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22 June 2006

I'm published! And it reads like a shouting thread. Awesome.
post by: Specklet at: 10:11 | 46 comments
That was, um,..very nice.
posted by jonmc 22 June | 10:14
Hilarious. And so true. This is a personal gripe of mine as well. I just routinely wipe the seat off now, before sitting down. I don't want anyone's pee on me!
posted by iconomy 22 June | 10:16
bladder effluvia

Well played.
posted by grabbingsand 22 June | 10:19
Agree 100%, Speck! Please rewrite and extend this and send it to BUST.

What I don't understand about hoverers is this: what is it that they're afraid of catching? Is there some flesh-eating thigh-skin infection I'm unaware of? In what way are your legs more vulnerable to Deadly Germs than your hands, knees, or any other body part that may touch a surface? It's as ridiculously OCDish as touching restaurant silverware and doorknobs only through a napkin (which I think are actually more logical behaviors than hovering in light of actual knowledge of virus transmission).

Argh.


posted by Miko 22 June | 10:20
Sitting in peepee makes bunny sad. :(
posted by taz 22 June | 10:20
Also... something like this: "and, if I catch you doing it, I will grab you by the head and wipe it up with your hair. Kthx!"
posted by taz 22 June | 10:25
Ah, we agree. I've been known to open the door & scold the offender when she is still washing her hands. No matter what, said offender claims someone else did it. But they know.
posted by dame 22 June | 10:28
My only experience in Ladies' Rooms is when I worked in a supermaket in high school and one of my jobs was to clean the restrooms one a month. I have just one request of you ladies. Don't stick used feminine hygeiene produsts to the walls. Custodians will thank you.
posted by jonmc 22 June | 10:31
If I could deliver a high-quality dose of wicked, fluent vitriol like that, I wouldn't want to be anonymous. I'd want people to know.
posted by Wolfdog 22 June | 10:33
"If you sprinkle when you tinkle
Please be sweet and wipe the seat"
posted by essexjan 22 June | 10:33
Don't stick used feminine hygeiene produsts to the walls.

Jon, I feel supremely confident in saying that none of the ladies here has ever done anything of the kind. That is beyond crass and I wouldn't want anyone thinking that it is at all common.
posted by Miko 22 June | 10:35
I'm sure none of y'all had. It was more a warning to the public at large, because when I was a janitor, it happened more than you'd imagine.
posted by jonmc 22 June | 10:36
I was looking at an apartment to live in once and the guy showed me the bathroom and then told me that everyone (boys included) had to sit to pee.

Um yeah, I don't need a place that badly.

But nice rant, Specklet! Try living with a slobbery dog! She dribbles all over the seat and floor, its not pee but its a bummer anyway.
posted by fenriq 22 June | 10:37
BEAUTIFUL!
posted by chewatadistance 22 June | 10:39
I have a question. Maybe it's stupid. But if you're going to hover anyway, why not put the seat UP? You don't need it to sit on, and then there would be no danger of peeing on it. It seems so obvious.
posted by mike9322 22 June | 10:44
I also have to say that I am a hovering pee-er, partly because I've heard too many stories like jonmc's janitor extravaganza, partly because I'm just skeptical of public-at-large's hygiene habits, and partly b/c of hearing many stories of people in the graduate dorms complaining about suitemates used to using squatty facilities from their home country and would stand on the toilet seats in the ladies room, which I think would be worse than sitting in someone's pee spray, personally. And, I'm probably neurotic.

HOWEVER, I wipe the seat before AND after hovering. I try to contain my neuroses as much as possible for the benefit of all mankind.
posted by chewatadistance 22 June | 10:48
Unless you have cuts on your ass that might get infected by seat bacteria, what can happen? I ask this out of curiosity, about women who do hover over seats that aren't visibly dirty. But if the answer's too embarrassing, I'd just as soon not be embarrassed either.

I know it's different, but I wonder the same thing about the paper seat covers in men's rooms, too. I mean, I'm not so worried about getting invisible bacteria on the skin of my butt when the real filth is on its way out of my insides.

Geez, I'm really living up to my name here.
posted by Hugh Janus 22 June | 10:59
what can happen?

Nothing. It's a phobia thing.
posted by Miko 22 June | 11:04
If I could deliver a high-quality dose of wicked, fluent vitriol like that, I wouldn't want to be anonymous. I'd want people to know.

See, that's why I told YOU all.

But if you're going to hover anyway, why not put the seat UP?

Because that would involve touching the icky, icky, nasty, dirty toilet seat, and we musn't get our hands dirty, no we musn't.

Unless you have cuts on your ass that might get infected by seat bacteria, what can happen?

Nothing.
posted by Specklet 22 June | 11:04
Oh, by the way, The Mercury is not only published online, but is printed on real dead trees... and is on every street corner in Portland.

Oh yeah.
posted by Specklet 22 June | 11:06
People might even read it on the toilet. Would'nt that be something?
posted by jonmc 22 June | 11:11
Get a Sanifem if you're going to hover. And consider that the vagina is cleaner than the mouth....


