I chanced across a recent Internet item that purported to tell me where to aim my personal stream in order to avoid misting myself when using a public urinal.
This problem is a recent one for the XY segment of mankind. Before the invention of indoor plumbing we guys urinated far and wide, on desert sands, in deepest forests, into raging rivers and quiet streams. The essence we voided was gone for good. There were no splashback issues when a cave individual came upon a pristine vista or a majestic fjord, realized that no human had gazed upon it before, and then peed into it. Men were at one with the primitive world they wizzed upon. No one disturbed the balance of nature, although some climatologists feel that the last Ice Age may have ended because too many guys tried to write their names in the snow at the same time.
In the Outhouse Age, men dug deep and wide. When they voided their bladders, the issue was settled permanently. Even after the invention of modern plumbing, respect for our desire to be rid of our liquid waste for good and all was built into the design of public urinals. They were tall and capacious. They towered over the heads of the toddlers that were just learning to use them. Specimens of this type can still be found in older government buildings, rowed up in an orderly fashion, echoing in their classic form the tranquility one feels when the act they were designed to accommodate is completed.
Not so the modern public pee-pot. Small and placed at staggered heights on the wall, its parabolic surface is designed to return serve better than either of the Williams sisters. Especially here in San Diego, where shorts and sandals are standard wear for much of the year, the result of using them is not the relief you anticipated but the discomfort of knowing you have wet yourself secondhand, especially if your personal hydraulics have been augmented by consuming several beers. I don't know who designed these things. I suspect it was some otherwise peaceful homemaker who finally flipped after scrubbing off one too many spots of the yellow glaze we guys like to contribute to the ecology of our local powder rooms, got a divorce, went to engineering school, earned a degree and worked her way to the top of the urinal design field, where she promptly got even with all of us by inventing the Return to Sender urinal that bars and stadiums install nowadays.
So I made a mental note to get back to that post, figuring that knowing the 'sweet spot' at which to aim when using one of these diabolical relief stations would make my life better and drier. Unfortunately, it was only a mental note, not an actual bookmark, and when I ran a search on the subject again, it failed to appear, but several other items of immense interest did.
The video game company Sega has invented a toilet-centric video game called Toirettsu, in which the player earns points by urinating on sensors in the toilet. This innovation has been badly needed since the era of public smoking ended. Back in the day, there was usually at least one cigarette butt floating in all the men's room toilets, giving guys a valuable chance to practice their aim. We could amuse ourselves by pretending to be driving a powerboat on Lake John while making a fake outboard noise. If we were lucky, someone would have dumped a full ashtray in the bowl, and we could recreate an entire naval battle before we ran dry. Stukas at four o'clock! Battle stations! Buda-budda BOOM! Abandon ship!
Now, instead of targeting a soggy squadron of Marlboro filters, we can win valuable video game prizes like Mario coins or extra lives while micturating.
Also, the State of Colorado is using talking urinal cakes in an attempt to curb drunk driving. The cakes notice when they are being hit erratically and counsel the urinator to take a cab home. While a slight decline in drunken driving arrests has followed their installation, several of the chatty cakes have been destroyed or thrown in the trash by users. This is because they have broken one of the unwritten rules of public urination, which is that you never initiate conversation with a stranger while wizzing next to him. (It's okay to continue a conversation with a friend while relieving yourself, especially a profanity-laced tirade against the under-performing, overpaid superstar who is causing your team to lose the game you are watching) Having a guy you don't know start talking to you from the urinal next door is bad; having the urinal itself horn into the act is enough to prompt a violent reaction from anyone.
One of the urinal cakes was stolen, presumably so a conversation could be resumed in private. It's a lonely world.
None of this helps resolve the splashback issue, of course. I just figure that no matter how hot the night, I'll wear jeans to the ballpark from now on.
This problem is a recent one for the XY segment of mankind. Before the invention of indoor plumbing we guys urinated far and wide, on desert sands, in deepest forests, into raging rivers and quiet streams. The essence we voided was gone for good. There were no splashback issues when a cave individual came upon a pristine vista or a majestic fjord, realized that no human had gazed upon it before, and then peed into it. Men were at one with the primitive world they wizzed upon. No one disturbed the balance of nature, although some climatologists feel that the last Ice Age may have ended because too many guys tried to write their names in the snow at the same time.
In the Outhouse Age, men dug deep and wide. When they voided their bladders, the issue was settled permanently. Even after the invention of modern plumbing, respect for our desire to be rid of our liquid waste for good and all was built into the design of public urinals. They were tall and capacious. They towered over the heads of the toddlers that were just learning to use them. Specimens of this type can still be found in older government buildings, rowed up in an orderly fashion, echoing in their classic form the tranquility one feels when the act they were designed to accommodate is completed.
Not so the modern public pee-pot. Small and placed at staggered heights on the wall, its parabolic surface is designed to return serve better than either of the Williams sisters. Especially here in San Diego, where shorts and sandals are standard wear for much of the year, the result of using them is not the relief you anticipated but the discomfort of knowing you have wet yourself secondhand, especially if your personal hydraulics have been augmented by consuming several beers. I don't know who designed these things. I suspect it was some otherwise peaceful homemaker who finally flipped after scrubbing off one too many spots of the yellow glaze we guys like to contribute to the ecology of our local powder rooms, got a divorce, went to engineering school, earned a degree and worked her way to the top of the urinal design field, where she promptly got even with all of us by inventing the Return to Sender urinal that bars and stadiums install nowadays.
So I made a mental note to get back to that post, figuring that knowing the 'sweet spot' at which to aim when using one of these diabolical relief stations would make my life better and drier. Unfortunately, it was only a mental note, not an actual bookmark, and when I ran a search on the subject again, it failed to appear, but several other items of immense interest did.
The video game company Sega has invented a toilet-centric video game called Toirettsu, in which the player earns points by urinating on sensors in the toilet. This innovation has been badly needed since the era of public smoking ended. Back in the day, there was usually at least one cigarette butt floating in all the men's room toilets, giving guys a valuable chance to practice their aim. We could amuse ourselves by pretending to be driving a powerboat on Lake John while making a fake outboard noise. If we were lucky, someone would have dumped a full ashtray in the bowl, and we could recreate an entire naval battle before we ran dry. Stukas at four o'clock! Battle stations! Buda-budda BOOM! Abandon ship!
Now, instead of targeting a soggy squadron of Marlboro filters, we can win valuable video game prizes like Mario coins or extra lives while micturating.
Also, the State of Colorado is using talking urinal cakes in an attempt to curb drunk driving. The cakes notice when they are being hit erratically and counsel the urinator to take a cab home. While a slight decline in drunken driving arrests has followed their installation, several of the chatty cakes have been destroyed or thrown in the trash by users. This is because they have broken one of the unwritten rules of public urination, which is that you never initiate conversation with a stranger while wizzing next to him. (It's okay to continue a conversation with a friend while relieving yourself, especially a profanity-laced tirade against the under-performing, overpaid superstar who is causing your team to lose the game you are watching) Having a guy you don't know start talking to you from the urinal next door is bad; having the urinal itself horn into the act is enough to prompt a violent reaction from anyone.
One of the urinal cakes was stolen, presumably so a conversation could be resumed in private. It's a lonely world.
None of this helps resolve the splashback issue, of course. I just figure that no matter how hot the night, I'll wear jeans to the ballpark from now on.
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