What do you do in the loo?
What is it about reading on the toilet? It's been an overwhelming compulsion of mine since I first graduated from the little plastic chair up to the big porcelain one. My parents never kept reading material in the bathroom so I grabbed whatever I could, tampon instructions, the tooth paste box or just anything laying about. Hell, I had all the ingredients for shampoo memorized by the time I was eight.
These days, its really hard for me do a bombing run over Tokyo bay without some sort of book or magazine to keep me focused and relaxed. I read somewhere that we spend at least 4 years of our lives in the bathroom. I can justify my strange reading compulsion as an adult by putting educational materials in the bathroom. I currently have about two years worth of gun magazines, a star trek novel and a book on Hinduism on the knee level shelf in front of the commode.
The only problem is, sometimes I sit down, start reading and end up forgetting why I went in there in the first place, next thing I know my legs are asleep and I'm not sure whether I've done the deed or not.
I can't be the only person with this issue. Otherwise there wouldn't be so much good stuff written on public bathroom walls. A considerate fellow used to leave the Wall Street Journal on the back of the toilet each day at my last job. The Journal is the caviar of crapper reading material by the way.
I've often wondered about other people's strange bathroom habits; like people who look at dirty magazines while in the restroom. My friends dad always left porno mags under the bathroom sink. I was confused though, do people actually bop the baloney while sitting on the toilet? That seems like it would be awfully confusing. Maybe people get into scatological sex from associating toilet habits with sexual gratification. That would be a good thesis paper...
Another thing I don't understand is people who eat while shitting. To me that is about the grossest thing imaginable. I used to work with one computer programmer that liked to eat chili while taking a dump. I didn't feel so bad about reading on the toilet after I saw Mark take a chili cheese coney into the gimp stall.
Maybe you women can help me out, I used to clean bathrooms in an office building and I noticed that many women's facilities have a nice leather couch placed along one wall. Why don't guys get one? Why would anyone want to lounge around in an area filled with noxious smells and obnoxious sounds? Is this one of those secret female things we aren't supposed to know about?
Maybe I think about this stuff too much.
posted by Bill Rowland @ January 04, 2007
26 Comments
26 Comments:
hi Hammer!
I got into grad school... well, I need to actually apply, but it looks good, and so i am a student again!!
I too, have ALWAYS had the habit of reading on the can. yep toothpaste, shampoo, the usual suspects. My best friend keeps his gun mags in the bathroom, my old roomate in NY used to keep OUTLAW BIKER magazine in there... that's good stuff, on par with TWSJournal, which is great reading BTW, I agree.
Nowadays, whenever I have to, as my friend who called last night calls it: "drop ass" (in addition to therapy, she also comes to my house SPECIFICALLY to take a shit. SHe says that it is soothing here, relaxes her... (shudder) But whenever, I have to "go" I always grab for the ONION (ever read the ONION?) it originated here, so is a local favorite.
Anyway, I feel you on the need to read. And as for the leather lounge chair... well, that has to do with "EL PERIODOSO" the cramps can sometimes be pretty bad. Also pregnant chicks sometimes need a place to sit down and breathe due to nausea. Some Moms use the lounge to change a baby... but ususally it is just there as a throwback from the 50's where women were expected to be subject to fits of histronics, and so therefore needing a lounge in private to throw hissy fits on.
hope that helps.
and PS
women do not usually shit in public,(what with all the eating disorders and all) so the fumes are not that bad
a couch in the bathroom I haven't the faintest idea and i'm all woman....that's it a fainting couch maybe ....a place to make their children sit and behave while they get their business done...a way to relax befoe they say yes to go home with for the night....OMG I just don't know
I have Science magazines and usually the articles are short enough for me not to have my legs fall asleep.. If I have a book with me.. My legs won't work and it will be sometime before I am out of there.
"Bop the baloney" Hammer that is to dang funny.You had me laughing out loud.
Well I've always been a gitter done and move on type of person...and that carries over to my potty habits too. I do however have to have the tp roll on the proper way, with the flap coming over the top and towards me. Oh and I have to fold it a certain way before I use it. Other than that I have no hang ups at all.
