I have one opinion to give you in this life, and it is this: those flimsy little paper toilet seat covers in public bathrooms are for fools and cowards and you are wasting my time and yours if you use them.
Every time I walk into a public restroom and hear the telltale crinkle of someone pulling a paper cover out of the dispenser, I want to yell, “Do you think you’re better than me? Because you are not better than me.” You aren’t, you know. I didn’t go to a very good school, but you’re still not better than me.
That micron-thick layer of tissue paper is doing nothing to protect your backside from toilet seat germs, and if you think it does, then my friend, you are living in a fantasy world. It is the width of gossamer and the slightest hint of moisture wilts it like a dying lotus petal. This cannot stand between you and the forces of darkness. Who are you trying to kid?
And half the time, you just leave that sad little toilet shroud on the seat, so I have to kick it into the bowl before I can sit down and use it myself, which feels degrading to me personally. Thank you for your time.
Please feel free to continue using a paper towel to open the bathroom door, though. I don’t think it does anything, but it doesn’t bother me, and if it makes you feel better, go gangbusters.
I am not alone! Except it does drive me a little nuts at work that people are so obsessive about using a paper towel to open the bathroom door when they then have to immediately open a second door into our office suite. Do they think the germs evaporate of the hands of non-handwashers in the five feet between the bathroom door and the office door?
(It obviously shouldn’t bother me at all, but I just really don’t get it)
I’m only bothered by the people who use paper towel to open the door when they leave the paper towel stuck in the door handle. I have seen that and it is uncool.
Amen! Your gluteal integrity is not so precious that it can excuse the tree-killing wastefulness of seat covers.
Also: you do not contract STDs through the skin on your thighs. The only thing it will protect you from errant pee droplets in which case you’re better off wiping the seat down with toilet paper. But if you spend ten minutes creating an elaborate toilet paper nest to lay your behind in when there is a long lineup, I will strangle you with your own toilet paper.
YES just wipe the damn seat with toilet paper. This serves two purposes: the seat will be dry and you’ll have verified that there is actually toilet paper available before you’ve sat down.
And then if you’re one of those people who can’t/won’t sit on public toilet seats, please wipe the dang seat when you get up. I don’t appreciate sitting in your pee when I use the stall a minute later.
Even if you don’t think you need to! Maybe you didn’t see some of it! I mean you Mystery Pee-Leaving Lady At My Office!
OH MY GOD you speak the truth. The horribleness of people who are so grossed out by sitting on a toilet seat that they hover, then miss, and get pee on the seat and then THEY ARE THE CAUSE OF TOILET SEAT GROSSNESS. I had no idea I felt so passionately about this until I read your comment, but thank you. You are so right.
Everyone: Sit the fuck down and pee.
I vote if you are one of those people that you purchase a short ladder and get the fuck over yourself, but that’s me. But that’s also goddamn ridiculous. Wipe the seat, sit down, pee, move on. AND FLUSH. The people who won’t flush because of toilet handles…I don’t even.
“you’ll have verified that there is actually toilet paper available before you’ve sat down.”
^^legitimately brilliant right there.
Definitely brilliant. It would have helped me avoid the number of times I’ve sat down, then discovered in mid-go that there’s no TP. I have sometimes resorted to ripping the empty roll off the spindle and using the cardboard. Do not recommend.
Hell, that’s the one time a seat cover comes in handy for me. I can’t count the number of times I’ve used them as a substitute for actual toilet paper.
I’ve only ever seen those things in the States. We don’t have them over here because they OBVIOUSLY DON’T WORK.
Me too. I live in Canada and they are extremely rare here.
My Canadian germaphobic aunt found some in a grocery store here and bought about a million packets to carry around with her.
That’s us in a nutshell: the illusion of safety is more important than logic or environmental concerns.
Yep, we don’t have them in Australia either and our population hasn’t been decimated by Toilet Ebola either.
Alright, so yesterday, I had minor same day surgery, for which I heartily thank God because it quickly stopped something very unpleasant from happening, and I’m telling you this because the story involves toilet seat covers.
Ahem. So, the before surgery nurse was great, the anesthesiologist was great, everyone – great. Post-surgery, I was pretty groggy. My post-surgery nurse was, as far as I could tell, good, but I couldn’t really judge because groggy. The first sign I had that something was amiss was when she became SUPER fussy about putting not one, but two toilet seat covers on the seat (very clumsily, too, while I stood there swaying about). I was all, “Huh. OK.”
