BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: gnu
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 05:17 PM

Jennie! Oh my! Hahahahahaaa!

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: JennieG
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 04:50 PM

A piece of graffiti I saw in one of the women's toilets in Canberra, at the National Folk Festival a few years ago....

"Sing like no one's listening
Dance like no one's watching
Laugh like you are alone
F*ck like you're being filmed"....

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 01:07 PM

A well known set of doors lined up in a row in the Massachusetts State Courthouse were "Men" on one end and "Women" on the other. The one in the middle was labelled "Middlesex."

One might have caused some disturbance if they crapped in the Middlesex room (the courtrooms were named after Massachusetts counties).

John

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Wincing Devil
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 10:18 AM

Piratz Tavern in Silver Spring has the restrooms marked "Maids" and "Rogues". On my first visit, I saw that AFTER I left the "Maids" toidee. All I saw was the "M" when I went in. Wondered why no urinals as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 09:53 AM

I once worked in an establishment where the top half of the door of one particular cubicle was blessed with the most wide selection of graffitti, from the humorous to the downright profane. The bottom half of the door had a cross marked on it with the words "Holy Section".
There was not a contribution to be seen.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: GUEST,Tumesmith
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 06:49 AM

Talking of graffitti. When I was a lad, all the graffitti was do with women, but now it's all gay based.
What does that tell us?

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 03:36 AM

One advantage of badly labelled doors id the opportunity for men to read a better standard of graffitti!

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jan 13 - 02:28 PM

I recall reading on the wall of a public loo in Bath:

Blokes with short horns stand close.
The next patron may have holes in his shoes.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 17 Jan 13 - 10:39 AM

Thanks Charley!

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: selby
Date: 16 Jan 13 - 06:36 AM

In the early seventies I worked at a place where you where only allowed to leave your job for I think it was 7 mins and all the toilet doors where about 2 foot wide strategically placed,

I have really enjoyed this thread it is nice to have one with no negativity and fall outs taking place

Keith

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 13 - 04:34 AM

With regard to "footprints", signs instructing people not to stand on the seats appeared at my last employer when they started outsourcing to an Indian company.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Jan 13 - 08:59 PM

Nice song, Nigel!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 15 Jan 13 - 02:41 PM

When I was studying part time back in the eighties, the signs were so abstract on the studten union toilet doors it was guesswork which was which.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Jan 13 - 04:12 AM

My husband (and all French-speaking West Africans) calls our toilets 'chaises anglaises'. He'd never seen one until he came here, and had to be shown how it works and what you have to do. He always says how amazingly odour-free they are , and how 'you could even sleep on the floor of a European toilet and not smell a thing'. However he thinks we are filthy for not washing our 'bits' every time we use a loo. Africans carry those little plastic teapot-type things full of water into the cess-pit shed, and wash thoroughly. Just wiping with loo-paper seems horribly unhygienic to them. Sadly, he thought the washbasins in men's public toilets were for that purpose, and a man told him off for dangling his willy under the tap!

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 15 Jan 13 - 03:45 AM

Re: the footprints on the toilet seats
Swansea University - How to use a Western toilet
This might explain a lot :)

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Joe_F
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 08:01 PM

What's a Siberian privy?
A stick to beat off the wolves.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 04:27 PM

Pretty catchy little poem ya got there, Nigel...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 04:26 PM

What a brilliant idea selby! Wish I'd found that loo on my travels. Once en route from Banjul in Gambia to Casamance in Senegal, in a clapped-out old taxi full of sand, I asked the taximan to stop as I'd been on a plane for hours and needed a wee. We'd left the 'road' as the craters were worse than the scrub. I found a slight hollow, and as I was crouched there, a troupe of some kind of monkeys or baboons leapt over my head screaming and chattering. I nearly had a fit. The taximan laughed for ages as we went on our way. He was a kindly old chap.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: selby
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 04:12 PM

We went to Warwick Folk Festival a few years ago without one of our friends who was laid up due to a bad back so we sponsored a toilet In Africa for her can"t remember where but she has a certificate in her toilet to tell where it is. In the middle of no where at the side of a road I think its unisex!!!!!!
Keith

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 04:09 PM

My granddad once explained why a particular common weed was refered to as "smart weed."

"Grab a handful to wipe your ass and it'll make you smart enough to never do that again."

