Lavatories Of The World (cont.)
Tim from Australia
The hospitality industry is simply a font of hilarious toilet stories, and eventually I hope to share several, but here's my favourite of the moment... (A mate of mine used to work at the Hyatt in Adelaide South Australia, and he recently told me this one.) The night club section of this particular hotel employed a bouncer by the name of Junior. Junior was a very hefty Maori bloke of about 5'9", and built like a bulldozer. Long hair in a bun, face tattoos, the whole deal. A pretty intimidating fella. But Junior wasn't particularly violent - some say it was because he knew he could easily kill someone without trying. So instead of punching unwanted punters, Junior was in the habit of slapping them across the face. By all accounts it worked just fine. One night, while on duty, Junior felt the need to snap off a cable (take a dump if you like), so he entered the Gents', squeezed into a cubicle, dropped his strides and proceeded to do his business. Shortly, two drunks entered the toilets and went to the urinals. One drunk says to the other "Hey, I bet you I can piss over the top of that cubicle..." Unfortunately he won his bet. Before he could even put his tackle back in his pants he sees a very large, very unimpressed Maori wearing a black suit emerge from the cubicle, one side of his suit drenched in piss. Well, the drinkers at the bar heard the commotion that came from inside the toilet, and their suspicions were heightened when the less ambitious of the two drunks ran screaming from the toilets. About 30 seconds later Junior emerged, frog-marching the offender before him. The drunk was sporting a deep purple hand-print across one side of his face - every finger was clearly defined - and his head and shoulders were dripping wet and covered in shit. Junior in all his rage had decided that before forcibly expelling the said drunk from the establishment, it might be amusing to hold his head in the bowl still containing Junior's deposits, and flush it a few times.
Beth George from America
Ah, Oakland, California; strange toilet capital of the world. Once there was a place called Jack London Village. What better way to keep alive the memory of this intrepid adventurer and writer than with a bunch of twee little shops? But it also held the Fat Belly Deli, a wonderful place for a healthful yet tasty lunch, including iced tea like nectar of the gods. This iced tea is the very thing that sent my friend Shannon and I up and down various flights of oh-so-rustic wooden stairs, until we found the ladies room. It was unremarkable. Not sparkling clean, but not dirty. The colour wasn’t memorable. There were sinks, plenty of paper towels. A fine, barely-above-average public toilet. There were 3 doors, 2 of which had feet under them. The empty one seemed to be to a stall that was three times as long as the others. Shannon and I did a few seconds of “No, go ahead,” “No, after you,” “No-no, please, I insist,”s all while doing a little potty dance. So I ran to the remaining stall, sat myself down and looked at another toilet across the way. “Ummm, Shannon? Do you really need to go badly?” “Yeah, hurry!” I reached out and executed and odd set of maneuvers to open the door a crack, beckon Shannon while not letting it open too very much more, managing to still keep myself situated in such a way that about 2 gallons of not-much-worse-for-the-wear former iced tea was still aimed into the toilet rather than on my feet. Shannon, bewildered, edged through the crack in the door and locked it for me. She looked where I pointed, and sprinted to my toilet’s twin. I am still not sure what sort of odd bonding the architect had in mind. But we giggled hysterically the entire time. The other ladies finished approximately when we did, and GLARED at us as we waited to wash our hands. Sorry, must’ve missed the “No giggling allowed” signs.
Kirsty R from Australia (Has anyone else noticed the high proportion of lavatories incidents coming from Australia? Mmmm... - Mil.)
I was in a situation somewhat like a school camp in Bathurst, outside Sydney in Australia. We were staying at a university residence, where we had single rooms but shared bathrooms and toilets. One particular night, just after curfew when everyone was around and no one was in their room, I realised I needed to empty my bladder. I made my way to the dunny (toilet) and did just that. The problem began when I stood and pulled up my pants and heard a loud thud. Fearing the worst, I turned to see my mobile phone swimming in my piss. A loud noise came out of my mouth and the majority of the 30 girls in my building came running to see what had happened. After reaching in, then flushing, I opened the cubicle door, holding my dripping hand behind me to see 30 girls asking what had happened? I tried to fob them off but couldn't handle the wet hand anymore. I wrenched the door open all the way, threw my phone in the sink, turned the tap on as hard as it would go and started scrubbing my hand pleading for someone to get me some disinfectant or soap. As for the phone, after being pulled apart and held under the gushing tap, I dried it out, charged it and it worked fine. In fact I still have it. At least now no one ever asks to use it.