Then the second sign was that she had an extremely in depth and confusing conversation with my husband about the pick up procedure (how was he getting here, which door was he coming in, why would he come by foot, does he want her to call valet for my car, where is his car, etc. etc.).
All in all, you’ve made me feel better. Because, I have a really hard time with people when coming out of anesthesia and I thought it was weird, but wasn’t sure and now you’ve helped me re-center myself in the world. It *was* weird. Thanks, Mallory!
Weirdly, the toilet-cover seat thing happened to me too with a post-op nurse a few years ago! I was in recovery and as soon as I was conscious enough to stand relatively unassisted I NEEDED to pee. It was not a good a situation.
I use them, but only to blot the oil off my face while I pee. They are free and work better than any oil blotting papers I’ve ever actually bought.
And I apparently sound like a wiggle worm while I pee.
YES. We have them at work and I use them exclusively for free face oil blotting purposes.
that is so metal, re: free oil blotting wipes from butt covers! hats off to you!
I was going to say this! They work great and they’re huge!
I have no idea what a wiggle worm sounds like, but every now and then I hear someone peeing in the stall next to me and I just want to stand up and applaud them for both their flow rate and the volume of their bladder.
Like damn – that is an impressive amount of pee coming out of you at a very high speed. Good for you.
ME TOO
We called my brother Thunder Tinkle when he was a child. He could wake me up with his morning abulation. And my bedroom was several rooms away from the bathroom. I’m sure he won’t mind me sharing this with the internet.
A flatmate of two years ago confused us all when, after he left the room going the wrong way for the kitchen, we heard the snap of the kettle being switched on and, shortly after, the unmistakable sound of water boiling. It took us a few seconds, then we realised that flatmate had ACTUALLY gone to the bathroom, the snap was the toilet seat being raised, and the water… was boiling metaphorically. It was impressive.
THIS IS WHY I LOVE YOU MALLORY
you have verbalized every feeling I have on this subject.
Hmm. Maybe we’re actually supposed to leave the cover on the seat? And the next person, instead of disposing of it, should just add their own. Towards the afternoon, a decidedly more substantial, cootie-proof and only slightly pee-soaked structure would appear.
This is terribly upsetting, this thing you’ve proposed…. D:
ew
Heh. The many thoughtfully placed portapotties along the trails at the Asheville, NC Arboretum each have a sheet for the maintainer to initial each time.
For the past month, they’ve all been signed by EW.
I have walked into stalls where this seems to be the case. Either that, or one single person decided that a STACK of toilet-seat covers would save them, and then left the stall without flushing. Thanks for clogging the toilet, asshole.
You speak what I am afraid to say on Twitter.
I have never used one of those, but I have religiously taken two scraps of toilet paper and put them on the seat every time I’ve used a public bathroom.
And every time it’s meant my spirit dying a little death. I know I’m living a lie. But I am weak and afraid. I quiver like a dancing flame that will soon be forever extinguished in the face what unknown hell coats those mysterious faux-porcelain surfaces.
LET ME HAVE THIS. LET ME LIE TO MYSELF AND MY POOR, MORTAL BOTTOM.
(I do always remember to knock them into the toilet tho, I mean that shits just rude. Plus I’m not about leaving unnecessary evidence of my own bone-deep stupidity around all willy-nilly)
Set yourself free of this lie, zachariahary.
I… I’m not strong enough. Leave me, don’t look upon my wretchedness.
[dissolves to the floor weeping]
*covers you gently with a fresh toilet seat cover*
I want to thumbs-up-thingy that comment at least fifty more times, but it does not seem to want to let me. Will just keep clicking.
Me too me too me too
I can vividly picture this and it’s giving me the giggles so hard
And now I have to pee from the giggles!
“I have one opinion to give you in this life”
lol
I’ve never understood the opening-the-door-with-paper-towel thing. Sure, not everyone washes their hands, but most people do… so isn’t the inside door handle (or metal part you push on or whatever) the cleanest thing in there?
But then, I’m the opposite of a germaphobe, so.
No no no no. LOTS of people don’t wash their hands, or at least I’ve seen lots of people not wash their hands.