The couch I have no idea, I've seen them in there but have never used them.
Four days into the new year, and I've already added "do a bombing run over Tokyo bay" to the list. I keep stuff to read in the bathroom, and I find myself reading whatever is available in other's people's bathrooms... which often is shampoo bottles and cold medications.
Yes, the little couches in women's restrooms are called "fainting couches". It dates back to the Victorian era, when there were whole "fainting rooms". It was a room where the women could go when they claimed to be "feeling faint", which was probably just a socially acceptable way of saying, "I'm tired of standing here and looking pretty, so me and the other girls are gonna go bitch about you behind your back for a while." All the fainting couches I've ever seen were in a small room that comes before the actual bathroom. I guess the fainting room shrunk in size and got tacked on to the bathroom at some point. They're mostly kept out of tradition now, but I've been told going to the restroom really did used to be a whole thing where the women gossiped, touched up makeup, and were able to relax from being ladylike for a few minutes. I dunno... I just shit and leave. There's nothing worth sticking around to read.
I don't usually have time to read because when I gotta go, I gotta go now and then it's over. But my husband and boys set up camp. We always have reading material - generally some sort of comic stuff. I might get one panel read if I hang around long enough.
I don't generally go #2 in public because I don't like to sit on public seats & it's hard to squat and produce. I also don't like to produce sounds and smells so others can tell what I'm doing other than a socially acceptable tinkle.
As for couches in "rest" rooms - these are usually in a separate area from sinks and stalls. I know they were often put in dept stores so ladies could rest their feet for a while and then shop some more (women used to "dress" to shop and would wear high heels). They also allow for women to comfortably feed babies. I don't see them very often now. I haven't a clue why they'd be in an office bldg unless it's a hangover from the days when.
I'm a "get in get out" gal myself. Unless there's someone else in another stall. It's a woman thing. You can't finish the process if someone else has already staked their claim and are there. It's just not doable. They might hear it! OMG! Regardless, it's a real shit twister if you really have to go.
I'm not in long enough to read, but my hub used to take a coffee pot with him...
The couch thing I haven't seen. I wouldn't mind one at work. I'd just nap for an hour or two.
Catalogs. Lots of things that come each day that I don't want to spend real time looking at. Crapper time is perfect. Coolest one is the Garrett Wade tool catalog. They've got too much cool shit. You get lost in that thing and forget why yer there. As you said. As far as eating chili on the can, that's just gross. Icky.
Maybe the couch is for those times when a group of women go to the can together. A place to sit and discuss which guy is gonna get lucky. I was a guard at a country club in the 80s in Ft. Worth, and the women's restroom was laid out like one of those barby doll apartments. Lots of individual make-up stalls and couches and stuff. The mens "lounge" also had couches and a coffee table, but only two sinks in front of the mirror. They also had a shoe shine guy and a huge painting of a "native" girl with one boob hanging out. Sultry.
Infinitsmal: drop ass lol. Yeah the onion is great. I need to get that for my loo library.
paris: I never thought about the kid thing. good idea.
quinten: Yeah I love science magazines. Not many left out there besides popular science, discover and scientific american. Maybe I need to expand.
tall cool drink of water: Yeah I always liked that one.
mrsjosegoldbloom: I like the paper the right way too.
Phoenix: Fainting couches..I didn't know they moved them to the bathroom. Yep I'm glad the gossip and social bathroom jaunts went away for the most part. that's what sucked about double dating.
jeannie: Set up camp..squat and produce you crack me up. "rest rooms" holy crap! it was in front of my face the whole time!
kim: Coffee pot lol! I hear you about staking the claim, It's gawd awful if someone is doing the brown niagra falls next to you while moaning.
BTW I can't see your profile. I usually add links and visit people pages if they have em. drop me a line if you have a link to your stuff.
fathairybastard: I like the cheaper than dirt catalog and the cabelas. Good stuff. I don't like bathroom attendent, I can get my own towel, soap and flush thank you.
