Exactly - and god forbid there’s pantyhose involved. Trust me, the head is easier than the elbow, you just feel sillier.
But your username is mostly tall stick-like letters, like “f” (granted the “d” has a pot belly), how is anyone supposed to know?
I propose that future stall doors all be designed more like THIS. Double-doors. You can even make them make them swing in boh directions like saloon doors maybe, because they are more narrow and less likely to hit someone.
In general doors swing in on stalls because if they swung out you could (and most likely would) hit someone with the door. You stand up,and push the door out, and you really have no way of knowing if someone is on the other side. It is also why you see doors like an apartment/hotel/condo door open ‘into’ the unit. From a exiting standpoint it seems like it should open in the direction of travel–but you would hit someone coming down the hall if it did that. But the code recognizes that the occupant load in the unit is small enough that you won’t get bodies piled up at the door and that someone can open it—and that you are very likely to smack someone in the face if it swung out.
HC swing out because they are typically at the end of the row and they need to swing out in order to maintain the maneuvering room within the stall.
Rarely do you see a public toilet swinging out. I do not believe it is a building code issue though and I am way too lazy to look it up But it is pretty common generic building practice in my 25 years of experience.
Holy crap that post made me realize my keyboard is on th fritz!! Damn it@@! Here it goesagain.
I try to use the handicapped stalls. Those have doors that swing out - I wish they all did. In modern buildings you can squeeze in, sometimes it’s tough to manage without brushing my legs against the bowl, or chest against the door.
The ‘fit in at least one tiny restroom’ in renovated older construction is much more of a problem. Single bathrooms added to restaurants in Manhattan, and at small bungalows turned into cafes at the Jersey shore. Where you get the itty bitty sink suspended in front of the toilet and you have to sit under the sink like a kid at those school desks. There was one at the shore I opened the door and said 'Nope. Can’t get in there." Had to leave and try somewhere else.
I’m a 5’8" female. My highest non-pregnant weight was 335, my highest pregnant weight, 360.
When not pregnant, I often had to perform gymnastic feats to use a regular stall, and used a handicapped stall when I could (anecdote follows). Pregnant, though, once my belly got really large, a regular stall was flat-out impossible. There was never enough space between my belly and the door to open/close it. I always had to wait for the handicapped stall.
Anecdote: about four years ago, when my youngest daughter was 4YO, we were in Costco and I had to go to the bathroom. The handicapped stall was available, so I used it. She asked why. I explained to her that, in some circumstances, being very overweight is a handicap. I also explained to her that soon I was going to have some surgery that would help me be not so overweight any more. Thereafter, she referred to my duodenal switch as “mommy’s shrinking surgery”.
ETA: “People of size” is a little overly-PC for my taste, but friedo’s terms are flat-out offensive, imho. I don’t mind “really large people”, hell, I don’t even mind “fat”, though I draw the line at “fat-ass”.
Well duh.
Do people in this thread really think friedo was being serious? Really!?
I normally use the handicapped stall not just because I’m large in size but also because I’ve got arthritis in both knees, making it hard for me to sit and get up from sitting.
The toilets in the handicap stalls are usually seated further from the ground plus there are the railings to hold on to. Sometimes, if I have to use a “regular” stall, I’ve had a lot of trouble standing, mainly because it’s so close to the ground, but also because there’s less room.
And even in many (public area) handicapped stalls, the toilet seat covers and/or toilet paper holders are sometimes flush up against the seat - again crowding the person seated.
I live in fear of the day when I’m in a “regular” stall and go to get up and can’t! :eek: So far … knock wood … it hasn’t happened.
Let’s say instead of all the lovely terms for fat people, he said "“People of colour?” Is this the latest round of PC euphemistic nonsense?
What’s wrong with our perfectly good, sensitive standbys like “nigger,” “coon,” “Hangy McGee,” and “welfare grubber?”
- No offense intended for Scottish people."
