My goodness!
Where in the heck do you find these people?
I have heard more bathroom horror stories around here than I could have ever thought were possible and have yet to see anything like what has been mentioned in this thread or others.
It’s amazing really.
As a someone who has potty trained my five and a few kids that I’ve baby sat, someone who also spends alot of time at the heathens school playing room mom, and I also work in a big plant full of a wide variety of peoples I have never seen anything like of the like.
It’s just unimaginable.
I guess we just get them in the offices where people are either too good to touch something that disgusting or their “shit don’t stink!” I see (hear?) people skipping the hand washing a lot. A few years back, I read about an experiment they conducted and the results were that people washed their hands more often if there was someone there to see them. If they were alone, a lot of people tended to let it go. UGH
Just for the record, my boyfriend has a compromised immune system, from a congenital heart defect. But, he uses public restrooms, and has never had a problem with it. He just washes his hands, and uses the towel he dries his hands with to open the door.
Also, I’m sorry, Fenris, but the thought of you getting shot with water in the bathroom tickled me. I know it wouldn’t have been funny if it had happened to me, but damn! 
I hope you’ve dried off by now, and that it will be one of those “I remember when…” moments some day and that you laugh your ass off about it all.
I also heard about an experiment that concluded that men take an average extra minute before they can successfully use the urinal when another man enters the loo.
But the question I want an answer to is this: how do they conduct these experiments? Secret cameras? The answer doesn’t bear thinking about.
pan
Well, they’d probably use some fairly ordinary surveillance devices, like hidden microphones or a… one… way… mirror…
Excuse me. I just have to go and check something…
My genitalia are usually the cleanest area of my body. I carefully wash them on a more-than regular basis, and they tend to stay inside my clothes, most of the time.
Touching my genitalia therefore does more to harm my genitalia than my hands, hence, I often wash BEFORE urinating.
When I have finished urinating I tend to tuck myself in carefully, flush, and wash, using the paper towel to open the door, then throwing said paper towel in the wastebasket on the way out.
And I’m an obsessive compulsive nutcase with a serious germ phobia.
Fenris, these people need to seek professional help. Or be shown what a dirty bathroom is like; would you like to borrow the fuckwicket?
b.
I occasionally forget how good I have it. For some reason, my otherwise backwards company has a wonderful solution to urinal flushing (well, apart from the automatic ones, but those are just too high-tech), they installed the urinals with foot-operated flushers! You go in, shake the weasel, and then all you do is step on this little pedal and whoosh, off you go. Of course there are still some people who don’t flush.
One other thing I’ve wondered about. We have a lot of ex-Navy types, mostly submariners, working here and I’ve noticed that when they drain the dreidel, they typically have one hand on Mr. Happy and one hand up against the wall above their head. It kinda reminds me of George Michael being frisked. I can only assume that it comes from years of having to balance yourself while tinkling on a rolling ocean, but why they still do it I have no clue. Yes, I could ask, but going up to a cow-worker and saying “Say Bob, I was watching you urinate and couldn’t help but notice…” lacks a certain tact.
So when the Destiny’s Child ‘ladies’ are going on about “I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly” they are talking about…I can’t even imagine what! [/jelly-jack]
As for the OP, I worked as a medical lab tech for a couple of years. Here’s a couple of things people don’t seem to know:
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Male genitals are virtually sterile, compared to other parts of the body (say, the extremely germ-infested mouth).
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Urine is virtually sterile. If you have bacteria in your urine, you have an infection, and you probably know about it (from all the peeing and pain).
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The skin on your hands is fairly impermeable to germs (that’s kinda why we have it). If you get germs on your skin, they can easily be washed off. See number 4.
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Washing your hands is good. Do it with warm water and soap frequently (antibacterial soap is not required for normal hand-washing). Do it more frequently when you have a cold or flu (touching all those phlegm-soaked kleenexes, you know).
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Don’t lose sleep over touching a handle in a restroom. Just wash your damn hands after touching it.
I was a little nervous about meeting a higher-up in my company. A co-worker said to remember when shaking hands with a man that the last thing he shook was probably in the men’s room. Remembering this alleviates nervousness, but it’s like, eeewwww.
*Originally posted by featherlou *
::eek::
Incorrect sir. There’s a reason for washing your hands after you piss, and it can be found here.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Lateralus *
**
Wait, where in the post did I mention anything about not washing my hands? Please point this out.
My hands are often dirty, and I wash pre-urination to make sure I do not cover my private parts with grease or other dirt. Hence, the statement about washing pre-urination. At no point do I make reference to not washing my hands in anyway. Tell me where i was incorrect? And don’t call me Sir. My parents were married to one another.
b.
As a matter of fact, I was assigned to present that article in an environmental psych course in graduate school, and I covered it during my years as an adjunct teaching social psychology. The cite is Middlemist (har har), Knowles & Matter (1976), and they used “onset and duration of micturition” as a physiological measure of discomfort with personal space invasion.
There were actually three conditions: (1) alone, (2) with another man (a confederate of the experimenters) using a urinal at the opposite end of the row of three, and (3) with a confederate using the urinal right next to the subject (to justify this violation of the “pick the furthermost urinal” norm, the experimenters blocked the urinal at the far end with a bucket and mop and put an “out of order” sign on it). Results were just what you’d expect, with each successive condition producing a longer delay and shorter duration of micturition.
At first, onset and duration of micturition (I just like saying that) were measured by a confederate with a stopwatch hiding in one of the stalls with his feet up. He was able to tell when micturition began and how long it lasted just by listening.
However, at some point in the study, for reasons I can’t recall, they had to move their experiment to a restroom where the confederate couldn’t hear anything because the urinals there were the kind that flush continuously or something. At that point, the guy with the stopwatch had to start using some type of periscope arrangement to “visually ascertain” when micturition began and ended. The authors justified this invasion of privacy by carefully explaining that the confederate never used the periscope to see the subjects’ faces. :eek:
Although this study is ancient, it’s still widely read in psychology classes to illustrate personal space topics or (maybe even more often) to stimulate a discussion of research ethics.
I guess someone doesn’t know how to use the three shells…
Okay, this is ringing very loud bells in my head, but I don’t remember why. Please refresh my memory.
You know, I am a woman and I flush with my foot. I read about it somewhere and just picked up the habit. I’m not unusually afraid of germs or anything. I guess it just adds a bit of adventure to the day. I don’t do this at home, only at work, so obviously I’m just trying to offset the soul-sucking boredom of working in an office. Yep, that’s me. I’m a freak.
[high voice]
But…but… TOILETS!!! EWWWWW!
[/high voice]
Seriously, I wonder if your average toilet in an office building is cleaner than you average kitchen area in an office building.
I would assume this is a reference to the use of sea shells or (hopefully) smooth stones to scrape the feces from your workingman’s smile after pinching a loaf.
About Sylvester Stallone’s character, in Demolition Man.
Miss Bianca - thankyou. You have no idea how long that conundrum has been bothering me. To know that it isn’t only true, but that they really did research it by peeking at willies has made my day.
pan