Ross March. Current whereabouts unknown.
I was travelling in Saudi Arabia (with work) and was visiting the offices of a major chemical manufacturer in Riyadh. I had visited the Middle East before, but not travelled in the Kingdom, they are very fond of the 'footer' or squatting toilet which normally so horrifies the right thinking Englishman abroad. They also tend to have a hose for your after ablutions, rather than paper to wipe with. During my visit it become necessary for me to take a pee. So I was directed to the toilets, things immediately looked unfamiliar, all of the cubicles were footers and none had a door, however as I only need 'number ones' I wasn't too worried. Anyway, I spot a large concrete trough along the floor of one wall, with a couple of hose pipes at either end. I assume this to be the (admittedly bigger than you might reasonably expect) urinal, and approached confidently whilst unzipping my fly in one seamless practiced motion, only to suddenly turn on my heel and whistle casually as I desperately pretend to be interested in a picture above the trough, and not look as though I was about to take a whizz in the foot cleaning trough that a berobed Arab gentleman had just started to soak his feet in.
Iana Kostina from California
Being Russian, my mother
regularly sends me off to Russia "to broaden my horizons". Now, my favourite
place in Moscow happens to be the Red Square, and I'll relate my experience
with the set of W.C.s mentioned once before. My mother, being a weak soul with
a weak bladder, sent me off to find a W.C. It took me a while to figure out
where they were, because, to my surprise, a nice gentleman pointed out that
they were BELOW ground level. Well, it's the Red Square, I was expecting all
normal American W.C. elements to be present. I brought my mother, and after
we walked down two flights of stairs(!) we reached something that looked amazing.
All the walls were out of white marble, there were hand dryers of some ultra-advanced
technology, and sinks with expensive soap and dispensable cloth terry towels.
The stall doors were of nice heavy wood, with doorknobs that were better than
the ones that protect our house from unwanted guests. It was BEAUTIFUL, absolutely,
spotlessly clean. Now that was all well and good, except THERE WERE NO TOILETS.
The waste disposal system was a HOLE IN THE FLOOR. There weren't even any foot
grooves. Just a smelly hole. I still don't get it.
Another (horrifying) experience: I was on a tour of Saint Petersburg, on some
island with a monastery of some sort. Now, as you probably are aware, Russian
public W.C.s require a "donation". So kindly enough the tour guide, a chatty
woman with a nice smile, told us that there was a free W.C. just around the
corner. Why, how thoughtful... Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw
around that damned corner. There was a door (well, just a doorway actually)
beyond which was pitch darkness, and from this darkened void reeked forth the
most repulsive smell known to humanity. Flies issued forth in little storms.
Coming closer (holding napkin over mouth) I noted how completely the floor was
covered in some sort of muck which fails description. To my surprise, most of
the tour group proceeded in and disappeared in the darkness. I still have no
idea how they could see anything, I mean it was completely dark. A couple of
seconds' later agonizing screams wailed up from the darkness, and a number of
women ran out crying. Apparently there were some rats that were unusually large.
Everyone was a bit bitter towards the tour guide, as one might expect.
And one last one: This one happened at the private school which I used to attend.
We have, of course, a W.C., which happens to be lockable. A friend of mine,
we'll call her Tina, had just gone through an agonizing test which she was sure
she had failed. Being very grade-conscious, she broke down in tears and disappeared
for all of lunch. We were wondering were she was, because next period she was
still missing. Nobody told the instructor, because if there were any cuts, she
might face expulsion. Well, after school we went to look for her, and going
past the doors of the W.C., we heard muffled screams and pounding on the door.
Our wonderful janitor had locked her in. Half of our group went to look for
the janitor, and came back to say that he had already left. We had to get the
principle, lie our way through a multitude of questions, and comfort Tina, who
never goes near that door now. Well, there's my two cents worth... Had to get
it out of my system, no one here wants to listen to my colourful adventures.
Dave from Connecticut
I'm a student at Quinnipiac
University in Hamden, Connecticut, USA. The campus is absolutely lovely, and
the dorm I live in is modern and quite comfortable. (Quinnipiac! Quinnipiac!
Go! Go! Go! - Mil.) The guys' bathroom on my floor, however, is quite the
sore thumb. It sports six each of shower stalls, toilet stalls, and sinks, and
is used by 100 guys (I could almost end this description now. "This bathroom
is used by 100 college guys. Let your imagination fill in the details"). The
toilets are of the high-pressure variety (instead of a toilet tank, a high pressure
water line supplies the necessary flushing water). The VERY HIGH-PRESSURE variety.