And most of the people who do wash their hands DON’T WASH THEM PROPERLY. They just rub their hands together under running water for 2-5 seconds and call it clean.
I think it’s more about not having 100% dry hands & not wanting the next person to grab a wet, disgusting door handle.
Also not wanting to grab a wet disgusting door handle myself (I know it’s water and not pee. I’m pretty sure it’s water and not pee. But it’s the bathroom. Maybe it’s pee.)
It’s the only thing you touch after washing your own hands, thus the thing from which you will pick up bird ebola and transfer it directly into your eyeballs.
Someone in my office building does not wash her hands even after definitely having pooped. It makes me insane. I ALWAYS do the paper towel thing. ugh.
i had the most horrific moment in the bathrooms the other month at work where I was pooping and in came some other lady who also pooped….and apparently it was quite a production, as she and her body proceeded to make what I can only describe as “adam sandler comedy” noises. She was in there for like 5 minutes, grunting and plopping and just generally making a very loud sort of comedic ado in the next stall. AND THEN SHE JUST FLUSHED AND EXITED THE BATHROOM, WITHOUT WASHING HER HANDS. Ever since then I have used the paper towel to exit the bathroom strategy, because augh.
ADAM SANDLER COMEDY NOISES.
(my office at work is next to the bathroom, and that is an accurate description of what I have heard from there, which is why I can almost never use that one anymore.)
I have 3 bathrooms within 20 yards of my office. The one down the hall from my office is for quick peeing stops before class; either of the two that are one floor down from me are for poopin’. Because there are 8 stalls in each instead of 5 and rarely anyone in there instead of my next-office-door colleague.
never before have I been more thankful for our single-stall-only restrooms at work, because WOW
This. I know she does this, and I still find it shocking when she walks out without washing her hands. Like, dude, at least if people are in here could you PRETEND or something?
And this reminds me that actually, I don’t know how many people DO wash their hands. I always thought most people did, but she doesn’t, so maybe…most people don’t? I always use the paper towel to open the door.
I have seen people in university loos just sort of run the tap and put the very tips of their fingers under the water for half a second, then leave. I don’t understand what they think they’re accomplishing.
I have SEEN them. I KNOW they do not wash their hands. Paper towels, all the way.
AND seat covers. You missed the best thing about paper seat covers. They muffle sound. If US toilets had Japanese-style white noise, I would be so happy. But they don’t, so seat covers will have to do.
And the people who don’t wash their hands continue to touch things after the bathroom door handle so… I guess we should all just wear gloves a la Maud from Fingersmith?
I am entirely certain that putting my butt in contact with probably-germ-ridden public toilet seats makes it stronger and more disease-resistant and you can’t convince me otherwise.
Agreed. Everyday I inch toward invincibility.
Buns of anti-bacterial steel, if you will.
What doesn’t kill my butt makes my butt stronger.
Is this a Tina Belcher quote? This sounds like a Tina Belcher quote.
Okay, but if you’re going to use paper towels to open the door, for the love of everything THROW THEM AWAY after. Don’t just drop them on the floor because otherwise you’d have to carry it all the way to your office or whatever. You brought this on yourself.
I make a point of laying out all bathrooms with the trash right by the door, because otherwise people will not throw these towels away. Alas, there’s not much that can be done for bathrooms built before everyone was so paranoid…
You are fighting the good fight.
You lay out many bathrooms?
Dozens.
No, surely hundreds. I have eleven open RIGHT THIS MINUTE!
WHAT ABOUT the automatic ones you sometimes see in airports where you press a button and it spits out some nice clean butt plastic for you?
I love those, mostly because it’s fun to watch it go around.
whaaaaaaaaaaaaat
I’m always worried I’ll press the wrong one and DIRTY butt plastic will come out. Plus, how would I know? I usually just like, hover and not sit on those toilet seats.
Don’t hover! See above.
I hate the feeling of anything between my butt and the seat. I really have trouble using a padded toilet seat even. It just feels like some place I maybe shouldn’t be peeing.
The worst thing about padded toilet seats is the big WHOOSH of air escaping when you sit on them.
Padded toilet seats are the worst. Various elderly relatives of mine have had them in their bathrooms and it’s just so uncomfortable. I don’t want to feel a squish beneath my backside when I’m having a pee.
It just feels like sitting on a chair. I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to pee in chairs.
