered in tile, which is non-flammable, so even if worst comes to worst and she ignites the whole roll of toilet paper, chucks it into the toilet, misses and it hits the floor, so? The stalls won’t burn, the floor won’t burn, the toilet won’t burn. Sure, she’ll stink up the place and maybe set the fire alarms off, but that’s about it.
I’m having a hard time understanding the outrage, from a safety point of view. Frankly, what she did seems more akin to that stupid sociology 101 experiment that everyone does where you go into an elevator and stand with your back to the door, facing everyone. It violates cultural norms and people squirm.
So, no. I don’t think she deserves the Darwin Award as her actions are VERY unlikely to kill or even injure her or anyone else.
That said, I think it’s kinda weird, too. Frankly I’d prefer the smell of shit to the smell of shit + burned matches.
I almost burnt down an Atlanta hotel by doing that same thing. I wasn’t really thinking about it and There was a pack of matches in the stall so I figured “what the hell”. I threw the lit match in the toilet without paying attention to the fact that there was toilet paper hanging out of it. Luckily, I got the fire extinguished right before the whole roll of paper caught and there wasn’t enough smoke to set off the alarm. Needless to say I felt pretty stupid.
