Film The Embarrassment of Splashes
posted by on January 3 at 11:23 AM
Went to see No Country for Old Men last night. Holy shit balls, that’s a fantastic motion picture show. (Confidential to a friend who wanted to know: yes, it’s incredibly violent, but in a striking, beautiful way.) But I’m not here to talk about No Country for Old Men. If I say anything about any movie, especially if I mention anything that happens in any movie, Gillian will get up from her desk and saw my head off. (If you like, Andrew Wright’s review of it is here: “Call it terrifying, stunningly bleak, humane, epic, intimate, darkly funny, deadly serious, or what have you: Whatever laudatory adjectives you throw its way are going to stick.”)
What I actually want to discuss—sorry ladies—are the urinals at Pacific Place. I ran in to use the restroom before the movie started, but the first urinal I stood in front of had something in it. So I went to the next one, and that urinal had something in it too. The same thing. Not an easy thing to describe. I took a picture.
What is that in there? Some sort of cloth? A rug? There’s a part that hangs on the back of the urinal, like a tapestry, and then there’s a part that sits on the bottom of the urinal, like a little bathmat. Both of them together almost look like an easy chair. A small easy chair for the good of urination to sit in. It’s a spongy material that appears to have captured in its fibers all manner of foreign objects, hairs, loogies, etc., and in the sponginess is imprinted a url.
The url is www.antisplash.com, and if you make a quick visit to the website you discover the most annoying music you’ve ever heard and an explanation of the product.
In today’s world, everyone understands the need for a safe and sanitary environment in their public restrooms. The public is especially appreciative given their increasing fear of the spread of diseases and the embrassment of splashes. The following are some of our customers currently using anti-splash products in their facilities:
Which is curiously followed by blank space. Even though they have at least one customer—the movie theater at Pacific Place. But back up: the fear of spreading diseases? Hey Golob, isn’t urine sterile? Since when does urine spread diseases? One thinks of that old piece of wisdom about how if you have a dog pee on your contact lenses that’s more sterile than if you clean them with your own spit—is that no longer true “in today’s world”? (A subsequent page on the site says that the product “addresses a very important problem in today’s world of international travel, and that is limiting blood born pathogens found in urine.” Anyone? Same page goes on to say that the product is made with “fused synthetic fibers which break the urine droplet upon contact” and that “Although it comes in four basic colors (red, blue, white, and brown) other colors, company logos, and artwork can be produced at an additional charge.”
As for embarrassment, well, one wonders if anyone’s ever been embarrassed at a urinal before. One wonders how much Pacific Place paid for these magic blue embarrassment-stoppers. One wonders what Alex Schweder would think.
At the UW most of the urinals are no-flow no-flush types. Saves a lot of water.
Urine isn't sterile if you have gonorrhea, or so I hear.
Yeah, urine is sterile if you're healthy--as it leaves your body.
Once it's outside the body, say sitting in a high surface area urinal mat, it's a pretty decent growth media for bacteria. Plenty of nitrogen (and sugar if you're diabetic.)
The first antibiotic drugs were discovered thanks to sweet smelling urinals at a German fabric dye plant, fyi.
Cheers!
no one is going to catch gonorrhea from a urinal. at least from peeing in one.
leptospirosis is spread through urine. but like gonorrhea, no one is going to catch it from peeing in a urinal. swimming in a urinal that has been peed in by woodland creatures, perhaps. but not peeing.
the only use i could see for such a product is keeping pubes from clogging the drain. but i'm not sure this is a huge problem.
i find this entire post impossibly erotic
The only thing that belongs in a urinal are those salty pink mints.
The purpose is in the friggin' NAME, peeps: anti-splash. I don't really care how sterile my urine is; I don't want it on my shoes or down the front of my pants.
A friend of mine lacquered one of his wedding invitations into a public urinal after the bitch left him. Beats a company logo any day. Though I can think of a few companies I'd like to piss on.
Could you make up Sonics ones, and sneak them into Key Arena? That would be funny. Or a Husky mat anywhere Husky-ish, of course, preferably someplace likely to attract a steroidal clientele.
@6: WHY, oh GOD WHY do you opine/know they're salty?
Marketing copy routinely lies, and hyping neglibible or non-existent public health risks is a time-tested classic.
On a related note, I once saw a sign above a urinal reading, "Do not eat the big mint."
According to one man who was in the 4th floor Pacific Place bathrooms at the same time as my husband, it "smells like pussy in (there)."
I've seen splash guards that have black rectangles on them that, when peed upon, magically disappear to reveal advertising. I usually stick around for a second round at any bars with those in them.
I feel like I must be the only person who hated No Country for Old Men. I found it a poorly edited tale of a dull man being chased by a bad actor.
It would have been the worst movie I watched in 2007 if not for 300.
So urine-soaked mats (atop the otherwise blissfully nonporous surface) are sanitary? Really?
One more reason to hate Pacific Place.
Speaking of public bathrooms and key arena, who the hell is that guy who always takes a dump in the mariners urinal trough, and when does he have time to do it?
You need to go out more; much much more if that freaks you out.
You might make an argument that these stupid mats minimally reduce splashes. But having a porous spongy surface in a urinal seems like an ideal petri dish for growing bacteria and all kinds of nasty stuff. Plus, I imagine it has the added bonus of trapping all those lovely urine odors too.
Brilliant.
Thanks for the most excellent reportage. But don't think that John Edwards resembles a younger Jon Andelson w/ a more expensive haircut?
SDA @16, come to think of it, the smell issue defeats one of the big purposes for having such water-intensive indoor plumbing in the first place.
I noticed the same mats, wondered as to their purpose, and determined it must be to limit splashback. I tried to pressurize my stream to really put it to the test. I detected several stray droplets and a diffuse spray making way to the outer limits. The damn things don't work is my point. More capital and energy should be put toward equipping every public urinal with a privacy barrier--stage fright is a crippling condition for many of us. How much urine gets on these is another matter for someone to clean--I have my own private bathroom to worry about.
"one wonders if anyone’s ever been embarrassed at a urinal before" - is the answer Larry Craig?
Did anyone else watch that expose of hotel bathroom cleaning? After seeing that, my opinion is that anything that increases the number of unsanitary objects cleaners must handle manually will NEVER improve the cleanliness of bathrooms. How many of you live in the dream world (or force yourself not to consider) where public urinal cleaners wash their rubber gloves after replacing the urinal cakes but before picking up a dirty rag to clean the dryer button, taps, door handles, etc? How much grosser would touching those wee diapers be?
I like the idea of corporate logos in the urinal. But they have to be placed strategically. My pee is much more splash-free when I have a target to aim for.
Herr Doktor Frizzelle,
With you enormous schwanzstuecke, I was wondering if that splash guard worked at all...
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