Re: Just Checking the Water

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Where are you in all of this -- you specify that one stall is occupied, presumably meaning the urinals are free. Are you the man in the stall? Or are you in fact the hand-washer!

I have never seen this happen. Does this take place with one particularly strange member of your office?

-Magik


Posted by: Magik | Link to this comment | 08-27-03 3:05 PM
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The blogger sees, the blogger reports. The blogger has been in the stall, he has washed his hands. The urinals needn't be free or occupied, I was just setting the scene.

I can't believe you haven't seen this. I see it a few times a week.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 08-27-03 3:09 PM
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Oh yeah. Let's not forget the old Marines vs Sailors joke. The men urinate and only the Sailor goes to wash his hands on the way out. He says to the marine, "You must be a Marine, because at the academy our CO instructed us always to wash up." To which the Marine replies, "Our CO instructed us not to piss on our hands."

But I definitely believe there is a bunch of socially acceptable handwashing going on in the men's room. Everybody hates the dweeb who has both hands fully lathered up...

And yes, Seinfeld or somebody has remarked extensively about not being able to go when others are around. Shy bladder I think he called it. Weird.


Posted by: Cobb | Link to this comment | 08-27-03 5:32 PM
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I heard that as a Harvard/Yale joke. It's probably originally a Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon joke.

There are lots of strange things going on in bathrooms, it's true (and I don't even mean those strange things). "Shy bladder" I've also heard referred to as "pee shy" and "stage fright."

But I'm really curious about why people, when they see they can't have a private stall experience, feel the need to pretend to wash their hands before they turn around and leave.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 08-27-03 5:38 PM
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Wait, people don't like the handwasher? I am that handwasher.

As usual Uncle Cecil has been here.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 08-27-03 5:43 PM
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That research has been done! There's a social psychologist who is or was at the University of Utah (I don't know his name) who built his career on men's public urination behavior. When someone walked into one of his research restrooms, he'd have a male grad student stand in front of a urinal forcing the subject to use the other -- or not, as a control. Another grad student parked in a stall would measure and record the subject's time to first stream. The overall finding was the it takes men longer (on average) to piss when there's someone at the adjacent urinal. Practical conclusion: to maximize the throughflow (of men through the facility), restroom designers should place privacy partitions between urinals.


Posted by: Bob | Link to this comment | 08-28-03 7:07 AM
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By the way, it happened to me the other day. I walked into the men's room to find a senior faculty member pissing in the one urinal. I started to back out of the room when he nodded toward the toilet stall:

SENIOR PROFESSOR: Come on in, Bob. This bathroom has two holes!

JUNIOR PROFESSOR BOB: Umm, okay.

SENIOR: And with the sink, there are three -- in case of emergency.

BOB: Yeah. (pause) Four, when you count the shower.

SENIOR: I don't think there's a floor drain in here.

BOB: Oh well.

I should've just washed my hands and avoided all that.


Posted by: Bob | Link to this comment | 08-28-03 7:11 AM
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The explanation is: senior faculty! Powerful forces indeed, but I'm not convinced senior faculty can explain this phenomenon where I work. I need to know about the hand-washing!


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 08-28-03 7:40 AM
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> I heard that as a Harvard/Yale joke.

I think I told that joke...


Posted by: Magik | Link to this comment | 08-29-03 12:25 AM
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Why wash their hands? Because they'd have to admit being embarrassed to shit around other guys. Which strikes some part of the brain as "gay," I suspect. It's like being embarrassed to shower in 9th grade P.E.


Posted by: Anderson | Link to this comment | 06- 3-05 3:11 PM
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So, ogged, do you take rather loud dumps when other people are in the bathroom, or do you try to be as quiet as possible?


Posted by: tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 06- 3-05 3:22 PM
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Hey, get into the new thread.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 3-05 3:23 PM
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I saw other people in the new thread and couldn't come up with anything to post. So I cleaned out the cache on my computer over here where everything was still quiet.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 06- 3-05 3:26 PM
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Sorry, that was me, forgot to sign. I don't use the cookies on public browsers that don't let me delete them.


Posted by: eb | Link to this comment | 06- 3-05 3:33 PM
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