May I suggest the Quran as excellent reading, it will probably relieve you of any blockages and you can always wipe your ass with the pages you've already read.
My brother is a 90 minute shitter. He read an entire book in one shit once. Had a guy at wiork who ate his lunch in the foulest filthiest bugger-walled smoke pit stall there was. Would walk in with a sandwich and a bottle of coke and fart shit and chew. Nasty.
Weekly Science News, Scientific American, sometimes a TigerDirect catalog.. but usually just the Science stuff..
I actually found a link to Bathroom Surveys.
http://www.bathroomsurvey.com
I'm with Phoenix - get in, get out. I've got chores!
Did you see my response to your Blackeyed Pea comment?
"Whomever cooked those peas did not rinse them well - they used the dried blackeyes and they must be rinsed well in a colander, like pintos. This recipe calls for the canned peas so no dirt. Damn, guess you got your fiber that day! Sandblasting the toilet!?"
Like Jeannie, my boys set up camp in the bathroom. I figured since you can only read the shampoo bottle so many times, I started buying Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, which I discovered when my work has their yearly Book Fair.
We now own four copies and I should update soon. I'm pretty sure my boys have read the books cover-to-cover!
lexcen: I would have to use it all in one sitting.
jp: I was sure that I couldn't have been the only one who knew a stall eater.
nomas: ack I'm never eating at their house again. oh well live and learn.
quinten: thanks for the survery. I'll check out weekly science news.
kateykakes: oooh cool more bathroom reading fodder. Off to amazon! thanks.
The Uncle John's books are great because the material is listed by length. You decide what to read based on how long you'll be in there. I believe I've seen similar books from the editor's of MAD Magazine.
As a child growing up, I thought EVERYONE kept 3 or 4 months worth of Reader's Digest on the back tank of the commode.
Dad could spend 1/2 a day in there with them - and the laughter was somewhat disconcerting.
I'm with Jeanie. I don't have time to read in the bathroom. I just go and am done with it.
As for the couch, I don't know. It does come in handy when I get a run in my hose and have to put some fingernail polish on it. We have a nice one at school. It is also in a seperate room and I see a lot of girls napping on it between classes. And it normally doesn't stink in the lady's room.
My big debate is why do men drop their pants to the floor. Most women don't. Does it help or something?
Phoenix: Why didn't I invent that?
Hell I need to start a careeer in potty journalism.
Sewmouse: Readers digest is perfect for the bathroom. Laughing is a new one on me. That would be disconcerting...especially with the echo.
carrie: I don't let my pants hit the florr in public bathrooms thats for dang sure. I did work with a guy who took his pants odd completely and hung them on the hook on the back of the stall door.
He took his shoes off too. First time I was in the stall next to him and I saw his black socks and hairy calves under the stall I about lost it.
my sister went to china on her honeymoon recently and she told me that they had no toilet pedestals there only holes in the ground albeit tiled ones and one would have to squatt as is the norm there.. During her 4 week tour she said she didnt take a shit until the hit post colonial hong kong and that was halfway through the honeymoon.
These days being a mom to a 2 and 3 year old working a 40 hour week also, the only reading time I have in the toilet is the far side or calvin and hobbes..
BTW belated new years to you and all at chez Hammer
Judith: happy new year to you too.
Yeah I've seen those toliets. I would proably fall over if I tried to squat over one of those things.
calvin and hobbes is one of my favorites. You would probably like the fox trot books too.
Ha. Two days ago I would not have had a clue. But last night I was at a huge client party and visited the ladies' at 2-ish am and there were 5 girls sitting in there chatting about the creeps out there trying to grab their asses. Mind you, it was school disco theme party and we were all dressed like Britney Spears in 'Baby hit me one more time'. Can't blame a bloke for trying under such circumstances.
Geez, Hammer, my bathroom feels lonely since all it has is a window for fresh air, and no reading material in sight !!!
Maybe this is the only private, quiet time you have.... after all, kids and 'honey can you fix ?' do tend to keep you otherwsie busy...
Anne
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