Archive through February 26, 2003
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TV ClubHouse: Archive: 2003 February: The only Dumb question is the one not asked (ARCHIVE): Archive through February 26, 2003

Whoami

Monday, February 24, 2003 - 08:23 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
OK, this question may be TMI or something. In fact, I'm not sure anyone is going to want to answer it! But, since I've set the standard for questions people can laugh at (or shake their heads in amazment), I thought I'd ask anyway......

Why would a guy want to....ummmmm (now I'm getting embarassed embarassed)....go to a public toilet and pee with one foot up on the stool? I went to a unisex restroom the other day, and there was one large footprint on the stool, and pee all over the stool and floor. Blech! I grumbled about it to my sis, and she says the restroom at her work (she's the only girl) is the same way. She goes in and there are footprints all over the stool! I just don't get it!

Bob2112

Monday, February 24, 2003 - 10:58 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Who, I'm guessing the guys don't want to stand in the pee!

Whoami

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 12:37 am EditMoveDeleteIP
That would make sense. But evidence pointed to the maker of the footprint was also the one with the bad aim! I would think that person's aim wouldj be a lot better if they didn't have one foot up on the stool!

Juju2bigdog

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 05:48 am EditMoveDeleteIP
I asked Bigdog. He says the guy is a voyeur who is standing on the stool to look into the next stall. And the, uh, other thing is a separate activity.

Whoami

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 12:16 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Ewwww! But, in this particular case, it was a single room bathroom! No stalls! The mystery increases.

Conejo

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 12:26 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Who, is this our riddle for today?

Whoami

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 12:31 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
LOL Conejo! Hey, if you can answer this, go for it! But, I won't know if you have the correct answer or not. I'll just have to take your word for it!

Conejo

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 12:38 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
From a man's perspective I have no idea why a man would want to put there foot on the seat. I will say that I have used my foot to raise the toilet lid/seat because I didn't want to touch it with my hands! LOL

Weinermr

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 12:59 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
My perspective is.... whenever possible, go at home.

Spygirl

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 01:26 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Well, if this whole stool thing is in any way whatsoever related to why women feel the need to hover their butts above the toilet and then pee all over the seat for the next person to come along and sit on, I'd love to have the answer. :)

Because of midair urinating, I have that same rule, Weinermr.

Wargod

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 01:33 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Midair urinating....LOL! I have no clue, Who, but this has been one interesting conversation!

Squaredsc

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 01:43 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
midair urinating is very useful when you go in public. i do not touch the seat or the seat covers. of course im only hovering, not standing 2ft from the seat so i do not splash and if i do i know how to wipe. i hate it when people don't wipe. i don't even want to think about unisex bathrooms. ewww.

Spygirl

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 03:53 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
From Columbia University:

Dear Readers,

It's virtually impossible to catch diseases from toilet seats. Whatever microorganisms might lie on the seat's surface very rarely infect or contaminate the skin on your thighs and buttocks. This is especially true of most sexually transmitted infections (STIs) — the possible, but unlikely, exceptions are crabs (pubic lice), gonorrhea, and skin-to-skin contracted STIs, such as herpes. STIs are mainly spread by having sex and/or genital contact with an infected person.

Because toilet seats are not major culprits in spreading disease, paper or plastic seat covers offer little more than peace of mind. If it makes you feel better, or if the seats are visibly dirty, then continue to use them, but it probably doesn't make sense to have an accident rather than use an uncovered potty.

It is, however, still important to insist on bathroom cleanliness in dorms and other public areas. And washing your hands after using the bathroom is key — touching your mouth, nose, or eyes after using faucets and door handles contacted by others who are infected could spread things such as colds or intestinal viruses, which can lead to more time on those toilet seats.

http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/1857.html

Besides, if one is going to hover, wouldn't it make sense for one to lift the seat first?

Spygirl

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 03:56 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
This commentary had me rolling. I couldn't have said it better myself:

http://www.citypaper.com/2000-08-02/under.html

Juju2bigdog

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 03:58 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Now, there's an idea whose time has come, Spygirl! All you hoverers start lifting!!!

