On a visit to a SoCal movie theater recently, I was reminded of something that has bugged (no pun intended) my curiosity for a very long time: the urinals had little bee stickers right above the drain. Is this some sort of social experiment? Who puts them there? Why? Are they limited to specific regions?
Here are some bad cameraphone pics:
Urinal bee!
Closeup
It’s a semi-clever trick to get guys to aim for the drain.
Sometimes they also have the well known Latin motto Iam apis potanda fineo ne
apis is Latin for bee
full translation
I am a piss pot and a fine one
This. There’s been a lot of research and discussion of inducing and maintaining laminar flow to reduce splashing. Give us something to focus on, and we’ll piss all over it. I’ve seen poly stickers you can buy online of Bin Laden and GWBs’ faces.
ETA: There was talk of urinal cakes which talk to people who use the urinals in bars around New Mexico. They cost $21 each, and the state bought 500 of them. They were supposed to send some to Santa Fe. I never saw any.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/148077/peesa_latest_drunk_driving_defense.html?cat=7
There was a thread about it on here, but I can’t find it.
I think they might not be widespread but they are nationwide. I know a gym in Virginia Beach, VA that has them on their urinals.
Fascinating! Who makes 'em? Who buys 'em and sticks 'em on? How did the idea get started?
A quick google search gave this, but that’s not exactly what we’re looking for.
Ugh. That’s an insult to urinals everywhere.
Hah! I wonder about the wisdom of the flower ones:
http://inventorspot.com/articles/nature_calls_16073
That’s like NASCAR themed tampons.
Are you sure it’s a sticker? I’ve seen those in several places (including SoCal), and they always looked like part of the original urinal design. I recall one restroom that had bees in some and simple dots in others, which I thought might have been due to some urinals being newer than others.
Mmmm…urinal cake!
In the service we used to have Jane Fonda Urinal Stickers ®. That was Jane’s head with a gunsight / crosshairs / bombsight superimposed.
The military is/was very fastidious about its latrines, but somehow once one of those stickers got stuck it was never removed. Some veteran somewhere got the bright idea & sold quite a few to servicemen who travelled a lot & soon they were everywhere.
its Mints, urinal mints…Beavis used to eat them and I am to sleepy to remember the rest
Mmmm…cake.
The first I ever saw anything of the like was in JFK airport, some time around 2002 (though those were houseflies, not bees). The OP is the first male I’ve met since who didn’t immediately grasp the purpose, but I’ve yet to meet a female who did: I admire a good idea, so as soon as I came out, I told my two traveling companions (both female) about it, and one said “so… What? It’s a reminder to zip up your fly?”.
]LSLGuy, when were those Fonda stickers “in the wild”? Are we talking Vietnam era, or more recently?
I can think of two bars within 20 minutes of my house that have the Hanoi Jane stickers in the pissers, both are biker bars frequented by Viet Nam aged vets.
reference #1
reference #2
Could it be a brand logo?
There was the rumor when I was a kid that Black Widow spiders hid in outdoor potties, just waiting to bite you on the butt.
This led to a lot of messes in the latrine at girl scout camp, since no one would sit down.
This is more than just a rumor.
From the thread title, I was expecting it to be about a strange species of small fly that I have only seen in public restrooms (particularly in Texas), hanging about the urinals.
Maybe they subsist on urinal cake.
No, I’ve already given the reason. Just to spell it out the Latin word for bee is apis which sounds like a piss. It is an old joke. There have been urinals and chamber pots marked with bees and phony Latin mottoes containing the word apis since forever.