Upon flushing, water rockets into the bowl and more often then not sends a spray
droplets several feet into the air (literally), taking urine with it. The stall
walls, and more disturbingly the seats, are often covered with drops of toilet
water and piss. Unfortunately, I learned all this the hard way on my first trip
to these facilities, when after finishing my business, I innocently leaned over
the toilet to flush it, and was rewarded with a face full of God-only-knew what.
Of course these toilets lack lids, so there is no blocking it. When using one
of these toilets, it's advised that one pulls up their pants, gets the door
open, prepares to run, THEN flushes. Furthermore, the toilet paper is about
the cheapest and lowest quality stuff I've ever seen. It quite literally tears
under the force necessary to unroll a length of it. As there does not seem to
be a trick to getting to reliably unroll in one piece, I often find myself using
small, insufficient wadded up balls of shredded toilet paper. I will not go
on with that. Add to this the fact that there is almost NO ventilation of any
kind. This bathroom reeks almost ALL the time, either from repeated use/misuse/abuse,
or from the bleach that the cleaning ladies use (God bless them; they have to
clean up all manner of appalling messes).
Sometimes I find I miss my bathroom at home more than I miss my family.
Jimmi. Current whereabouts unknown.
On our recent holiday to France, We stayed on several campsites. In every shower block on each site, 3ft above the floor on the cubicle wall (both shower and toilet) was a hole about the size of your little finger carefully positioned, so that if you put your eye up to the hole, you could see the whole of the cubicle next door. My solution to this was filling it with toothpaste!
'A Kevin' from England
While enjoying some
good ol' jazz cigarettes with friends one evening, the music played and everyone
was happy, so I rolled another, just to hammer the nail in. Rolled and ready
to go, I decided to take a piss. "Don't drop that in the toilet," said a wise
friend. "Ha ha ho ho, don' t be stupid said I"... and thought about it as did
my thing, and started laughing at the thought, laughed a little harder, and
the joint rolled out of my mouth, into the pan of warm piss. Derision ensued.
I let it dry out and smoked it.
Max Bessey from America
On a plane trip from Maine to Florida, I happened to have to go to the bathroom. There were four in the back of the coach compartment, and all but one had the occupied sign up. Logically, I went for the one unoccupied bathroom. Upon opening the door, I was assaulted by a small, elderly, maybe Russian? woman who had previously been on the toilet, and who had apparently forgotten to lock the door. In my state of shock, I was frozen long enough for her to whale me with her purse a few times before I slammed the door and ran back to my seat. I held it for the rest of the flight. (I include this as I'm unstoppably drawn to the thought the 'small, elderly, Russian woman' was Iana Kostina's mom - Mil.)
Jennifer from Canada
It was Christmas, and I was about 10 years old, and my family and I were staying at my grandparents' lovely house in rural Quebec. On Boxing Day, a HUGE snowstorm hit, closing all the highways and major roads. This prevented us from travelling home, so we were stuck at my grandparents', which normally wouldn't be so bad, (you know, Grandma keeps giving us junk food, it's all good fun). This storm, however, also knocked down all the power lines, so we were without electricity. Uuughh. This is where it gets interesting. Because this is a rural town in the middle of nowhere, there is no municipal water tank that provides all the houses with water (like most populated places), instead, everyone has an underground electric well attached to their plumbing, extracting and filtering water for use in the house. When the power went out, the electric well stopped working, and the house was without water. Which meant we had no taps to turn on, baths to run, or toilets to flush. Did I mention my mother had the flu? Didn't think so. When each of us needed to go, we went, and didn't flush, but this only works for so long. Things, as you would imagine, start piling up. My Dad began melting buckets of snow in the fireplace, and would throw it into the toilets as he flushed, but did you know a whole bucket of snow, when melted, only ends up being about a teaspoon of water? It took forever to get a good amount of water, so we only flushed when necessary, saving the rest for other necessities of life. This went on for over three days. After that, we finally could drive back home; unwashed, cramped up from holding in three days worth of excrement (we were trying our best not to pollute the house) and with a new appreciation for municipal water supply. You know, the no-toilets no-bathing thing wouldn't have bothered me so much if I could have watched TV to distract me from the pain. Instead, I got the chance to watch my mom throw up.
