Category Archives: Rant
the Trail of Turds / 5 Simple Rules for Using Public Restrooms
this post was updated June 26, 2013 to include #5, as sadly, it was necessary
All right, we need to cover a few basics on where it is and is not acceptable to defecate. I wish I had to specify ‘in public’ but given recent events, I’m forgoeing the qualifiers.
The most important point to understand is that I mopped up shit. Again. This was shortly after another person picked up shit from the salesfloor. There was a trail of shit leading us across the store. That was a new one.
The cleaning up of human excrement occurs at least once a week per restroom, and from what I’ve heard, the nightmares I’ve survived are nothing compared to what goes on in the ladies’ room. Women, apparently, are filthy; from the unholy abstract art presentations some will create within a bathroom stall to the creative locations for disposing of used tampons—oddly enough, not in the container designed specifically and clearly labeled for just this purpose.
Is this what happens in your home? Is that how you use your own bathroom? It isn’t. I know it isn’t. Not one of you people will leave a pile of used toilet paper on the floor behind the toilet, or smear your own feces on the wall so high you had to either jump or stand on the toilet. I’m also going to assume that should the unfortunate occur and you happen to shit on the toilet rather then in it, at home, you have the decency to at least wipe the seat off.
But in public, these behaviors go out the window—behaviors that before I worked in retail, I assumed we had all learned as very small children, and so were ingrained in us to the point of being compulsory or almost involuntary. But like so many behaviors we witness every day and even engage in ourselves, as adults we have lost the simple and basic common sense that children possess. This new class of stupid is not limited to using a bathroom, but it seems a good place to start.
So here’s a few rules you need to follow if you’d like go out in public:
1. Defecate Only in Designated Areas
In our highly structured society, whether in public buildings or private homes, there are rooms designed for the sole purpose of defecation. These rooms go by many names, the most common of which are bathroom, restroom, and washroom.
In private homes these bathrooms will be unisex, meaning that men and women will use the same facilities. Men should take care in this regard in that the female is physically incapable of lowering a toilet seat; therefore after aiming carefully (or cleaning up should that not be the case) men should lower the toilet seat as a courtesy to their less physically capable counterparts.
In public buildings, restrooms will be divided into male or female. If you are a boy, please use the men’s room; if you are a girl, please use the ladies’ room. Each option will be clearly marked.
Places Not to Defecate: on the floor in the bathroom, on the floor outside the bathroom, on the floor, on the wall, on yourself, on each other, on the carpet leading to the bathroom, on the carpet, on your mother, in a garbage can, on a window ledge, in a stairwell, in a book, on a book, basically everywhere that is not a bathroom with a toilet.
2. Defecate Only in Specified Containers
In these rooms we discussed above, there will be a toilet and sink, with accompanying paper products, including toilet paper, paper towels and disposable toilet seat covers.
In the restroom there will be a stall, and within the stall a toilet. When one has the urge to defecate, this is your desired destination. The toilet or toilet bowl will have a seat and possibly a lid attached by a hinge that allows one to open and close the seat and lid. Ensure the lid is up and the seat is down before use. Defecate only when seated. Do not defecate prior to sitting. Do not stand or attempt to leave while in the process of defecating.
It is also very important to note that while we may use the phrase, “I’m on the toilet,” to indicate we are defecating, one must take care to defecate in the toilet, not on it. Remember, one sits on a toilet, but one defecates in it.
In public men’s rooms there may be a urinal. These are intended only for urination—notice the similarity in its name and function? Not a coincidence—and therefore, should you need to go poo, please visit a stall and use the toilet as directed above. Under no circumstances should one defecate in the urinal.
More Places Not to Defecate: on a friend, on your car, in your car, at the dinner table, on the couch, on a stranger, in the corner, out a window, in a punch bowl, in your shoe, in your friend’s shoe, in any shoe, basically everywhere that is not a bathroom with a toilet.
3. Do Not Handle or Manipulate Poo
The toilet was designed not only to collect your excrement, but remove it as well. Careful examination of the toilet apparatus will reveal that it is connected at the base to a pipe. You will notice as well that at the bottom of the toilet bowl is an opening, which when one operates the handle on the back of the toilet, commonly known as “flushing”, will send one’s excrement through the hole and into the pipe, removing it to the sewer without any additional steps or effort on your part.
There is, therefore, absolutely no reason whatsoever for one to in any way handle their excrement. Do not be confused by the presence of a garbage can in the restroom; this is for paper towels only. There is no need to remove your feces from the toilet and place it in the garbage can. Flushing the toilet will remove your feces both more efficiently and more hygienically.
While we have no doubt that you make very nice macaroni sculptures and creamer cup towers, there is no need to demonstrate your prowess as a sculptor by fashioning a proper 1:16 scale replica of yourself from poo. Unfortunately, public restrooms are not equipped to maintain these sculptures and they will be destroyed.
