A Pretty Penny...

In honor of Holiday Travel, this post is dedicated to that supremely annoying, no-frills Euro airline, Ryanair. Because if all goes according to their plan, soon one of the "frills" they won't have is a toilet on the airplane that you don't have to pay for. That's right. Ryanair is hoping to charge £1 or 1 Euro for passengers to use the washroom. That's because they want to knock out the two restrooms in the back to make room for either more seats or for "standing room only" areas on commuter flights.

If they even happen, these changes would not take place until 2012 at the earliest, according to a Guardian article this past July. First, of course, the company has to pass some pretty high safety standards - but that's all having to do with the standing room issue. No one seems to be investigating the "safety" of having but one on-board restroom for an entire plane full of people with nowhere else to go (so to speak), and on top of that, charging for them to use it.

According to Ryanair, the goal is to discourage passengers from using the toilet at all. They are expecting people to use the restrooms at the airport before and after, and therefore not on the plane itself. I suppose that, flying around Europe, that is almost a reasonable request. Your flights aren't going to be more than a couple of hours long. But I can tell you that, as a person with not the hugest bladder in the world, using the loo right before I get on the plane does not guarantee that I won't have to an hour or even a half hour later. Sorry guys! Which leads me to believe that the people inventing this crazy system are all men, with enormous bladders, who believe that women who can't "hold it" are somehow weak or incapacitated. Yeah, and some of those women might even be pregnant. Great. So now you want to charge us for having a slightly different organic set-up than you, and then tell us it's our fault. No thanks, Ryanair!

But it's not only women who object to this policy. Ben Dickson of the Random Perspective has written a clever article on the topic. And there's an entire Facebook page devoted to "Links on 'Don't pay to use a Ryanair toilet - piss in their seats for free.'"

My advice? Don't take Ryanair. At the end of the day, they're not any cheaper than most other airlines - sometimes more expensive. And my experience is that they are just generally obnoxious and a pain in the neck. If you want cheap, pleasant travel from here to there in Europe, fly Easyjet. At least they haven't forgotten that, while people do enjoy saving money, they also don't like to be treated like cattle. Cattle that can somehow hold their bladders indefinitely at will.

{Photo courtesy the Daily Mail}

World Toilet Day

Today is - are you ready? - World Toilet Day! I'm not making this up. It was founded by the World Toilet Organization, which I am also not making up. But this is serious business. (So to speak.)

The text from the WTO page reads:
"World Toilet Day is a global day of action to increase awareness for toilet users' rights and to advocate a better toilet environment. This day is marked by individuals, toilet associations, and other advocacy groups across the world to bring attention to a cause that truly affects everyone on earth."

And if you go to the World Toilet Day Website, they'll give you two reasons we should have it.

#1: Because 2.5 billion people worldwide are without access to proper sanitation, which risks their health, strips their dignity, and kills 1.8 million people, mostly children, a year.

#2: Because even the world's wealthiest people still have
toilet problems - from unhygienic public toilets to sewage disposal
that destroys our waterways.

Get it? #1 and #2? These people are awesome. They even advocate more toilet stalls for women.

Now this is one cause we can really "get behind."

(Image - A WTD Press Conference in Ghana, courtesy of WTO)

Thanks to Agent RC for alerting us!

Restaurant Bathrooms

Blog posts like this one in the San Francisco Chronicle are all about why the Toilet Paper blog got started in the first place. Okay, well, sort of. Maybe it got started because I was blogging about toilet paper in France. Hey, I'm not the only person who noticed that the French like pink toilet paper! (If you click the link and watch the video, skip to minute 1:40, and note that pink TP is at the top of his list)

But before there was French toilet paper, there were many, many experiences in restaurants, bars, etc., both foreign and domestic, and what this Chronicle writer says is true; whether or not the status of the bathroom is an actual indicator of the kitchen's cleanliness, it certainly does say something about the level of respect the restaurant owner has for his or her patrons.

On the other hand, if the wrap stand in a back alley in Germany has awesome doeners and the staff are friendly, I'm happy if they have a bathroom AT ALL. Then again, it being Germany, that bathroom was pretty clean, even if it was a closet. So that's a bad example. But you get the idea. Point made, I guess.

In Full View

What do you do if you're on the first day at your new job, and your new boss walks in on you in the company's one bathroom? Well, if you're lucky like me, you smile, with your pants up, and say, "Hello!" While she makes a hasty retreat. And no one ever mentions the incident again.

Ditto for another job I had recently, where, again on the first day, I managed to walk in on someone else. That was reassuring. Luckily, my eyes saw nothing.

Bathrooms are, traditionally, a place of privacy. At least in my life. It's a good place to retreat for a good cry, to fix your hair, or just some time alone, even for a minute. Then there are the more obvious reasons. The ideal bathroom door has a lock on it, and if not, you really seriously hope that no one will walk in on you.

Then there are those who operate with more of an "open door" policy. I think, cross-generationally, or among family, maybe not such a great idea. But this seems to me acceptable in the right kind of romantic relationship. For example, the Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman interchange in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. (For other movie scenes involving toilets and bathrooms, go here.)


(Image from Dr. Strangelove)

Now it seems hotels - and some homeowners - are responding to the trend of open-door-bathroom-going. While also perhaps looking for new and innovative designs, many up-and-coming, trendy and expensive hotels are now installing see-through bathrooms. Forget the door. The walls are made of glass.


Makes you think, eh? Personally, I like the new designs, but I am not entirely certain I want to see people I love - no matter how much I love them - peeing in full view, with no option of closing a door. Or maybe I'm just not open-minded enough. I need to be paid more money to become that open-minded.