Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: "Mens Room" etiquette

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 01-06-2002, 12:42 PM:

Ok...before you read on, this is a little odd topic that you may wish to pass on...

Okay now this is a nagging question I've had for some time now. In a mens room you have urinals and stalls. What is it with the guys that just HAVE to use the stalls for urination? Is it because that is how they learned at home?

I'm not talking about when there is a rush on the facilities like at a concert intermission and you take what you can get. But the room can be almost completely empty and some guys just simply will not use the urinals.

Now, through an informal analysis over many decades, I have found that those that use the kamodes for doing #1 also have horrible aim! Guys, urinals were made just for people like you...it is a "can't miss" situation!

Now I have thought about the privacy issue but with a row of urinals, it is easy enough not to have a "neighbor." It's bad enough you have to mess up the apparatus but you deny others the required tools to properly execute a #2!

Anyone out there with some insite?

Steve

Posted by Brett Rankin (Member # 31) on 01-06-2002, 01:24 PM:

Paruresis (sp?) aka "shy bladder" is actually a pretty big deal that affects a lot of people, including me.

In a bathroom with ANYONE in it, I just can't go. When it's empty, it's easier to go if I use a stall. It's stupid, I know, but there is just no way that I can go in a crowded restroom. That's why I avoid theme parks and concerts whenever possible.

I used to think it was just me but in doing some research I found that there are a LOT of people who share the same plight. I don't know where it came from or why it exists, but if somebody was holding a gun to my head I couldn't stand next to somebody and pee to save my life.

I don't see any reason why they shower the toilet seat, but cut them some slack!

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 01-06-2002, 01:28 PM:

I'm laughing because a friend and I just had a similar conversation. While doing jello shots, this is what we thought of:

Some people just like the privacy. We get very little of it nowadays; the bathroom (or stall) is about the last place you can avoid being bothered. Also, some people (especially older guys) have "delay" problems, and don't want to hold up the line. At busy places like airports, you can hang you belongings on a hook or something to prevent theft.

Posted by Jerry Chase (Member # 660) on 01-06-2002, 01:30 PM:

Some of the guys are just jerks, but...

You never know if the redneck using the stall is wearing his wife's panties... or has a Prince Albert or just knows he has bad aim.

Medical conditions that might make one want to use a stall include
prostatitis, BHP (swelling of the prostate without any evident cause), bashful kidney, and split stream. I'm sure a urologist could add to the list.

Aren't you glad you asked? Now here is one for you: Ever seen a women's urinal? Yes they do have them, they were popular before women got to wear pants regularly.

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 01-06-2002, 02:01 PM:

I myself cannot fathom the horrible aim of some. ITS JUST GROSS.

However I can empathize with those that want the privacy. I prefer it too. As for my staff, they use the private bathroom for security reasons. When a staff member needs the restroom, and go into a crowded one, many of our customers are very crude and rude, and I don't want to put my staff into a potentially dangerous situation where a customer wants to show how funny he is by attacking a staff member.

And yes it has happened just last week, my projectionist was attacked from behind by some rowdy teens in the restroom. They wanted to show how funny they were by trying to shove his head in the toilet. We heard the ruckus and swarmed.

Stupid teenagers, probably the same ones going around the country and peeing on toilet seats.

dave

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-06-2002, 02:42 PM:

Well at airports at least it seems like some kill time by taking the newspaper into the stall to read. Bums used to live in RR station stalls too, at least in D.C. they did. Dads seem to make their little kids use the stalls, and believe me little kids don't even understand the word aim....
Mark @ GTS

Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 01-06-2002, 03:17 PM:

I tend to use the stalls in restrooms if the urinals have no partitions between them. Just the urinals, closely spaced on the wall without any partitioning at all makes me uncomfortable. The Regal River Oaks Cinema 8, Carmike 10, Regal Hollywood 18, and the Regal Madison Square 12 have urinals with no partitions and they're close together. Only the old Carmike 8 in Decatur has partitions between urinals, so I use them there. All theatre managers -- check your restrooms, and if there aren't any kind of partitions between urinals, try to get some put in and I think you'll find that this annoyance will go away. Just something that sticks out from the wall 18 or 24 inches will suffice. It's not rocket science, and the only reason they would no be there is if the chain were too cheap to put them in.

Also, all restrooms should have paper towel dispensers. Otherwise, most people will not wash their hands.

------------------
Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-06-2002, 03:45 PM:

I can sympathize with the "shy bladder" problem. I rarely ever use public restrooms. And no, it isn't because I am not "secure enough in my manhood" to feel confident enough. I just prefer my privacy. Foreign countries have troths instead of separate urinals. What's next, just a big drain in the center of the floor?