Jim Champion from England
The pinnacle of my achievement was dropping a log at what must be Europe's highest toilet at the Aiguille du Midi (tourist place at the top of the cable-car run up Mont Blanc). I sent an email to a friend back home informing him of my victory in the altitude-crapping contest, and, just to make sure, I had a `sit down' at the Jungfraujoch mountain-top visitor centre a few weeks later. Sadly I was outdone by my friend, who made sure he took a dump at a much greater altitude, on a plane on the way to Greece. It seems that I will have to become an astronaut to outdo him.
Greg Kiely from America
During my second year in college, one of my roommates decided that he wanted to see how long it would take him to drink 30 beers. A few hours later (and it wasn't more than 4 hours...I swear), we put my highly intoxicated roommate to bed, and went out for a while. Upon arriving home for the evening, I walked into my kitchen to grab a beer, and there is my roommate. I was a bit surprised, as the only clothing he was wearing was a tee shirt (pants, socks, underwear...nowhere to be found). More disturbing though, was the fact that he was sitting in the kitchen sink, taking a shit. We closed off the kitchen, and left it there for him to clean up the next morning. Thank God nobody can drink that much Bud Light and still be able to shit solid afterwards.
Cyndi from America
My husband (a genius and scientist) and I visited Puerto Rico in 1999, and while on the beach, Dennis had to go wee-wee and went over to the men's room, a brick enclosure without a roof, 2 stalls and a silver-coloured metal trough in the centre of the room. As my husband was in the middle of a long and satisfying pee in the trough/urinal, a Puerto Rican man walked into the bathroom and saw my husband, made a shocked face, and turned around and walked right out. My husband will tell you that the Puerto Rican was so surprised at the magnificence of my husband's penis, that he was terrified and ashamed of his own pitiful urinating equipment, and hastily retreated to cry. The truth is, however, that the silver trough in the centre of the bathroom was not a urinal, but the sink.
Tim from Australia
When I was working as a barman, the final thing we would do after locking the doors at the end of the night was do a sweep of the place to make sure there was nobody hiding in booths, under tables, in toilets etc., etc. One night the head of security entered the Ladies' Toilets to make sure there was no-one hiding in there, and we heard him yell very loudly. We rushed in to see what was wrong and we saw an entire cubicle smeared with shit, and the mirror above the sinks was similarly covered. What made it worse was the fingerprints in the mess. She had used her hands to do it.
From Kate in Australia
We have these toilets we refer to as "space toilets". Basically the door opens by pushing a button and as soon as you step inside it slams shut on you. This lovely "Musak" starts to play and it sprays scented mist from the wall after you flush. This is all lovely, fine and wonderful - the BIG problem is that it evicts people. After 8 minutes the doors open and you can only close them by standing up and walking over to the door (they are rather spacious) and pressing the button. Of course, there are many not-so-fond memories of people waiting to use the toilet and seeing things that are best left to the imagination. But, my fondest memory is when twelve 16-18 year olds were all crammed in there smoking some pot. Everything was going fine... we were having a lovely time listening to the music, flushing the toilet to check out the "cool smelly misty stuff". Then we heard a noise (no, not one of those paranoid stoned noises), a sort of banging on the door and voices. Now you must remember we were smoking pot and were stoned out of our minds and freaking. Bang bang bang "We know you have drugs in there... come out now". We all froze... "Shhhhhh. Shhhhh. Shut up" I was hissing. Then we heard a BANG BANG BANG... all this loud thumping. "Open up, this is the Police!" Just then, we heard someone else come out of the toilet next to us and the Police telling them they were under arrest for having drugs. Relief! Then imagine the fright we got when that FRIGGING door opened and there were TWELVE kids all crammed in this toilet, staring wide-eyed and pale-faced at the back of two policemen who had just walked off with the most notorious junkie in our area. We got out of there quick smart and NEVER went back in there to smoke pot again.
From John Klapp. Current whereabouts unknown.
Military survival school. Simulated POW camp. Coffee can with plastic bag for a liner and a cell about 70cm square. Several hours. Young officer deposits a load in the can, and instead of asking the captors for some paper proceeds to use his sock. Needless to say, that was a hilarious debriefing point. Imagine being stuck in a black cell and hearing "Yes, his sock. Yes, will that go down the drain? I don't know. I'll let someone else bring him."
From Micheal B, a Scot.