(I never tested his theory, but was inclined to believe almost everything he told me.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 02:53 PM

Nope, Eliza... no partitions. Small school... one seat in each room. Footprints facing forward. Just a young lady who carried 'being careful' to HER logical extreme. (I wonder how she'd have fared faced with some of the primitive conditions you mention.)

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: frogprince
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 02:37 PM

When I see my typo a split second too late, then my post takes instantly!

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 02:37 PM

Could the footprints on the seat have been those of a very naughty male student who'd hidden in a cubicle to watch proceedings over the partition? A bit pervy if so, but those types do exist.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: frogprince
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 02:33 PM

BOBMBS AWAY!

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 02:26 PM

The urinals at Wichita State were a bit longer & narrower than the unisex ones in JiKs link...perhaps they WERE considered unisex, but they still did not suit the ladies. I have only encountered that type a few times in 40 years...even in men's rooms.

(The footprints on the seat ...*grin*.. were not facing a "high level cistern"..which was not there anyway. They were facing forward...exactly where someone squatting 'above' the seat would place them.)

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 02:01 PM

Oh Lord, holes in the floor! In my extreme youth (hundreds of years ago) I was with my then boyfriend on a train in France, my first trip to the Continent. I needed the loo and wandered down the train to find a small compartment with no seats in but a small dip in the floor with a hole. I'd heard of primitive loos abroad, so squatted happily. I described the 'basic facility' to my paramour, and it turned out it was not a loo but a small goods and luggage compartment. He laughed like a drain, but my face was very very red. Since then, I've used the most unspeakable 'facilities' all over West Africa including bushes and scrub (beware snakes and scorpions) and filthy cess pits. I find (like Joanna Lumley in her Nile trip) once you've 'been' it's over and you need to 'put it behind you', not dwell on the horrors!

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Becca72
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 10:48 AM

I couldn't care less if there was a guy in the stall next to me (or standing at a urinal in front of me, for that matter) but there is NO WAY I'm using a "unisex urinal" out in the middle of the room.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 10:46 AM

It only needs a slight slope, Water finds its own level. So, it appears do Mudcat discussions :)

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 10:35 AM

The "**womens urinals**" described (13 Jan 13 - 01:50 PM) by Bill D were installed in the "girls" restrooms at the new High School in Wichita that was built in about 1953, and soon after were retrofitted in a number of other "public places" in the area.

The nomenclature, however, is not quite correct, due to the social opprobrium that might associate to a "womens urinal," and so far as I've seen there's no such device. The name used in all the plumbing catalogs is "unisex urinal."

For either sex, they are intended for "pee only" use, standing or squatting, and the room will (in all instances I've heard of) also have "sitters" for those with more serious needs. Once one has learned their use, they provide the "gentleman's convenience" to the ladies who only need a quick whiz, thereby relieving the long lines at the stalls.

In many cases - and nearly always in the "men's" - the unisex fixtures (urinals) have no adjacent partitions or doors, but the sit-downs usually will have at least side partitions for privacy. At several schools in the area, the stalls were originally installed with doors for the girls, but the kids tore them off, and so far as I heard the "management" left them as open "bays" after a few futile attempts at finding doors that would survive. Whether the sit-down stalls initially had doors for the male users was variable.

A few place I've seen have had the unisex urinals in both men's and women's relief rooms. This is fairly common in truck stops, roadside cafés, and other travel related convenience points.

At the opposite extreme, I've encountered a couple of places in which the men's room had only a tile floor with a drain hole in it. (At the drive in movie at Yuma the slope of the tile floor toward the drain wasn't even undetectable.(? maybe there wasn't any slope ?))

John

Subject: Lyr Add: Bog Standard Signs
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 09:21 AM

BOG STANDARD SIGNS
Nigel Parsons (2013): ttto Abdul the Bulbul Amir

There are forms of embarrassment some of us know
That use of good signage prevents
It is worth finding out (for when you have to go)
Local symbols for 'Ladies' and 'Gents'.

If you get it wrong you could be loaded with guilt
Let's sort out the symbols to start.
That one symbol shows you a skirt, not a kilt.
(And) It's the man with his legs wide apart!

Laborat'ry symbols are really quite heinous,
A circle with add-on up front.
The one with an arrow resembles a penis,
The other, is rather more 'blunt'!

In the Netherlands Dames (da-mez) & Herren you'll find
And you may wonder 'what's in a name?'
But confusion should be the last thing on your mind.
For 'Dames' you simply read 'Dame'.

