Pitt Stop

The TP Blog is a big fan of when toilets make it into high-profile national media. So here we have Brad Pitt featured at the urinal in Wired Magazine's cover story on modern etiquette. The story - and image - were then picked up by NPR's Digital Culture section. I think this just goes to show how important the bathroom scene is to us, especially when it comes to rules of etiquette.

What I find perplexing in this photo is not Brad on his Blackberry, but that dude in the plaid suit next to him. What exactly is he doing? Futzing with the zipper? Shakin' off the tree? Who knows. But how embarrassing, for him. Maybe Brad was just checking his text messages so he wouldn't have to look and see what that guy was doing, since, obviously, someone was performing bad etiquette when they took the urinal next to the other guy. So much a no-no that it's the ICBE's logo.


{The International Center for Bathroom Etiquette}

There's a lot of other stuff in the Wired article, not just celebrities on toilets. For example it IS acceptable to text message someone while having a conversation. It is? I guess so. I've done it. But I always excuse myself when I do, because I know I'm not giving full attention to the other person so I feel it's slightly rude. Hey, maybe rude is the new black of polite society. I guess that makes me old fashioned.

But even though we now have photographic suggestive evidence that Brad does, indeed, relieve himself every once in a while, everyone knows female celebrities do not. For example, there was the famous Ashton Kutcher/Demi debate a while ago, wherein they had an online Twitter exchange about how to hang the toilet paper roll. About that same time, Ashton Tweeted once that his wife was about to go pee. Demi promptly corrected him and forced him to recant, subsequently stating that she neither pooped, farted, nor peed. Ever. And there you have it. Boys can pee. Girls, well, you'll never know. We gotta keep some of the mystery.

Update

This just in! Apparently Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore were recently involved in a Twitter debate about the "right" way to hang toilet paper. This sparked a big debate across the Twitter world about same, as well as many comments on the banal lives of celebrities.

Demi clearly comes down on the top-rolling stance, saying: "There is a "right way" to install toilet paper. Rolling off the bottom is NOT it." This is quoted very often, and not just by me.

My guess is, she would have her vote on the Great American Toilet Paper debate. I did not make this up. But you can get your own voting kit for 5 bucks! Support the cause of toilet paper!

~~~

P.S. I got a weird, voyeuristic feeling, combined with the sense of getting too much information and at the same time getting none at all by scrolling through Mrs. Kutcher's posts. She used an old photo of herself from some rather young age with big 70's glasses. I guess to be anonymous. Ashton Kutcher was surprisingly not clueless and actually somewhat interesting to read. Who would have known?