When I’m asleep and need to pee, I have anxiety dreams about being forced to pee in weirdly public and inappropriate places until I get so upset I wake up and go actually pee. Padded toilet seats sort of feel like being in one of those dreams, but in real life.
ME TOO! Everyone I tell thinks I’m crazy! I often have dreams about toilets I can’t reach in some way, and / or that are overflowing, situated in public, etc. It is an epic journey to try to pee.
YES. Mine tend to be dreams about bathrooms where all the toilets have been removed, or replaced with non-toilet furniture. I hate it, and I go to elaborate lengths, when I am tired but think I’m awake, to make sure I’m not actually in one of those dreams.
anxiety pee dreamers unite! I am usually faced with large public bathrooms that have lots of toilets all in one room with no stalls, sometimes with weird non-toilet features, in the way of dream logic. One that I remember particularly vividly involved needing to pee while stuck in the air on a broken ski lift.
A few months ago I went on a day hike in a somewhat remote/less popular corner of a national park, and I needed to pee partway through the hike. I’m used to using outhouses, but in this area my only option (other than crouching behind a bush, which – no) was a latrine with nothing but a seat and two sides of wall blocking the view from the nearby campsite. So I peed with a great view of the forest, but it took me awhile to relax enough to actually go.
Oooh, yeah, I have anxiety dreams (even when I don’t physically have to pee) about:
-Toilets with insufficient partitions, or in one case, totally unguarded in the middle of a crowded dining room, and I’ve got my pants down before it occurs to me that maybe I’m not actually supposed to use this one???
-Overflowing toilets (and of course it always happens excruciatingly slowly and just when someone else comes into the bathroom)
-Somehow I pooped everywhere and am trying to scoop it up with my hands before someone else walks in, and then at one point my mouth has become filled with poop, and then I wake up and feel like I am made of poop. It’s like, thanks brain, I know it’s an apt metaphor for my life right now, but you don’t have to rub it in!
Yesss I have these dreams all the time! One million toilets, zero privacy.
I have those dreams when I need to pee too!
I feel like a member of a very strange club now.
Why does my brain do this? I live alone – a clean and 100% private toilet is JUST THERE. Just let me wake up and the problem is solved! But noooo, let’s go through a million toilets with no doors or half doors or no door and also I’m not wearing pants instead that’ll be fun.
Both my mom and I have those dreams! Weird overflowing toilets or not enough of a door to guard me from the judgmental eyes of my dream projections or like… this one time where I dreamed I walked into a classroom and found the seats were replaced with toilets and there were people attending class in them??
Subconscious, why.
FINALLY I HAVE FOUND MY PEOPLE
ME TOO!
I constantly have dreams where someone is watching me use the toilet, like standing over me trying to talk to me or something, or I’m sitting on a toilet in a public place; and I have to be ‘umm excuse me, I’m a bit busy here, please kindly fuck off’
And then the entire dream is an adventure to find a toilet that’s private/empty/has a working door.
Oh my god, yes. Took me ages to figure out why I kept dreaming of escher-like bathrooms where, like, all the toilets were inaccessible, or only 3/4ths of a toilet, or several toilets to a stall, and there were no doors at all.
Eventually I got better at making myself get up to go pee in the middle of the night, instead of just trying to ignore it till morning.
Wait, padded toilet seats exist? What is this nonsense?
Oh yes. They even, apparently, come upholstered. Though I have only ever encountered the vinyl kind, thank the gods.
I find those so obnoxious to sit on. Not a fan of crinkly plastic beneath my thighs, apparently.
I have had the experience of being forced to use one of those (other stalls either full or too gross for a quick paper-swipe clean) where the motor had broken in such a way that it wouldn’t turn off. It had run through all the plastic some time before, and thus it sat there, gently vibrating, during use. A rather odd sensation.
I came to say the same thing! “But what about the integrated seat covers at O’Hare?”
I personally think they run on an endless loop, so that instead of touching your cheeks to a seat that touched everyone else’s cheeks, your cheeks just get a random sampling of indirect cheek contact.
Like those “if you had unprotected sex with one person, you had sex with all the people they had sex with” diagrams in high school health classes!
Or degrees of separation! Like, if a famous person also sat on that toilet, you are one degree of toilet seat of separation away from their butt.