Congratulations Specklet!
posted by brujita 22 June | 11:14
Isn't a dog's butthole cleaner than the human mouth? I heard that somewhere.
posted by jonmc 22 June | 11:15
I think that's a toss-up bacteria-wise.
posted by brujita 22 June | 11:18
As someone who has also done janitorial duties, I must agree with jonmc and say that the women's restrooms - especially in upscale corporate facilities of all places - are especially terrifying.

The crew I was on would actually draw straws for the duty or trade favors like extended breaks - and we had an equal number of men and women on our smallish contractor team.

Men's restrooms all in all seemed to be much cleaner barring the odd urinal dribbler, but that was easier to clean 'cause it was on the floor and moppable.
posted by loquacious 22 June | 11:22
The co-ed bathrooms in the dorms at Bradford were much cleaner than the single-sex ones. Some kids at Bridgeport asked me to sign a petition against mixed floors, but I wouldn't. At Emerson there were mixed floors, but separate bathrooms.
posted by brujita 22 June | 11:30
I once had a letter published in the Mercury. The secret is to call them names and swear a lot. They love that.
posted by cmonkey 22 June | 11:43
I'm guessing people hover because the seats are covered with pee...
posted by small_ruminant 22 June | 11:47
That's true, cmonkey. This is actually my second I Anonymous that's gotten published. I'm ranty and whiny.
posted by Specklet 22 June | 11:54
At the highly businesslike corporate entity where I work we've had a Phantom Shit Flinger in the women's toilets. It got so bad that the Facilities Manager had to circulate an email about it. I can't imagine who on earth it could be (there's approx. 500 women work there). But it was happening often enough and in such a way that it wasn't accidental.

Eeeew ...


posted by essexjan 22 June | 12:01
I'm 39 freakin' years old and have yet to be infected by anything from a toilet seat. Just sayin'.
posted by deborah 22 June | 12:01
On a related note ...
posted by essexjan 22 June | 12:02
I'm 39 freakin' years old and have yet to be infected by anything from a toilet seat.

What if a toilet seat gave you amnesia? What then, hah?
posted by jonmc 22 June | 12:30
I'm guessing people hover because the seats are covered with pee...

No, it doesn't stand to reason. Assume the toilet is regularly cleaned. It starts out clean. People sit and pee, it stays clean. At some point there is a First Hoverer...kind of like the Prime Mover in theology. That First Hoverer has absolutely no reason to hover, but from their hover on, they've grossed the place up for everyone else. After that, people either have to hover, find another stall, or wipe up someone else's pee. No thanks.
posted by Miko 22 June | 12:32
finally!
posted by Mrs.Pants 22 June | 12:43
Oh, by the way, The Mercury is not only published online, but is printed on real dead trees...

That'll teach those damn trees, they think they're so big!
posted by King of Prontopia 22 June | 13:04
ah, the pleasure in a good, widely-distributed rant to the masses. Hoverers, beware!
posted by Lipstick Thespian 22 June | 13:22
So I guess I'm in the toilet as a confessed hoverer then.
posted by chewatadistance 22 June | 13:25
You're safe, chewie. It's not the hoverers that must beware, it's the sloppy pee-ers.

Hovererrrerers.
posted by Specklet 22 June | 13:30
*grabs Specklet, kisses her enthusiastically on both cheeks*

Bless you, my dear. Very well stated. For years I have nurtured as cold comfort that there's a special place in hell for the toilet-sprayers. A place in which they are forced to share bathroom and laundry facilities with the people who pull your laundry out of the dryer before it's done, then proceed to run several loads through it, leaving your damp clothes on top of the dryer slowly growing things. It had ceased to give me satisfaction.

if you're going to hover anyway, why not put the seat UP?

Mike, I have wondered that for a very long time. Surely one could use toilet paper to protect one's hands from the icky filthy oogy toilet seat. I suspect that to do so would mean demonstrating some actual consideration for others.
posted by elizard 22 June | 13:40
I just kick the seat up with my foot.

My brother did that a month or so ago at RFK Stadium in DC to find two ketchup packets, carefully placed at the points where the seat touched the ceramic, ready to explode under the first person to actually sit down.
posted by Hugh Janus 22 June | 13:48
*grabs Specklet, kisses her enthusiastically on both cheeks*

Uh, you know where those have been right? You read the article?
posted by danostuporstar 22 June | 13:49
I blame their overprotective, germ-fixated mothers.
posted by matildaben 22 June | 13:53
Bean's got it right. I clench my teeth when I overhear from another stall the mommy saying "oh, no, don't sit down, honey."

Creating another monster.
posted by Miko 22 June | 14:08
If I'm not mistaken, and if I read it right, hovering can actually do more harm than taking a seat. The act of balancing to hover makes it harder for the bladder to fully empty, possibly leading to bacteria build-up and a higher risk of bladder or U.T. infection. So have a seat, relax, and rejuvenate! Great article, Specklet!
posted by redvixen 22 June | 18:34
Wait a sec, where am I?
posted by deborah 22 June | 18:47
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