Aeroport Toilets Genovese

Our brand-spanking-new Agent MMR has done some excellent reconnaissance work (unawares at the time) in the Geneva International Airport, when he was there in August of 2009. He was so impressed with the urinals in the men's room that he took a photo. "Unlike the toilet sequence from Trainspotting ('The worst toilets in Scotland'), these were clean, sanitized low flow urinals at Aeroport Internacional de Geneve," he writes.

I really like how there is one placed at a lower height. I guess for the kids and/or shorter individuals. But I'm wondering what are the horizontal bars on the tiles above each unit? Are they flush bars? Or do they somehow serve the function of getting you to stand closer, thereby improving your "aim"? Somewhat like the fly painted in the inside of the urinal, perhaps? That's pure conjecture on my part...

"Note that it was actually at the Amsterdam aeroport where the sanitary seat cover was a mechanized sleeve that spun around the toilet seat itself, relieving you of the somewhat tedious task of placing one over the lid yourself while [dancing anxiously] and then forgetting to knock out the center."

Now, unfortunately, there is no picture of the mechanized arms for seat covers, but that's something we'd really like to see!

{Photo: Agent MMR}

Sink it to me, Baby

Leave it to a Japanese designer to come up with a sink/urinal combo apparatus that atually looks attractive. AND it saves space. We already have a toilet+sink combo for the average tiny-sized bathroom. Now we have something for space-challenged public men's rooms, so they hopefully don't end up with something like this.

Here's how it works:


Relieve yourself in the lower portion, then, without even having to walk across the room, wash your hands in the upper bit, and the water from hand-washing clears away the remaining liquid waste. Pretty good, right? It's logical AND ecological.

Only thing I'm wondering about is, why the glass-bottomed sink? Is there really a need to see through to what you're doing? Don't most guys look around and try to at least act distracted while they're at the urinal, for fear of accidentally looking where they shouldn't, while they do their best not to talk to anyone? Guys, you can help me out here. My urinal etiquette is pretty limited. On the other hand, you might have the issue of "aim," so from that angle, it could be useful. Or else the designer, Mr. Yeongwoo Kim, just thought it looked good in glass.

Now if you really like glass bathrooms, you should check out some of these designs.

{Thanks to Agent B for this week's topic. Images courtesy of Geekologie}

Modern Vomitorium

Here is the latest toilet post from the FAIL Blog, via Agent B, which stands for "Barfolomew" today.

As a urinal, this contraption is clearly FAIL. Either you'd have to have exceedingly long legs and a rather short torso, or you'd have to be a midget given to action spy adventure activity and prefer to take a whiz while grabbing onto handle bars with your feet half-way up the wall. Somehow I just don't see those two things requiring an entirely separate and otherwise useless device in a public restroom.

However, if this is indeed not a urinal but the modern equivalent of a vomitorium, then it is not an epic FAIL but an epic SUCCESS! Because it requires not that you get your face near some nasty toilet bowl, nor do you have to spew chunks down the sink, where it stops up the drain, and that is just nasty.

But what I'm wondering is, where would a bathroom have to be to require such a device, dedicated solely to the issuing of material from the front end, not the back end? A bar? A sports arena? A hospital? An office building? This place looks like a hotel. And even though I see handles on the wall, I don't see anything with which to hold back your hair. But I guess that's what friends are for...

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.