Squaredsc

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 04:10 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
hope spy, don't want to touch the seat and i don't use my hands to flush i use my foot. i still think you can catch something from the comode i don't care who or how many people do studies. also when i wash my hands i leave the water running, get a paper towel to turn the knob(don't have to touch the paper towel holder) and use a paper towel to open the door. i know, im obsessed, lol.

Jbean

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 04:17 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
if anyone saw the movie "a guy thing" he caught an std from the toilet...lol, i know it's a movie, but i'm just sayin....i tend to be a hoverer as well. crack me up!

Wargod

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 04:34 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Squared, when I worked in the retirement home, we were required to take several seminars a year. One of the yearly ones was on hand washing (yeah, it was as much fun as it sounds...not!) Anyways, they always recommended using a paper towel to touch door knobs and faucets, and that before removing latex gloves to turn the water on. There was also a cerain way to take the gloves off.

Whoami

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 04:36 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Along the same line of thought here.....do not, and I repeat, DO NOT eat a mint in the dishes by the register in a restraunt. The register is usually located by the front door, which is in turn in the vicinity of the restrooms.

I remember long ago reading of a study done where traces of urine were found in the mint dishes. People using the restroom and not properly washing their hands then would come and paw around in the mint dish.

Nuff said!

BTW, I couldn't get your link to work Spy.

Spygirl

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 09:26 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Here is the article from the second link I listed above. No idea why it won't work, but the article is hilarious.

http://www.citypaper.com/2000-08-02/under.html


UNDERWHELMED
Pees and Qs

By Sandy Asirvatham

Although I can write about whatever I want in this column from biweek to biweek, I usually leave public-hygiene issues to the eminent colleague who alternates with me in this space. But it's summertime--the season of microbrew-enhanced outdoor festivals and, therefore, of desperate queue-forming at the Port-A-Johns--and I've been reminded about a Mr. Wrongish gripe I've been harboring for decades: Puddles of piss all over public-toilet seats.
It's a fact known by all women and a few (probably very few) men that many young girls are taught never to sit directly on a toilet seat, but to squat over it--and if your gender-specific inability to aim while pissing causes collateral damage, well, so be it. Back in the day, our mothers invoked the all-purpose bogeyman "Germs!" to explain why we should never allow our delicate cheeks and thighs to touch those ovoid surfaces, especially in schools, malls, and bus stations, but even in other people's homes. Later on, we began to understand that "Germs!" was code word for the much scarier monster "VD." My mother grew up poor in India, so I was under the mistaken impression that her throne phobia stemmed from a childhood of using native-style squat toilets rather than the wealthier Indians' British-style plumbing. In the fifth grade I realized my mother's fear was completely cross-cultural when I walked into the girls' bathroom and read a sign that imparted its toilet-etiquette message in an unforgettable little couplet of trochaic tetrameter: IF YOU SPRINKLE WHEN YOU TINKLE/ PLEASE BE NEAT AND WIPE THE SEAT!

Hardly anyone in the fifth grade heeded those words back then, and it seems hardly anyone in the world heeds them now. The problem is, if you are really frightened of so-called germs--if you have bought into our modern obsession with anti-bacterial everything--you know that a little swipe with a wadded-up piece of toilet paper doesn't scare off those invisible purveyors of ill health. But then, from the evidence of all those puddles everywhere, I'd have to say that most women aren't practicing the polite alternatives: raising the toilet seat as men do (That would involve touching it, ick!) or using paper seat-covers (Unreliable! Not thick enough! Too much trouble!).

Here's the thing: Have you ever, ever heard of anyone catching anything off a toilet seat? Did your junior high sex-ed teacher ever include "toilet seats" on a checklist anywhere near "unprotected intercourse" when enumerating the risk factors for herpes, chlamydia, or HIV? I didn't think so.

At a certain point in my skeptical teen years, I decided that the female squatting strategy was a cultural rather than a medical prescription. I relegated it to the dustbin of girlhood along with all that other stupid, prissy stuff we were taught. (Never go out in public without makeup; never sit with your legs uncrossed; never discuss chess moves, presidential politics, guitar-based art-rock, or auto maintenance with any sense of authority or you'll scare off your boyfriend; etc.) Hence, my personal public-bathroom manifesto:

1) If I can sit, I'll sit.

