Shitstorm


i work with a lot of engineers, programmers and other such folk. which means that the majority of the people i work with are male.
this isn't about sexism, this is reality. engineers tend to be male.

therefore, i can lay all the blame on them when i say they are fucking gross when it comes to bathroom hygiene.

the men's bathroom here is so nasty.


they flush the toilet about a third of the time, and yes, this includes both the urinals (which are rarely flushed) to even the actual stalls. it's a regular occurrence to find remnants of another humans big piles of shit still sitting in the toilet. apparently, they just can't be bothered with flushing the toilet. maybe they're grossed out by touching the flush handle?

that excuse is somewhat forgiveable when talking of the urinals.

still, i fucking hate viewing and smelling the rancid stench of multiple pisstakes all sitting in the botttom of the urinal.

gross is hardly the only word that comes to mind but it'll do.

but with stalls, man, you gotta flush. use the bottom of your shoe.

you know? christ. puto.

i mean, once in a while is cool but this is a regular occurrence, the finding of piss and shit still sitting in the toilet for the lucky next customer.


this is the same bathroom that has the following amenities:
the ability to run out of toilet paper fairly often. these programmers eat a lot of shitty food while staring at their computers for 18 hours a day. hence, they take a lot of dumps.

so apparently the custodial staff can't keep up with the shitstorm. i can think of few things worse than NOT noticing there's not a single square of toilet paper until after the defecation sequence is completed, awaiting clean-up on the center aisle.

but it has happened. i won't go into the graphic details but it's not pretty or the least bit funny. ok, it's a little funny afterward.

but come on, keep the toilet paper spooled, mother fuckers.


Another problem is that the floor bathroom contains just two stalls, a regular closed-in kind and a deluxe extra-large and in charge suite-like stall located near the windows. while ridding yourself of yesterday's unessential broken down solids, one can gaze out the window as the fog envelops Sutro Tower, or across the street, nearly eye-level with the construction workers as they continue working and building the latest set of condominiums. ah, the lovely growth of san francisco. but we'll save that rumination for another tale.

for the longest time, most of the windows (there are several) weren't smoked or covered in the slightest, giving anyone working in the building across the street a good view of your shit-laden ass or at least, can see that you're sitting down enjoying a good dump while reading the newspaper and cleaning your glasses.

even better, because of where the building sits, the late afternoon beams brightly through. this means that if one is sitting the adjacent shit-stall, one can easily see the shadow of the person in the next stall as they primp, poop and ponder on the throne. seriously strange. i thought of this a few weeks ago, as i sat on the deluxe stall, noticing that my shadow was located directly on the floor of the stall next to me.

so recently, when i was denied the deluxe stall and settled for the shit-stall, i could see the outline of the dude next to me doing all the fun things you never want anyone to see.

yes, bathrooms are fun.


btw, what's up with the toilet paper in public restrooms and its inability to roll off effortlessly from the roll? Instead, you�re given a couple squares at a time, which does NOT do you or anyone else any favors. sure, i can understand how one might want to save on toilet paper�and therein, could solve the toilet paper shortage problem at our facility, but when you're sitting there, the day after you consumed lots of PBR and two big Taquiera meals, you need as much paper as possible. and that can be trouble, my friend. Yanking two or three squares at a time just does not work. You need a big wad to really do a decent job, at least for the first few go-rounds.
And i'm not a folder, but a wadder anyway, so i use more than necessary to ensure cleanliness as much as can be done.
Blame my mother for teaching me to be a wadder. amazing how something like that can have such a longterm effect on one's habits.

seriously.

all of this reminds me of why i have opted to move my shitstorm to the bathroom downstairs, the much more spacious, much less used, 2nd floor men's bathroom. Being that this is a very difficult subject, i've yet to tell anyone about all the nice bathroom and all the cool shit.
Because�it's all about shit, the act of shitting, excreting and related tomfoolery, necessary for us humans to push on and move forward.

Now, in new surroundings, i can relax, bring along a good magazine or newspaper and kick back, knowing i have much less to fear and more stalls to choose from (i usually use the same stall, because it's safely ensconced between the large and in charge handicapped stall -- of which i feel guilty using on a regular basis in the event a wheelchair bound person would roll in, needing the stall for an emergency, and i'm in there, midway through my 20-minute read). And it's always a cleaner environment. Smells nice too. Well, relatively speaking.


There is only one downside: the timer light.

I've been unlucky to be caught with my pants down, reading an amazing story, only to find the lights turned off on me, without having finished my necessary toilet paper cleaning.

I find it's much harder to do the wiping in the dark. i mean, of course i can do it � it�s not like i can actually see my ass while wiping anyway � but you need that light for comfort purposes. Plus you can assess when you're wiping has been completed.

Which is even more important.


You know, all this bathroom talk reminds me of some recent toilet interaction � two toilets i recently encountered that confounded me.

first the men's bathroom at the luna lounge on 8th and folsom (formerly Border Cantina). You walk in to the bathroom and to your left are two somewhat private urinals to use, somewhat blocked by a wall. no problem.

but directly in front of you, as you first walk in to the bathroom itself, sits one lonely toilet bowl. No walls. Just a toilet. So i feel extra sorry for the person who needs it for an emergency because, not only would you be shitting in front of anyone that wanders in (not to mention the toilet sits awfully close to the sink - yucko), but anyone who opens the damn door would be greeted by a friendly soul grunting away on the can.
not much in the way of privacy. basically, i think they were forced by law to include an actual toilet so they put it in the worst place possible.


the kind folks at Slim's have taken a somewhat different approach to this problem. the upstairs men's bathroom has two or three standard urinals to the right as you walk in, the sink directly in front of you. from the doorway, the upper right corner of the bathroom has the toilet bowl sitting in the corner, protected by something that�s not quite a shower curtain but hangs from a series of hooks in the ceiling and is moveable. the toilet still sits fairly close to the sink but the half-circle curtain is able to at least protect the potential shitter from people seeing him...and nobody from the outside could accidentally get a viewing, unlike luna lounge.

but still, the buffer zone is quite slight. if you're feeling especially stinky, you're not going to be able to slow the stench. not that you can really do that in normal bathroom stalls either. but you at least FEEL like it provides an extra bit of buffer zone action.