In Australia the toilets are there for your use;
And you'll need them if drinking their beer.
If the door to the 'dunny' says 'Sheila' or 'Bruce'
Then I take it the meaning is clear.

Now if after all this you end in the wrong room
Please don't get red in the face
Pretend you're a cleaner by grabbing a broom
Or swagger like you own the place.

There are forms of embarrassment some of us know
That use of good signage prevents
It is worth finding out (for when you have to go)
Local symbols for 'Ladies' and 'Gents'.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 09:18 AM

Combining this thread with the fact that I've been typing up "Abdul the Bulbul Amir led to the following post.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Michael
Date: 14 Jan 13 - 06:39 AM

Or perhaps she had 'something' hidden in the high level cistern Bill?

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 10:18 PM

Many years ago, I worked at a business school for awhile. After closing one day, the secretary came up to me as I was about to leave and said, "C'mere, I wanta show you something!" and she led me into the women's restroom and pointed at the toilet.
There on the seat were two very clear, dusty imprints of a pair of sneakers.
We kept the place pretty clean, and there didn't seem to be any clear reason for some young lady (the students were 'mostly' young) to go to all that trouble, but maybe it's simply what Jeri says- many are reluctant to use public facilities.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 09:32 PM

Women can be a lot messier than men.
The reason there is pee on women's room toilet seats is that women are afraid to sit down because there might be pee on the toilet seat. Fer cryin' out loud, wipe the seat off, leave, or get some equipment you can aim!

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 09:22 PM

"Can two (or maybe more?) men share a urinal"
Some 50 years ago at an Office Christmas party where the toilet facilities were somewhat limited (one urinal and one toilet), late in the evening after more than one ale and the queue was lengthy, I was one of FIVE using the toilet. One at the front and two each side. When your back teeth are floating you have to go.
In more recent times at a food and wine festival the female toilet queue was its usual long length. I was using the gents urinal when a young lady came straight past us and entered a cubicle. If you gotta go, you gotta go!
My Wife comments that no ladies must sit down on public toilets, as she usually finds them in a mess.
Signs -Gentlemen - Please stand close as it is not as long as you
                   think.
      -Ladies    - Please be seated during the entire performance.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Joe_F
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 05:48 PM

I once heard (I forget where) that in certain countries the men's & women's were labeled O-O & O-O-O respectively. Those, you see, were oldfashioned chess notation for "castle on the king's side" & "castle on the queen's side". There must have been many embarrassments.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 02:03 PM

"I'd never use a Unisex loo...
Whoever came out with that idea has to be crazy..."

I gather that you have at least two toilets in your home? lol

Sensitivity in these matters is a by-product of civilisation. If one were stranded on an island or was in caught in a struggle to survive I would wager that the niceties would be dispensed with quite rapidly.

I remember well, while growing up, that siblings and/or good friends would share the facilities matter of factly, not to mention quite amiably.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 01:50 PM

When the new Student Union building at my school (Wichita State U.)was completed about 1958, they installed a line of **womens urinals**...and only two 'regular' stalls. The lines for the regular stalls were LONG.

Within a year they had to tear them out and put in more 'regular', 'cause the women simply wouldn't use them. There were comments about 'body type', about the silly assumption that most women wore skirts instead of jeans, about the problem of pantyhose, about the physical strain of assuming a proper 'stance'...etc.

No, no one had conducted any simple research first.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Irene M
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 01:36 PM

Bobert, you are not alone.
I find the icons used on loo doors terribly confusing. Is it a man in a kilt or a woman in trousers?
Twice, I have found myself coming out of the men's room in T4 at Heathrow thinking how odd the wash basins looked!

Secondly: My grandmother (born 1886) was taken to Europe shortly after marriage (1911) and reported that the men went in one door and the women in another and they all met in the middle!

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 12:33 PM

I do try to avoid those tiny weeny skinny little cubicles made only for skeletons. I'm a bit stout and could easily get wedged in there. You can't possibly open the door, scrape round it and get to the loo. Most ladies are NOT slim and wand-like. I also hate those roaring-like-a-jet-engine hand driers. They give me an awful fright. And I feel silly wafting my hand in front of the tap-sensor like Tommy Cooper in magician mode. Half the time the blessed things don't deliver any water anyway. How I miss those roomy panelled cubicles, enormous china toilet pans called 'The Triton' etc with a lovely broad wooden seat, and when you pulled the chain a satisfying deluge came and whooshed down. The large brass taps were always easy to turn, and there was a hard-as-cardboard roller towel. Perfect loo! They used to have these in every station (eg King's Cross) when I was a child. Very much worth one penny (old money).