Activities Not To Engage In With One’s Poo: touching, throwing, removing from bowl, smearing of on walls, floor or ceiling, fingerpainting, splatter painting, sculpting, the writing of witty platitudes, the leaving of your phone number, the leaving of your ex’s phone number
4. Dispose of Paper Products Properly
Within the stall of a public restroom, one will generally find two types of paper products. The first and most important will be toilet paper. The name can be misleading in that it is not meant for the toilet per se, but rather for your bum. After you have finished defecating but before you leave the stall, take a reasonable amount of toilet paper and clean your ass. This is known as “wiping.” After each wipe, drop soiled toilet paper into toilet bowl. Repeat until ass is clean.
As you may have noticed, and similar to your feces, toilet paper should be deposited only in the toilet bowl. There is no reason to place soiled paper products anywhere else.
The second type of paper product one may find in a public restroom stall is a seat cover. This is made of a thin paper and as the name implies, it is intended to cover the toilet seat in order to maintain and encourage good hygiene. As this disposable seat cover is made from a waxy tissue paper, when you have finished wiping you may deposit it into the toilet bowl as well. If you look closely, you will notice a pattern here: everything—excrement, toilet paper, seat cover—goes into the toilet bowl.
Places Not To Put Used Paper Products: in your pocket, on the floor, stuck to wall, stuck to ceiling, stuck to self, saved as a gift for significant other, put back in paper product dispenser, wrapped around handle to stall door, stuffed in shoes, garbage can
5. Do Not Engage in Activities Other Than Urination or Defecation
In addition to it being entirely unnecessary to carry on conversations on one’s cell phone while in the restroom, to ask employees about products, services or opinions on the weather while in the restroom, or eat or drink a meal while in the restroom, this additional point refers to engaging in other activities, bodily functions or personal needs not related to urination or defecation in a public restroom.
Specifically, masturbation.
Not only is this illegal but let’s all agree right here and right now, a public restroom is not the place for this. Furthermore, one should not seek the assistance of products sold in the store in order to fulfill this need. If you would like to use a nudie magazine or sexuality book in this process, or any other tool or implement or condiment, please first purchase said item and take that shit home. Even furthermore, and it is with absolute shock, disbelief and disgust that this should even be said, if this act does take place: clean it the fuck up. Much like defecating, no trace of this act should be left on the floor, walls, ceiling, mirror or baby changing station for someone else to clean up.
Places Not To Masturbate: anywhere that is not your home.
In conclusion…
…if you feel you are unable or unwilling to follow these simple rules of basic fucking hygiene that you were taught as a child, please stay home. If you are an adult who cannot clean up after yourself after engaging in this fundamental and biologically imperative act, despite being physically and mentally capable of doing so, you do not belong in public. Accidents happen. Defecating on the floor and smearing excrement on the wall are not accidents.
A simple rule to follow when using a public restroom is, “Would I do this at home?” I’ll go out on a limb here and guarantee that ‘shit on the floor and leave it for the next person’ would not get a check in the ‘yes’ column.
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Important Terms to Know for a Successful Poop:
Defecate — to void feces from the bowels; to shit; to poop; to drop a deuce
Excrement — a waste product from an animal’s digestive tract expelled through the anus during defecation
Feces — also faeces, stool, shit, poo, poop, number two, deuce, doodoo, dookie, doody, dung, scat, spoor, droppings; see excrement
Flush — the act of pressing the lever on the side of a toilet to empty its contents
Toilet — sanitation fixture used for the disposal of human excrement and urine
Toilet Paper — a soft tissue paper product used to maintain personal hygiene after defecation or urination
Wipe — the cleaning of one’s anus or buttocks with toilet paper after defecation
Should any of the terms listed above come as a surprise to you or require further research on your part in order to fully understand their significance in your life as a full grown human being, fuck you.
the Death of Giant Effin’ Levers / or How I Missed the Point of Voting Completely
Voting broke my heart a little this time around. It wasn’t the election itself, or the incessant arguing of my hyper-opinionated political friends or even the uselessness of voting in New York state. It wasn’t the meaning or outcome behind voting, but the very act of it.
Anyone who’s cool enough to know me on Facebook (you’re welcome) knows that I became a bit upset over the revelation late Monday night that New York revamped their voting process. Well, maybe not process—let’s call it the voting mechanism.
the giant effin’ lever
In my expert opinion—it’s OK, I’ve voted before, clearly that makes me an expert—we’ve moved in reverse with our voting.
We’ve gone from solid American built booths with tons of switches, a curtain, secondary tape roll that backs up the tallied votes, adjustable height for the handi-awesome and (my personal favorite) the giant effin’ lever.