Nope, famous people pee in the “lounge”. All degrees of separation are for plebes only.
I’ve worked in a job where I had to clean a public restroom, and you know what? It wasn’t so bad. Gross the first few times you have to do it, but I got used to it. I mean, the place gets bleached down like every 8 hours, it’s not like you’re entering some kind of hoarder’s den/ crime scene. I had that job for about 6 months and never contracted any sort of flesh-eating disease or what have you, in spite of my employer’s casual attitude towards OSHA standards. Since then I’ve felt pretty chill about public restrooms.
As for the paper towels and seat covers and flushing-with-your-feet: you do you, but that looks exhausting. I’m not interested in putting that much thought into my bathroom breaks.
“casual attitude towards OSHA standards”
ok this is a slightly terrifying phrase.
“What’s in this spray bottle I’m using?”
“Cleaning stuff. Don’t worry about it.”
Sometimes I flush with my foot because I am old and bending over is hard.
Also I once spent an entire summer auditing the ADA-compliance of gas station bathrooms around the state. Some of those had CERTAINLY not seen bleach in 8 months, much less 8 hours.
I just flush with my foot because otherwise I usually have to stand with my face right above the toilet seat, which in public restrooms so rarely have covers… I’m 100% fine with my bare ass on the toilet seat, but having toilet water/air propelled towards my face is something i really want to avoid.
This. I want to be standing well back when the flush begins.
I think this must be a US/UK difference – where are your handles for flushing located? Ours are on the top or side of the toilet tank, usually (if they’re on the top, they’re usually a large button which you press to flush. I could definitely not do that with my feet), or set into the wall next to the tank. I do not have to bend over at all and it would be really hard to flush with my feet.
Usually a public toilet will be a flush valve toilet, not a tank toilet – there’s no tank, and the handle is on a large pipe behind the toilet. Depending on the design of that particular toilet, it might be up near where a tank-based handle would be, or it might be down nearly by the back of the toilet seat (not generally somewhere you want your face).
I had to clean a literally shit streaked stall on more than one occasion and I just psychologically cannot really deal with another grown person’s poo that I am expected to clean with my own (gloved, yes) hands. Like, I’m armed with gloves and bleach so it wasn’t going to make me ill unless I did something colossally stupid, but I still hated every minute and still mostly refuse to use public bathrooms except in the direst emergencies.
Ok, I do see these seat covers as my nemesis because trying to unfurl one can give me a nervous breakdown. HOWEVER, I do value them as a “liquid on the seat” test. Put one down and you can see exactly where liquid of some sort is on that seat, thus enabling you to wipe it down. And if it doesn’t stick to any liquid, you can sit on it and make lots of crinkly noise that can break up otherwise awkward silence.
As someone who has ACTUALLY contracted public lice from using a public toilet seat without a cover (due to a sudden and crippling bout of diarrhea) I can attest to you that I both wipe AND use a toilet seat cover. Every single time.
I am currently dealing with a case of scabies (like, I spent last night covered in insecticide cream, FUN) and I’m 99% sure I got it from a toilet seat at work–someone keeps leaving a greasy smear with hair on it when they’ve used it, and once
I didn’t look before sitting.
a greasy smear with hair on it
TINY SCREAMS
I think regular-sized screams are appropriate here.
I think you have no thumbs up because we are all pretending this isn’t possible. I’m about to freak out right now.
WAT. D:
Ever since I read that very disturbing study on household germs that found the same types of germs on toilet seats and pillowcases, I’ve decided a) not to worry about toilet seat germs (not that I spent much time worrying about them before) and b) not to read any more stories about germs.
Have you guys seen that Buzzfeed (or whatever) sidebar thingy for YOU HAVE BEEN USING TOILET SEAT COVERS WRONG YOUR ENTIRE LIFE, HERE’S HOW YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO IT, well, neither have I, but there was a photo so I got the basic idea.
I went into a stall after someone read this article, apparently, because there was toilet seat cover origami’d all over that damn toilet, and it was not going anywhere.
So in case you were harboring any doubts, the internet is a liar and/or is DEFINITELY fucking with you.
Wait, do you mean some fancy extra thing, or just where you detach the center flap and let it fall down into the water so the whole thing doesn’t fly away in a slight breeze? Because I thought the latter was common knowledge…
You detach the center flap and then fold it back over the toilet bowl, toward you, so it’s sticking out like a tongue.