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 11:40 AM

Years ago in New York City McSorley's tavern had to let women in, but they refused to build a women's room. You had to go to the restroom in pairs, one to hold the stall door shut (no latches) and one who tried to use the stall with so little leg room that you couldn't easily sit. Guys at the urinals in the other end of the room were always amused at the difficulties. One hopes they finally got smart (or more charitable) and fixed that, or the city managed to compel some better facilities.

In the meantime, there is always what a friend of mine use to call the "picnic attachment": SheWee (as one example of many out there).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: selby
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 10:32 AM

I think I am right in saying that the Gents in the Conservative club in Uppermill have on the urinals a spider that you aim at, if you aim successfully, no splashes I have also been proper posh places that have has a piece of glass protruding above the trough to eliminates splashes.
Keith

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Newport Boy
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 10:03 AM

Some interesting figures from the UK Road Race Handbook.

Special attention needs to be paid to a reasonable estimate of the number of units needed. Size of the race is the key determinant, along with the time of year, temperature and weather conditions. Also the ratio of men to women needs to be factored in. See Fact Sheet Two which advises one toilet per 100 females and one toilet per 500 males, plus one urinal per 150. Urinal Units can cater for four/six people at any one time.

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 06:40 AM

Well, all this has certainly blown away (apologies, Bert, and LOL!) the January blues which affect me annually. Bill, my husband is just like you, very clean, considerate and kind about leaving the bathroom tidy and hygienic. I agree with Lizzie, I'd be very ill-at-ease (!) in a Unisex loo. What I'd hate most are those stainless steel toilets in the street. You put a coin in, the door slides open (in front of a whole pavement full of people) you perform, then the entire thing is washed (like in a carwash) for the next person. I've heard that sometimes it washes while the vicitm is trapped inside and they're thoroughly sprayed and disinfected with the cubicle. Urban myth perhaps. In Norwich, they tried one of these and nobody, absolutely NOBODY used it. It was taken away after a few months, never to be seen again.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 04:57 AM

Years ago(late 60s?) I heard a talk by Shirley Collins where she talked about her famous Appalachian folk song collecing trip with Alan Lomax.
She recalled sitting on twin - side-by-side - toilets, with a mountain woman, and being regaled with to some very rude folk songs.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jan 13 - 03:24 AM

Eliza, another advantage to sitting down (which I learned in the Middle East) is that one can fart with impunity.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Jan 13 - 08:25 PM

sometime in the 70s or early 80s researchers somewhere or other found that men take around 19 seconds to pee & women spend over 2 mins which is why queues in ladies' loos are longer then queues in gents loos.

I can remember the article in 'New Scientist.' I just tried to find the original report but I must have used the wrong terminology & found some strange links.

Some years back I knew an architect working on a big theatre/entertainment/gambling complex who successfully argued with the money-maker boss that they needed twice the number of Ladies cubicles so that women would not spend time in the queues when they could be gambling! He & his wife were both strong feminists, but that wasn't the way to appeal to the boss.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: GUEST,Lizzie Cornish
Date: 12 Jan 13 - 07:22 PM

"Trad arr Thomas Crapper eh Lizzie?"

:0)
You bet, Michael!

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: Tangledwood
Date: 12 Jan 13 - 05:29 PM

There's an annual multicultural music fair in Brisbane held in public parklands. The faciliiies are the usual blocks of male and female. For the event a couple of years ago some genius relabled all the male as unisex. Obviously, within no time the inevitable queues formed at for the female so they then formed queues at the unisex leaving no access for males.

Subject: RE: BS: Wrong Restroom... Opps!!!
From: gnu
Date: 12 Jan 13 - 05:14 PM

Lassies... you ain't never been to the Cosmo dance club here on Saturday night er to the Walmart.

The technical point about point and click is also "added to" by the fact that when all the stalls and urinals are occupied and there are line-ups, lads who are approximately 5'4" or taller can use sinks as can those lads shorter that 5'4" with long dicks. Me, I am 5'9" so I got no problem using a sink even with the advantage of a "slightly long" dick. Of course, I am Irish so St. Pat blessed me with girth so I figure I would be welcome in the lady's as well, even though slightly long.

If that's too TMI, well, it pays to advertise. Sue me.