Now what do we have? A scantron sheet you fill out behind some kid’s leftover science fair poster board before you scan it through some other machine—no, not that machine, the other one; what, you didn’t see the different district numbers painted on the bottom of the machine instead of clearly marked at the top to prevent you from trying to scan your ballot several times through the wrong machine?
What? Yeah, I just said scan. After filling out your SATs where all votes count for Frank Sedita, you have to scan your ballot. Yourself. Privacy issues.
The Board of Elections Geriatric Brigade isn’t allowed to touch or look at your ballot, so when you have a problem—and this is me we’re talking about, so there will be a problem—they spend longer saying loudly, “I haven’t touched your ballot, sir” then they do actually getting the machine to scan the ballot.
Let’s all be honest here, you can swear up and down all you want Grandma Voting Booth, but when my ballot doesn’t even fit inside the ‘privacy folder’ do I really give a shit if you glance at my ballot when you help me scan it? And the ‘privacy screen?’ You know, the aforementioned science project poster board? You really telling me that works?
Also, who cares? You probably don’t even remember where you live, you’ve been at the community center so long, am I really concerned with you seeing who I’m voting for?
Look, we had awesome voting machines, better then any I saw during election coverage. Hanging chads? I think not. Stupid Florida, get with the times. Paper ballots?
New York had the greatest voting booths in the world, the envy of leverless voters everywhere. And now look at us. Using paper. Coloring ovals. Feeding my ballot into a scanner while Old Lady Election yells, “Yeah, stick it in there! Like a vending machine dollar! All the way! Sir, I have not looked at your ballot!”
I’d prefer never again to hear that phrase or any variation of it from an old lady. Unless I’m an old man. Even then it’s gross, it’s just all sagging skin and—
Moving on…
So, later on election night, Commander Riker told me the reason behind this de-evolution of our voting process is that the company that manufactured these voting booths went belly up. Then apparently burned all the manuals, schematics and at the point of bankruptcy all existing machines simultaneously vanished from the face of the earth rendering reverse engineering impossible.
With repair somehow no longer an option the machines had to be retired. What? There’s really no one out there who can repair these machines if they break down? Granted, New York State is the last state to stop using these machines, but they’ve been around since about 1900, I’m thinking we can make these levers work.
And it’s important that we make them work. Mostly for nostalgic and emotional reasons. Like throwback jerseys.
The Board of Election’s strategy for greater voter turnout should mimic the tobacco industry’s philosophy: ‘hook ’em while they’re young.’
That’s what these voting booths did without even realizing it!
Apparently I’m pretty lucky in that my circle of friends are all hyper-opinionated sometimes legitimately informed and always highly vocal political experts. They’re passionate about the political process and understand the importance of voting. Also, they’re passionate about long-winded diatribes with a great deal of wild gesturing.
The point is, I don’t doubt that everyone of these living room pundits went to vote with their parents. This creates little kid participation if you have those old voting booths.
Think about it—you take a kid with you to vote, just try to stop them from pulling that giant red-handled lever. They don’t need to understand what’s going on, so the age of the child isn’t important. There is a lever and they get to pull it. That’s all that matters.
Even not understanding the complete scope of what you were doing, there was the comprehension that you were taking part in something incredibly important. And you were getting to pull a giant lever. And possibly get a soda.
That’s what I realized Monday night when we started talking about the absence of those old voting booths. We all had variations of the same story. Voting was as ingrained in our memories as watching the Buffalo Bills lose a butt-load of Super Bowls, as sitting glued to CNN during the first Gulf War, or Bill Clinton play the sax when he won his first term.
You go to vote with your parents, don’t understand what the big deal is, but this seems pretty cool. And there’s a pop machine. Play your cards right kid, and you could be walking out of here with a soda.
Your parents go through the boring crap—what’s your name, sign this paper, blah blah blah. Then you go to the booth. Lever goes, Wizard of Oz curtain closes and it’s showtime.
If you’re lucky that’s when they 
lift you up and tell you which switches to click. You’ve had practice at this by the way, you remember that board in pre-K with the different locks and latches? You crushed that. Mini-levers in a voting booth. Just give me a boost, I got this.
That isn’t even the best part. Flipping the mini-levers? Take it or leave it. No, the best part is when you’re good to go. There may be a countdown to build excitement, a drum roll, but it isn’t required. The best part is when you get to grab the giant lever and boom! Votes are counted, there’s a lot of loud clicking sounds that are pretty cool, and the curtain is opened! There’s that last push at the end to get the lever to fully engage, remember? You underestimated it at first; but then you slam it into place and those curtains open.
As a kid, you just accomplished something very important. You got that curtain open. And you helped your parents vote. That too.
Don’t forget, once that curtain opens, you get to turn around and gloat to the next person in line. That may or may not be your brother and other parent. Doesn’t matter.
You stare them down, take pride in what you’ve just done.
You just opened a curtain.
Gas Station Burrito 