As a youth I was a member of the Boys Brigade. One of the activities the Boys Brigade encouraged its young member to get involved in was mountain climbing. On one climbing trip we were destined for Loch Ossian to climb Ben Somethingorother. we drove on to Loch Ossian and 'checked in' to the Youth Hostel. The old man who ran this run-down shack advised us that it was unlikely that we would be able to climb 'the Ben' that day because of the awful weather and falling scree(??). He said the we had 2 choices: we could spend the day in front of his roaring fire or attempt the Loch Ossian 'Run'. The inflection in his voice suggested that if we wished to be considered any kind of men at all we would attempt the run. We looked at each other and all but one of our number opted for the fire - Russell said he would take the challenge. Russell was to be paired with a tall, thin, longhaired, bearded, dungaree wearing German called Olaf, whose presence in the Youth Hostel was not really explained. We came to the conclusion that he more or less lived there and spent the greater part of his life running round and round Loch Ossian (and in the toilet - more of which soon). As the budding runners prepared themselves, we fire huggers prepared some lunch (beans on toast for us - some kind of boiled cabbage for Olaf). I had an 'urgent call' and headed outside to the 'toilet' which we had spotted on out arrival. Not knowing fully what to expect I opened the stable door of this outhouse to find Olaf perched on what appeared to be a large plastic dustbin. I excused myself, and left, but the tortured look on his face will haunt me until this day. I kicked my heels outside admiring the beauty of my surroundings as best I could through the driving rain, gale force wind and freezing fog. After a few minutes Olaf appeared. He merely nodded to me and headed back indoors. The sight that greeted we when I approached the dustbin was a truly remarkable one. This rake of a person had deposited something that a horse would have been proud of... it coiled and coiled and coiled. Now was it all the fresh air I asked myself? Was it the strange cabbage? Was it the Loch Ossian Run? I never did find out.
D. from Chicago
Not really a *toilet* story per se, but it involves someone taking a piss, so I think it might qualify. Anyway, one evening I arrive home from work and REALLY needed to take a crapper (can't remember the reason why it was such an imperative, perhaps/most likely I had been drinking the night before). So, I'm sitting on the toilet doing my business when my wife arrives home. She knocks on the toilet door and asks if I'll be much longer as she really had to pee. I replied that I had just arrived home not two minutes earlier and that I would indeed be some time in the toilet. She went away... silence... the sound of a curtain being drawn in my bedroom... silence... the awful realisation that something terrible and possibly unsanitary is about to happen... silence... the sound of running water in the kitchen sink.... silence... I quickly finished up what I was doing and rushed into the kitchen in time to see her rinsing out one of my collectible Star Wars plastic cups (thank Christ it was the Subulba one and NOT my R2D2 or Darth Maul). Nonetheless, she had taken a leek in one of my collectible cups. She just smiled at me as if it was perfectly normal to piss in my things. I shudder to think what else she may have used in the past. She could have just run up a flight of stairs and asked one of our mates if she could use their toilet, she could have gone in her HUGE Britney Spears plastic cup... but on no, that would have been a logical thought. Logic is a withered and lonely thing in my wife's head. Instead, she gets a chair, climbs up onto it, grabs Subulba, draws the curtains, squats and fills him up. Then, THEN... she has the nerve to rinse him out and try to put him back before I had left the toilet as if nothing had ever occurred. Had I not been suspicious, I might never have known... and sometimes, late at night, I wish I hadn't.
Akam from England
On holiday in Gran Canaria when I was aged 10, my mum and my aunt had gone out for the evening, my brother and I were in bed. I was sharing a room with my aunt, my brother with mum. I needed the loo fairly late in the day; everything was fine, until I flushed the damn thing... The water level rose so high that I thought it was going to overflow, and in a state of panic I ran, in tears, down the hallway, down the stairs, screaming for mum... Stark naked.
Essam. Current whereabouts unknown.
I spent two semesters in the Islamic University of Medinah, in Saudi Arabia (long story). In the dormatories, we shared one large institution-style bathroom per floor. The toilets were relatively clean, but consisted of a porcelain hole in the floor with built-in spots for your feet to rest at the appropriate spots for squatting. The toilet was flushed by pulling a chain hanging near the door. For removing the offending matter from your skin, there was a plastic watering can for water and a small outdoor-hose-style faucet connected to a short length of hose. Of course, Medinah is in the middle of a desert, and during the summer months, the dorm would run out of water frequently for as long as a week. So what to do? Basically students would buy a 20-gallon container and store water in it, using it for cooking, small loads of laundry, and of course bathroom cleansing.