Would that be ok, too? If not, why the hell not? What he said, meant as a joke or not was obnoxious, hateful, hurtful and just plain tacky. Having been Super Morbidly Obese, with a BMI over 60, I find it exceedingly offensive.
FWIW, I chose “people of size” because it was the most broad term I could think of to include those who are obese, really broad shouldered, big boned, pregnant, or any combination thereof, including folks like my aunt who has some circulatory condition that makes her legs too big to fit that 4" gap between the open door and the toilet (like there’s no way she could straddle the toilet bowl as a technique to close the door) even though she isn’t a “fat” woman. “Large” didn’t quite seem to fit.
Wasn’t trying to be overly PC, and didn’t mean to open a can o’ worms.
To answer the OP: fat is squishy, it’s fat, not solid muscle. So while some folks might have to squeeze and have the door brush them, folks like me squeeze and squish the door past them. I’ve been in the tiny stalls that required some serious maneuvering inch by inch to get the door shut, with one foot sticking somewhere behind the toilet and me trying to eel my way past the door arc swing.
Women’s restrooms can be particularly hazardous because of the metal goody boxes installed on the inside wall and the purse hook on the back of the stall door waiting to take out an unwary eye.
That makes sense. Thank you for clarifying.
I thought you just meant “fat”, and thought it was a tad overly-PC, but when you explain it that way. . .
Litoris, thank you for voicing what I wanted to say to EyebrowsOfDoom and couldn’t think of a way. Just because someone is “just joking” doesn’t mean they can’t be offensive. Likewise, just because friedo happens to be large, that doesn’t mean that nothing he says about large people can be derogatory.
I’d understood the OP as intended…
My biggest weight has been thereabouts of (calculator, calculator) 165lb, but there have been stalls where I had problems squeezing in, and that’s without having a suitcase with me; places where the door could not open fully because it hit the bowl or where I had to place a leg between the bowl and wall while sort of hopping with the other leg up in the air… how the hell is a pregnant woman (and that is one belly that’s not squeezable) or someone with my mother’s lack of mobility (her doctor first offered to give her disability when she was 30) supposed to be able to use one like that is beyond me.
We don’t really have any with very low doors, it’s just that the volume of space inside often seems small even for a Thai. I end up feeling like the proverbial mime stuck in a box! We tend to patronize those shopping centers and department stores that I know have Western-friendly toilet stalls.
Bolding mine.
Well yeah. Exactly, you just proved my point. It’s so over the top that there is no way you could take that seriously.
Do people really need to add smilies onto every single post nowadays?
On the specific question of pregnant women (and I’m not small even when not pregnant), I generally used to go into the stall, face the toilet with my belly hanging over it, and reach behind me to close the door.
I’m repulsively enormous…both height, and weight…I’m 6’6" and around 400 pounds or so. Normal restrooms stalls are mostly out of the question.
I’ve also got really screwed up knees from a few misadventures back in my youth, and so I need the handicapped rails…so I don’t have any qualms about using the handicapped stall.
Don’t complain about that purse hook. Too many places just don’t have one, and I, for one, really don’t want to put my purse on the floor, where every little boy has piddled despite his momma’s earnest pleas to aim.
No, that is just to set up the mental programming for when you go to places like Norway, where the codes seem to specify that hotel doors open OUT.
In the Oslo Radisson one colleague showed up in the bar a few mins late, and after some probing fessed up to having been stuck in the room for five min before she tried pushing. Our other colleague showed up a quarter of an hour late, and had apparently been on the verge of calling reception to plead for release from her room when, exhausted by fruitless pulling, she leaned on the doorhandle and did a spectacular pratfall into the corridor right in front of a passing guest. I wonder how many calls housekeeping get from people who can’t get out of their rooms. Comedy gold!
Why don’t they make the doors collapse sideways with a center hinge, like a phonebooth? Probably more expensive, though.