As for bad aim, it is only a problem for people who don't know quite how to handle their "tool". Unless of course you have 3 or four separate streams going in every which direction. This is an awesome thread.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 01-06-2002, 04:16 PM:

I wish there was a little video above the hand driers that each time you pressed the "on" button, you could see a stream of smoke coming out of a coal based power plant or another spent rod from a nuclear plant. The idea that electric hand blowers are more enviro-friendly is absurd. Towels should be a legal requirement.

Steve

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 01-06-2002, 10:34 PM:

Finding a wet toilet seat is bad enough when you gotta' use the commode. It's annoying but it's easy enough to either find another stall, or if necessary, get a paper towel soaked in hot water and clean it.
As gritty as that sounds, there's really nothing in a public rest room that won't wash off with soap and water. (Well, ALMOST nothing.)

What REALLY annoys me is people who have to take a dump but "hover" over the seat and leave the "collateral damage" for somebody else to deal with. That just peaves me off to no end!

If you are ever in a public restroom and hear some guy enter a stall and start cussing, it's probably me right when I found a soiled seat.

Posted by Jerry Chase (Member # 660) on 01-06-2002, 10:47 PM:

http://www.paruresis.org/ One of the links is to a "buddy list!" Err, ummm, ahhh, no thanks.

I don't have too much of a problem with this, but when a doctor or nurse wants me to pee in a cup, I have to restrain the urge to ask "Would you like to supersize that for only 25 cents more?"

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 01-06-2002, 10:53 PM:

I think most of us have witnessed the following, although we may not care to admit it.

CHILDISH..Lays stream up and down wall, tries to hit the fly on the side of the urinal, likes to watch it bubble when hitting the holes in the bottom of the urinal.

CLEVER..No hands, shows off by fixing necktie, pisses on shoes.

CONCEITED..Struts in, nose up in air, misses urinal, pisses on floor.

DISGRUNTLED..Tries to piss, gives up, farts instead, walks away.

EFFICIENT..Waits until he has to take a dump, then does both.

EMBARRASSED..Split stream, pisses on everything except urinal.

DESPERATE..Teeth floating, shorts twisted, can't find hole, pisses in pants.

FAT PERSON..Stands back, aims, pisses, hits edge of urinal, ricochets, and comes back in his face.

HURRIED..All stalls in use, pisses in sink.

NERVOUS..Not sure what he has been into lately, makes a quick check.

NOSEY..Peeks at the guy next to him to see how he is hung.

SLY..Pisses all over toilet seat and flush valve, dribbles on floor, farts, then cracks an evil smile.

SMALL..Can't locate it in time, pisses in pants.

SNEAKY..Farts while pissing, realizes he should be sitting.

TIMID..Waits until rest room is unoccupied before pissing.

ROUGHNECK..Bangs it on side of urinal to dry it off after pissing.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-07-2002, 12:19 AM:

I hate people who don't flush. What's the deal with that? I want an answer! Do those same people not flush at home as well?

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 01-07-2002, 01:25 AM:

They probably have small dicks and are affaid someone will comment...

Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 01-07-2002, 09:03 AM:

Some people will not flush because they think that all the plumbing is hooked up to the concession stand.

Actually this whole thread should be in the joke section.

Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 01-07-2002, 09:16 AM:

Best sign I ever saw in a resturaunt above a urinal read "The hands the pick the cigarette butts from this urinal are the same hands that prepared your dinner"

From the "What's the deal with that" column.

I was at the Titans/Packers game several weeks ago, and while standing in line in the mens room at the coliseum, the room went to complete silence as one guy walked up to the urinal, dropped his pants to his ankles, did his thing and left. My question.... why?? Why did this guy need to expose his hairy white butt to everyone in the room? He was dressed in green and gold, so that may expalin... I had just never seen a grown man do that in a public restroom.

I used to work part-time for a cleaning service who cleaned schools after hours, and if you think guys are messy in a restroom, try cleaning the women's restroom of a Junior High School... they're disgusting!!

------------------
Barry Floyd
Floyd Entertainment Group
Nashville, Tennessee
(Drive-In Theatre - Start-Up)

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 01-07-2002, 10:37 AM:

"....try cleaning the women's restroom of a Junior High School.."

Good point; I thought it was pretty well known that the girls are worse than the guys in bathrooms. I mean, some guy will rip a urinal from the wall, or knock a stall wall down, but then nothing else will happen for the next year.

