It’s an old complaint. When one first begins one’s long slog through cubicle hell, one is shocked by the disrespectful uncleanliness one’s officemates casually inflict upon one another (hey jackhole, do you leave used teabags on the floor at home?), but it doesn’t take very long before one not just gets used to the callous behavior but actually understands it. The barely-concealed passive-aggressiveness toward backstabbing peers and the underlying resentment for pointless bureaucratic drudgery invariably manifest in such idiotic rebellions as leaving spattered frozen-burrito cheese baked onto the microwave’s glass carousel or dumping coffee filters full of soggy grounds on the counter of the kitchenette. It’s the way of things, apparently, whether the firm produces software or legal briefs.
But even though I’ve become accustomed to a certain level of filth in the workplace, I’m still surprised by people’s willingness to visit these abuses upon themselves.
Case in point: Four times out of five*, when I am compelled to attend to the needs of bladder and/or bowels, I find upon my arrival in the restroom that a fellow evacuator has brought into the space a coffee cup, a soda can, or some other vessel containing his beverage of choice. Said vessel typically rests on the small shelf above the sink while its owner makes his deposit a few feet away; whether filled with the bitter velvet of americano or the ticklish citrus syrup of Mountain Dew, the beverage sits in the open air, uncovered, unprotected, collecting on its smooth surface any and all corpuscular effluence that happens to waft its way.
The unconcerned owner, having finished his eliminations, then retrieves the potable and saunters back into the world, apparently indifferent to the potential indignities impressed upon his refreshment.
And I stare after the slob, my gorge rising.
Am I alone in my reaction to this phenomenon? Or, conversely, will anyone here confess to being the sort of miscreant who nonchalantly bears one’s libation into the water closet, heedless of the feculent dregs that are certain to accumulate therein?
*Numbers rigorously fabricated for poetic effect.
Sure I would, and why not? If I’m at my desk and I feel the need to relieve, I wouldn’t go out of my way to bring an open container in with me – but if I’m walking along with a drink and need to use public facilities, I’m certainly not going to abandon said beverage. That can isn’t going to get any more germs on it that you wouldn’t get by the simple act of breathing that bathroom air.
Ha, my answer can be confirmed from my actions just this very morning; No!
Moving from the parking lot up to my office with Jack In The Box sourdough breakfast combo and a sealed container of OJ in hand, I started to walk in to the restroom just to comb the ol’ locks, quite windblown from the open vehicle commute. Fortunately, while just in the breezeway, I realized I’d food in hand, quickly exited, set them on a shelf in the hall before returning to finish my task. No way in heck I’m taking foodstuffs, sealed or not, into the farticle chamber. Ugh.
[Frazier Crane]
Food? In the bathroom?
[/Frazier Crane]
Yeah, I do it it. I came equipped with an immune system and it functions well. Besides, an open beverage is the least of your concerns in the bathroom. It is the stuff you touch, especially the sink and door handles that are nasty. There isn’t much that is airborn that would infect your drink that you wouldn’t get anyway.
This is one of those imagined hazzards that has little basis in microbiology.
A few weeks ago, I took some bright red fruit punch with me into the bathroom here at work. I was peeing in a still with the punch in hand when I poured a little bit in the toilet for no apparent reason. It looked like a bloody mess. I got the bright idea to put a bunch of toilet paper in the toilet and then put even more. Talk about disgusting looking. I came back at the end of the day (about 4 hours later) and no one had even ventured close enough to flush it even though the bathrooms here are very busy. Soon, I plan to try an experiment with multiple ones.
Yes, I’d do it. (And I’m also amused by Americans calling a room a “bathroom”, in which there are no baths and nobody bathes – when I first read the title of this thread, I thought it was about the bathroom in a house, where I would hesitate even less to take a can/bottle/glass/mug containing a drink.)
There is a cool trick you can do if you take a beverage into a public bathroom. Stand up the urinal with drink in hand. Wait for some unsuspecting person to walk up to another urinal.
Say: “Check this out.” Then chug a lot of your drink. Wait a few seconds and say “Here it comes!” and start peeing then walk out.
Sure, I do it. I never gave it any thought. So, Cervaise, do you compulsively and repeatedly wash your hands, and only touch the faucets with a paper towel?
Sometimes I piss and drink simultaneously, which makes me chuckle, since I feel like there’s a continuous flow here. I don’t think I’d be inclined to do that where anyone could see me, though.
Well, then, be descriptive and call it a water closet.
Martinis and wine and such in the tub…sure! I’m not afraid of germs. I have coffee with me while I do my makeup each morning. I don’t even think twice about it.
Well yeah, I’d have a whole lot less compunction about doing so at home where you can be fairly certain seven or eight people haven’t been scratching their asses with the door handle.
I’m with Cervaise. It’s extremely icky to bring foodstuffs into a public bathroom. At home, in the master bathroom, sure, I’ll bring a drink in there, because only me and Mr. Athena use it, and I know it gets cleaned with regularity, and I like a glass of champagne in the bathtub.
That doesn’t always apply to the guest bathroom, though, and especially not if there’s guests in the house. Maybe, if it’s a guest-free day. But most often I leave it outside the bathroom.
And never ever ever in a public restroom. It’s bad enough that I have to go in there.
But I will never forget a specimen I saw in the loo at Capitol 6 cineplex one fine day. We’re talking a cineplex bathroom, subjected to ridiculous overuse – the floor slick with urine, and with a considerable queue for the urinals.
Anyway, one guy stood in line with a sandwich in his hand. Urinal etiquette prevented me from looking, but years later I still wonder – what did he do when he approached the porcelain? He walked out with it still in his right hand – I saw the bastard. Did he manage his fly and the rest of his business with his left hand? Did he lay it down on top of the fixture? Did he hold it in his teeth? What?
Walked right past the sinks without slowing down, too.
Oh go on, Lieu…you of all people! I assumed you planned your entire day around the infinite possibilities surrounding bathroom activity! I mean, it’s a wellspring of material for you!
I guy I know was telling me about doing this to a date once. He said he planted a pitcher of water under the sink, went in and slowly poured it out for a couple of minutes and when he came out his date waas on the floor laughing her head off.
I though that was pretty amusing so once with my work crew I decided to do the same. There were about eight guys and girls in the crew, some I barely knew, and they were all in my hotel room watching a movie. I went into the bathroom, pulled out two large pitchers of water, raised them high and let a four minute flood of fake pee issue forth. When I came out though everyone was just glued to the movie. I later asked one of them didn’t you hear that? She goes “Oh my gosh, we were all looking at each other thinking your innards were completely fucked up.”
At work, probably not, though I don’t really think the air in the bathroom is significantly dirtier than the air anywhere else. As the Mythbusters said, there’s poo everywhere! (they were testing whether toothbrushes get e coli from being stored in the bathroom- they do, but so do toothbrushes stored in other rooms)
At home, yes. I have two curious cats who like to drink just about anything as long as it is not water in their dish specifically for them. They also like to bat ice around with their paws. Leaving an open beverage unattended is just asking them to knock it over and make a wet mess.