Then of course it doesn’t flush with the rest of everything, it just hangs out making faces at everyone, daring us to try to get in back in the bowl where it belongs.
I say again, we must replace all toilets in restrooms with Japanese-style toilets. We can have the usual American-style-but-fancier ones in offices and homes, the kind that automatically put on and dispose of toilet seat covers, that have a button that creates white noise, and that have a bidet. And in more highly trafficed areas like train stations we should have the squatting toilets, because they are cleaner. And when people squat over them they don’t leave gross droplets on the seat, which I often see in restrooms now. I also suggest we make it so that every bathroom door locks properly, because I am amazed by the number of stall doors with improperly aligned locks.
One time in Thailand I encountered a squat toilet that some had missed entirely with a nice big poop. That rarely happens on a western-style toilet (not accidentally anyway…).
There really are a LOT of stall doors with improperly aligned locks. Why is that?
Purses and bags weighing down the door unevenly cause damage to the hinges, which makes the locks improperly align.
A lot of times the droplets aren’t from the person, but from the flush! I have seen this happen in bathrooms that have a very powerful flush.
TOTALLY agree on the lock thing. While we’re at it, can we please put coat/bag hooks on every door and also make stalls in airports/train stations that are actually big enough for a person to bring their luggage in (and also places near sinks to put bags or other things)?
The only good thing about my local airport is that the stall doors open out, so you don’t have to try to swing it past both yourself and your luggage to get out. Nothing worse than straddling a toilet and holding up your wheelie bag to escape the stall.
When I was in Africa I encountered many very, very, very, very gross squatting toilets. I don’t think I have ever encountered a clean squatting toilet, actually.
I always assume in this scenario that my options are very gross western toilet or very gross squatting toilet, in which case of equal grossness I will take the very gross squatting toilet by preference.
Improperly aligned locks probably contribute to the piddle-seat problems, too, because it’s hard to hold the door shut without coming off the seat in the process.
I’m always concerned that possibly not clean toilet water will seep up the seat cover (because part of the seat cover seems to inevitably be dangling into the toilet bowl) and then get on my skin, and then to quote the gym teacher in Mean Girls, I would get chlamydia and DIE. Probably not, but it still just seems gross.
I shall sit direct upon a throne where spray has been, and I am stronger for it
So the thing that I don’t understand about those covers is that if you are THAT afraid of toilet seat cooties, the act of putting the cover on the seat puts your HANDS in risk of contact with said cooties. Like sure, you are protecting your butt from getting cooties, but then your hands have cooties which to me seems to be what is more concerning, you don’t eat and touch your face with your butt.
Plus you will use your contaminated hand to wipe yourself in a few moments!
How so? Every time I’ve used one I’ve never had to touch the seat itself. Just waft the paper over the seat like a bedsheet.
My philosophy is: If it’s neat, take a seat!
This is the truest thing that has ever been written!!!!!!
I got pin worm in elementary school from a public toilet in said school. I have always used a toilet seat cover since. It may not help, but it keeps the paranoia in check 20 years later
I don’t think that you can know it’s from the toilet seat. Pinworm is commonly from hand contamination. Eggs to fingers to surface to fingers to mouth.
Idk, I was like 8 and it’s what the doctor told my parents
I will confess that I will sometimes use them when I have my period, but that is about protecting other people from my blood, and not about protecting me from anything.
My office has a sign in the stalls that reads: “Dear Ladies, If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be sweet and wipe the seat. Sincerely, Your Conscience.” This delights me. I used to work in an office where the women all ate a lot of healthy ruffage and kale. An hour after lunch, that bathroom was like a no-fly zone. Dreadful. I appreciate the slightly condescending albeit necessary school marm rhymes.
You all have missed the point! This is not solely a germ abatement device. It’s a fashion item. The other, less used these days, name for these items are a Texas dinner jacket. Check it out next time you have a chance and use a toilet equipped with this dispenser . Place one, unused is best , over your head unfold the center flap to form a tie and return to your table. Of course this is fest done in a higher end establishment. By wearing this as a addition to your apparel you are making a fashion statement! You are a leader, a maverick. In fact we should designate next Saturday evening,”wear your Texas Dinner Jacket Night”. These items are not just to protect your ass cheeks from the horror and shame of ass herpes or worse.