OTOH, the girls will stop up the sinks and toilets with paper towels, write on the walls, knife the walls and any seats or couches, leave "things" on the floor, break mirrors, set off fire alarms. This is an everyday ,ongoing thing.. so which is really worse!?

Posted by Sean M. Grimes (Member # 445) on 01-07-2002, 02:40 PM:

Tell me about the womens restrooms, on busy weekend nights at my old theater there were at least three clogged stalls at least a day. Now if someone could tell me what's up with that!!!

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-07-2002, 02:50 PM:

I'd say they were too embarassed to toss their tampons in the trash and instead tried to flush them. Keeping a trash can in each stall (with a lid of course) would probably stop that.

It's been my experience that men's biggest problem is with aim and the complete laziness to lift the toilet seat. If only there was a way to prevent men from "standing" at a toilet. You know, AMC has auto-flushing toilets that operate off of sensors. Why can't they invent an automatic toilet-seat-lifter?

On the other hand, women generally are neater, but apparently they lose their mind and will trash a restroom if they find even one stall out of paper. We used to check the bathrooms every 15 minutes and there were several instances where it was a slow weekday and only a dozen people in the entire building. Check after check all day long everything was nice and tidy. Then out of the blue (and in all probability only one visitor) the women's bathroom would be completely trashed...every stall. One time the concessionist actually walked in to do a check and caught one woman who was throwing rolls of toilet paper around the restroom and had already knocked over the trash can. What's up with THAT? Overall in my experience, the men's restroom was never as bad as the women's.

Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 4594) on 01-07-2002, 05:45 PM:

Wasn't this topic about men's etiquette? Jeez, you guys sure go off topic alot! I don't know what convinced me to ever start reading this, it was just odd....

No no, I completly agree, we women are pigs in public restrooms...maybe its the fact that most of the time we are the ones cleaning the toilets at home and when we go out...WE GO ALL OUT!
I've noticed alot of women throw their pads (ahem...sorry all you queezy guys) in the toilet and try to flush it (tampons typically do not clog the toilet)...common sense says to me, "Do not throw big things that aburb alot of water in a toilet with a little hole"...but who knows? Many a time I've walked in on other women doing their makeup, using papertowels to kiss when they just put lipstick on and throw it in the sink...??? I don't get it, most of the time there is a trash right next to them? What would they say to their kid who did that at home? The funny thing is, most of the women I've seen do this are between 40-60, the teenagers and 20-somethings typically use the trash. Who knows, we can be slobs too!

Posted by Jerry Chase (Member # 660) on 01-07-2002, 07:29 PM:

"Why can't they invent an automatic toilet-seat-lifter? "

These have been available for almost as long as there have been flush toilets. Tell the local plumber that you want a "saluting" or "self rising" toilet seat for the men's room and he should know exactly what you mean. There is a torsion spring that flips the seat up except when someone sits on it. The self riser was invented by no less a man than Thomas Crapper of toilet fame.

Saluting seats eliminate about half the problem with wet seats. The real jerks still find a way to make them wet.

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 01-07-2002, 08:30 PM:

In Miami years ago we had an AMC cinema that had problems with people doing #1 in the screen area. This cinema had many vistors from Central
America where the "running stream urinal" was near the screen in their country......
As a former exhibitor in the early 1970's I had one drivein where it became a running joke of replacing one complete toilet in the Women"s rest room about every two weeks due to female abuse....and since this theatre was on a septic system we had our "rotor rooter special" to clear up the tampon clogged lines to the main tank every six months....I thought special waste can and signs would help....maybe I should have made a special screen ad to run with "put your speaker back on the pole" print....but then again splicing this to the pizza , dancing hot dogs, and Smithfield Barbeque ads would have been.......sick

Richard Fowler
TVP-Theatre & Video Products Inc. www.tvpmiami.com

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 01-07-2002, 08:57 PM:

I think what we need here is a "PLO."

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 01-07-2002, 10:18 PM:

My name is Scott Neff -- and I'm here today to announce that I too am a recovering urinal-phobe. But I am living proof - that even the most shy bladders can become healthy participating members of the urinal community...

Now with that said -- I can explain the reason why I've noticed the BEST urinal setups exist at the Edwards Irvine Spectrum in Irvine, CA -- they might also exist at other Edwards Cinemas - but I'm not sure. Apparently somebody at Edwards Cinemas has the shy bladder too, because the way these urinals are arranged are in 'pods' of 4. A little alcove with 2 next the each other on one wall, and two on the opposite wall... it really removes that "Piss Trough" mentality of stepping up to the urinal.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 01-07-2002, 11:12 PM:

I sent a picture to Brad to post, but after thinking about it, it does not really fit this tread. Oh, well....