2) If my predecessor sprinkled a little when she tinkled, I will wipe the seat and then I will sit.

3) If a whole gaggle of sprinkling squatters has defiled the entire row of available toilets, I will grit my teeth and reluctantly conform to squatting culture, all the while bitching to myself about my weak knees, my tired quadriceps, and the fact that it's impossible to relax (a crucial component to the elimination process, wouldn't you say?) hunched over in this manner.

Until recently, I'd been operating purely on my own gut instinct about the implausibility of disease transmission by toilet seat. Occasionally, I'd experience a tiny tremor of guilt and shame over my unladylike behavior, but it would, um, pass. I'd been thinking about getting in touch with some scientists to bolster my theory, but then in May a Salon health columnist did my dirty work for me (www.salon.com/ health/col/roac/2000/05/19/tinkle). Mary Roach's research confirmed that--contrary to the occasional articles in glossy women's magazines that get frenzied over this bugaboo--you simply "cannot catch venereal disease by pressing the back of your thigh and butt cheek to a piece of plastic where someone else's thigh and butt cheek have been pressed. . . . In order to catch VD from a toilet seat you would have to rub your crotch on the toilet seat in precisely the same place that someone else has previously rubbed her contaminated crotch." Not a popular practice, as far as I know.

Roach spoke to, among other sources, a microbiologist named Chuck Gerba, who explained that the only bathroom bacteria you should really worry about is salmonella--a cause of food poisoning--which can move from an infected person's stool to their hands (even via toilet paper) to the faucets and counters, and then onto your hands. But that's why washing your hands on a regular basis, particularly before preparing food, is a genuinely healthy practice. (Another nod to Mr. Wrong, for his detailed diatribes on this topic.) Although Gerba hasn't studied public bathrooms extensively, his research indicates that in the average household refrigerator door handles and cutting boards (which harbor fecal bacteria from chicken and other meats) are far, far dirtier than the toilet seat.

I therefore challenge the good women of Baltimore to get over their girlhood squeamishness and adopt a scientifically sound bathroom protocol for the health and safety of us all. Eliminate the guilt, shame, and fear and just sit down. And if you must obey your ludicrous germ paranoia and squat . . . clean up after yourselves, would you?

Squaredsc

Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 07:51 am EditMoveDeleteIP
lol and ewww. spy i see you found our city paper.

Wargod

Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 10:54 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Not sure if this is a dumb question or not, but here goes. Has anyone used or heard about the pre-paid cell phone plans? How do they work, are they any good?

Hubby and I kept our cell phone for almost two years. In that time, we only used all our minutes once, and that time we went way over them. The rest of the time, we came no where near using the minutes we paid for and I was wasting alot of money for it. I hated paying for something I wasn't using, but I really need a cell phone again, and I've heard about pre-paid plans, but don't know anything about them.

Conejo

Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 11:05 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Wargod, a good friend and business associate of mine uses prepaid plans for him and his girlfriend and he seems to be very pleased. When he runs out of minutes he simply buys another block of minutes. Also, from what he has told me, you don't have a monthly cell phone bill (if you own your phone).

Lumbele

Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 11:14 am EditMoveDeleteIP
War, we have one of those prepaid phones, originally bought when ds got his driver's license which was a few years ago.

The initial cost for the phone bought from our phone company was quite high (around $CD 400.00) but since we only use it for communication between car/store and home we buy the lowest possible card ($10.00).
There is a number on that card which you call in on the cell, then those minutes are good for 30 days. If you do not use them all in that time but add another card before the 30 days are over the left-over minutes are carried over, otherwise you lose them.
Am I making any sense?

I have heard though that there are better plans available in the states.

Wargod

Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 11:37 am EditMoveDeleteIP
The place I talked said 79 bucks for the phone, and that includes a 25 dollar calling card. I actually have the phone already, but I am in need of a new one. Our original plan was for 29.99 a month, can't remember how many minutes, but we literally only used the phone when we had to. We bought it when I started back to college and was going to night classes. Only hubby and I had the number for it. My main reason for having one now is pretty much the same as then...unreliable car an me driving all over the place whenever I get the urge, LOL. I just can't see paying for a monthly bill when I don't plan on using it unless of an emergency, or for hubby to call.