See you next Saturday!
I love everything here.
My partner and I have an ongoing… conversation about how (in my opinion) the bathroom air is not fresh with poop particles that are raining e coli donw on everything btu that myseriously stop at the open doorway. This first came about when we were dating and we’d get together to fancy ourselves up while pre-drinking before going out dancing and I would take my drink into the bathroom to do my hair & makeup, which she considered disgusting. Now we’re older and I don’t have many occasions to do hair and makeup (and have a bedroom big enough for a mirror) but it’s still an issue because when the dishwasher is connected to the kitchen sink the bathroom sink is where you can get water to drink, which she is still totally averse to.
I’m aware actually consuming something is higher risk than just placing your flesh on, but I’m not drinking the water from the toilet, just the sink! And It’s our bathroom, not a public bathroom! Am I gross?
I know dri
But if you can’t take a drink into the bathroom, how can you have mimosas in the tub? I am extremely pro-tub-mimosa (or red wine when it’s cold out). If you are gross for this, then so am I. A toast to grossness!
Cheers from a Coors Light in the shower!
I wouldn’t deign to touch a Coors of any sort (I am a beer snob the way some folks are with their fair trade organic shade grown from the fertilizer of the dung of sacred cows coffee people are) but I have definitely enjoyed many a shower beer.
It’s a moot point if you always put the toilet lid down when you flush. Germies can’t get past a wall of solid porcelain! Mwahahaha.
Now to fix the problem that literally everything is covered in germs 100% of the time and we are literally walking through clouds of our own decaying skin particles 24/7.
Everything is gross and covered in germs and fungi. Embrace the gross! Let your immune system get some practice on softball everyday germs so its good and ready for the bigguns! That’s my theory/excuse, anyway.
Science more or less agrees with you!
Cool! I will continue being gross! I mean, my cat allergies did get way better when I stopped showering twice a day from being in the pool…
I am a little weird about food or drink in the bathroom, which I realize is ridiculous because I leave my toothbrush in there, which makes it extra covered in bathroom cooties. And I brush my teeth in the bathroom with that same toothbrush. And this doesn’t bother me at all. But I get really grossed out when my husband eats or drinks anything in the bathroom.
Pro-tip: don’t use toilet seat covers for their intended reason – use them as facial blotting sheets. Stop buying facial blotting sheets seriously you can have free giant pieces of blotting paper in any public restroom. YOU’RE WELCOME WORLD.
I stopped using them when my 3-year-old peed all over the floor while waiting for me to unfurl the cover. These days, I don’t even check the seat before throwing her butt on there.
On average, office toilets are cleaned at minimum once a day. I clean my bathroom at home once a week … Maybe. The toilet at work is cleaner than my desk. I could probably eat off the office toilet … but I won’t. As long as you aren’t rubbing your nether bits on the porcelain, you aren’t going to catch anything. Just wash your hands, damn it … using a toilet protector, then not washing your hands … icky!
But I like them!
I think I liked every single comment here, except the ones about pubic lice, scabies, and pinworms, because parasites are gross.
I have a strong immune system and no open wounds. I sit on the porcelain. We have those toilet seat covers at my office but I don’t think anyone uses them. One of my co-workers suffers from shy bladder syndrome, which is a real thing. He will not use public restrooms and is even queasy about hotel bathrooms. His mom used to come get him at school at lunch and take him home to use the bathroom. I worry he will permanently damage his kidneys. I don’t think I could ever be that…delicate. When I have to go, I have to go. I’ll use the men’s; I’ll use a port-a-potty; I’ll use a stall without a door. A clean, functioning bathroom is truly a wonder of modern life and I wish one and ease of usage for everyone.
Oh! I forgot to mention my chief annoyance. I HATE when I’m on an auto-flushing toilet and it flushes prematurely. I do not want my bottom misted. I am not Gwyneth Paltrow and I do not need my nether regions steamed.
That is the worst! And even if I did want my nethers misted, it would not be with used toilet water.
RIGHT! I would much prefer to touch a flusher handle when I am properly done and standing, thanks.
oh my god the toilets at my workplace do this CONSTANTLY. I do not take that long to pee! There’s a system for employees to submit money-saving ideas and I’m speculating suggesting replacing those toilets, because *surely* it would save money on the water bill if I only flushed the toilet once instead of it automatically flushing five times.