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-08-2002, 06:53 PM:

I can vouch that women (young jr high girls mostly, I think) are much worse than anyone for restroom etiquette. Our ladies room used to have a soap dispenser...somebody ripped it off the wall. In a pinch of needing soap, we put in a couple bottles of liquid stuff. Within days, someone squirted it all over the walls, doorways, toilet seat, etc. Figured that was a fluke, so replaced the bottle...within another couple of days, someone had poured it all down the drain and filled the bottle with water. (Well, I HOPE it was water!) So finally we decided to bag soap entirely and now we have a sign stating that free 'moist towelettes' are available at the concession stand for hand-cleansing. Problem solved...and we've only spent about $5 so far on hand-wipes in about 6 months, because most people just use water to wash with...and it also seems to generate an extra concession sale here and there.

OTOH, our men's room has very little trouble other than guys spitting "chew" into the drain occasionally.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-08-2002, 06:54 PM:

Hey, is there any of you guys here that actually uses "the flap?" What the hell is that for, anyway?

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 01-08-2002, 07:38 PM:

If I'm dressed really nice -- wearing a belt and a pair of slacks with the 3 or 4 snaps to them... I'll use the flap... depends on how lazy I'm feeling... do I really want to untuck the dress shirt, unsnap the 2 snaps, unbutton the button, unzip the zipper, pull down the underwear... aim... pee... shake... put back... pull up... zip up... tuck in... button... snap...snap?

No -- sometimes... zip-flap-pee-shake-return-zip is all I've got the energy for.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 01-08-2002, 08:49 PM:

The old "13 Buttons" on the US Navy's uniform for enlisted was known as a "Bib"

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 01-09-2002, 12:29 PM:

What is the flap??

Yes, the thought of the saluting toilet seat immeditately brought back thoughts of the "PLO". Funny stuff.

Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 01-09-2002, 01:03 PM:

quote:
These have been available for almost as long as there have been flush toilets. Tell the local plumber that you want a "saluting" or "self rising" toilet seat for the men's room and he should know exactly what you mean. There is a torsion spring that flips the seat up except when someone sits on it. The self riser was invented by no less a man than Thomas Crapper of toilet fame.

Jerry,

I've never seen such a thing in real life. The only time I've ever seen "saluting toilets" was in the movie "No Time For Sergeants", which I saw back in 1988 or 1989. (the reason for all the PLO references in this thread). I need to watch that movie again sometime.

BY the way, check out http://www.theplumber.com/crapper.html , which talks about Thomas Crapper: myth or reality. Many people think that Thomas Crapper invented the toilet, while many claim that it's a myth.

------------------
Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 01-09-2002, 01:48 PM:

The way *I* understand, Thomas Crapper didn't invent the WHOLE commode. He invented the flush mechanism that we use today.

Before then, even when people were rich enough to have indoor plumbing there was still a problem with "sewer gas" comming up into the house through the pipe. There were various methods involving trap doors, etc. to contain the smell yet let the waste go down the drain. Consequently, even people who were rich enough to have indoor toilets didn't really keep them "indoors" per se. They kept them in "ante rooms" near the outside of the house so that the house wouldn't smell like sewer.

Now, the way I believe it happened, Thomas Crapper was the guy who came up with the idea of having a "water trap" in the bottom of the bowl to keep out the sewer gas yet let the waste go down unimpeded.

Posted by Jerry Chase (Member # 660) on 01-09-2002, 03:33 PM:

I spent a little time trying to find these spring loaded seats on the net and was unsuccessful. My best guess is that people have taken the ADA to mean that no toilet seat can be spring-loaded, rather than the handicap accessable toilet cannot be spring loaded. What a load of

Anyway, I found these links:
(Leaving the URLS open so you can see where you are going)
http://www.rustybrain.com/archives/2000/01toiletseatblues.html
http://www.thefactoryoutlet.com/toilet_seat_lifter.htm
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/least_20recently_20used_20cubicle_20indicator

If you want to never trust a toilet seat again go to Snopes.com and search for "salami slicer" Sometimes I think all a terrorist would have to do to panic America is build and deploy some of the devices in our urban legends.

Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 01-09-2002, 04:26 PM:

quote:
If you want to never trust a toilet seat again go to Snopes.com and search for "salami slicer"

I hadn't heard of the "salami slicer". Gee. And I thought that it was bad enough to get ketchup packets and prick the ends of them with a pin and put them under the knobs under the toilet seat, with the pricked ends pointing inward.

------------------
Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site