Verrrrrrrrrry
Interestrrrrrresting!
I strongly recommend 3 lecture, 6 laboratory credits of Microbiology for any and all here. Some folks sorely need more knowledge of the physical sciences.
In which case bacteriology won’t help them.
Are these actually a big thing in the US? We don’t really have them here and I don’t think I fully understand the point of them. I’m not going to contract an infection by letting my thighs’ bare skin touch the toilet seat! The skin itself does a pretty good job of keeping stuff out!
Last time I went on a coach journey, the toilet door didn’t lock and the light was broken. There was a sign saying ‘do not flush’, but I didn’t see it until I came out because of the broken light. When I flushed, toilet water and its contents shot up in the air and sprayed all over my face (it was a really tiny cubicle). Then I realised the tap was broken. So I spent the rest of the journey with toilet water in my hair.
Now I just get the train even though it’s more expensive, because I’m scared it’ll happen again.
Do people not understand that pathogens need a soft, mucusy entrance into the body? If you’re worried about catching something off a toilet seat you are using a toilet wrong.
I’ll wipe off a wet seat (or go to another stall), but that’s the limit of my extraordinary bathroom hygiene. (And door handle weirdos can fuck off, just wash your hands like a normal person and remember to dry them, and don’t stick your fingers in your eyes during the day.)
Frankly the hand bars on the Tube skeev me out far more than any toilet seat. People have all kinds of nasty shit on their hands all the time.
Nope, I’m gonna fight you on the paper towel thing. The CDC reports that wet hands transfer pathogens more readily than dry ones do (http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/cruiselines/hand_hygiene_general.htm), so I’m definitely the type that will use my (used! I’m not wasteful) paper towel to open the door, and then I get annoyed if the trash can isn’t conveniently placed for me to chuck it out.
Why don’t all bathroom doors just open outward so I can push it with my shoulder? Seriously.
We used to have the people leaving seat covers on toilets/not picking up paper towels they’ve dropped problem at work. At some point, Building Services created a little memo reminder of what to do before you leave the bathroom and stuck copies on the inside of all bathroom stalls. Since then, the bathrooms have been incredibly clean.
Which I find weirdly amusing. It’s like Building Services figured out that while we may be inherently disgusting, we CAN read.
i will forever be annoyed at hoverers who leave a sprinkling of pee on the seat YOU ARE REASON THE SEAT IS GROSS the backs of people’s thighs are not going to spread any germs you weirdos and if you are squeamish LIFT THE DAMN SEAT BEFORE HOVERING
At some point in his childhood my husband picked up the notion that it was rude to stand to pee unless you're at a urinal or in the woods, and our bathroom is at least 87% cleaner than it would be otherwise. Everyone! Just sit!
I get annoyed at work by the over-zealous use of Lysol in the stalls. Really I’d rather be met with the faint smell of your morning BM than be gassed out by the toxic crap in Lysol.
I often have to try to hold my breath the entire time I’m in the bathroom, or risk dying of Lysol inhalation. It is terrible. I often hide it, but it always comes back. (Once there was a floral scented can in there, and I threw it away without remorse.)
Maybe he can teach a class to the men of the world!
The only thing I can think of is that you have really HUUUGE penis and that it would touch the water or the bowl if you sat down.
My dog just looks in the bowl and doesn't drink. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?? It has made me really neurotic about toilet cleanliness, like my greyhound who ate the arse out of a dead possum is silently judging me for skipping a day with the dunny brush.
I feel bad for the poor bastards who think it does something. Sometimes they almost see through their own illusion, and they triple stack the dainty things. IF you can believe it.
Finally, I can join the legions on this site who say THANK GOD I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE.
I can have pee-anxiety dreams for what feels like hours. I tend to have the ones about needing to pee in a public area, or every actually toilet is utterly filthy/unusable/open to view.
And what feels like a related phenomenon are the sex dreams. Absolutely dying to get it on with someone in a dream, only to be interrupted by a partner, in a public place with no way out, no privacy, filthy surroundings…. I have not yet had a "successful" sex dream, ever.
WHUT. Ok, I have been to the US a few times, and I am so so so so glad I have not encountered one of these. Because I would never have figured it out in a million years.