7 Golden Rules. Review on General Tips on Public Toilets

Ok, you’ve gone at home, and you’ve gone again in that posh restaurant. But that was 1 movie/1 coke/1 coffee/1beer ago. You have to go again, and the only option in front of you is gasp a public loo. What in sweet god’s name do you do?

General tips part 1

Rule 1 –Don’t gasp; learn to hold your breath. Practice in front of a mirror, and stop only when you turn blue in the face.

Must be some connection with our history of doing our daily jobs out in the open that we don’t pay enough attention to cleaning up better after ourselves. Most public loos can be identified by their ‘oh my god something died in there 3 weeks ago’ stench. It’s amazing how in a country of a billion+, where unemployment levels are fairly high, enough people can’t be found and paid to keep public loos clean.

Rule 2 –Enter only if wearing shoes, not sandals or slippers, or else enter at your own risk.

Most public loo floors are a mess of sludgy multi-coloured liquids and semi-solid substances of unknown origin, bits of used tissue, hair and other such trash. Platform shoes or gumboots are the recommended footwear for navigating your way to the stalls.

For men -

A friend told me about how once there were so many urinals in the room, but the jerk who rushed in after him took the one right next to him, and insisted on carrying on a conversation in between sighs of satisfaction at being able to relieve himself. And worse, he looked!

Rule 3 –With talkers, stalkers and starers(none of which you should be) stare at the wall in front of you, imitating a deaf mute all the time. If it doesn’t work, make conversation about how uncomfortably itchy fungal infections and STDs are, especially in hot, humid weather, and offer to shake hands, without washing, of course. Another tactic is to stare back and say with an appropriately sad face ‘Oh how terrible, I hope you are taking growth hormones for that.’

For women –

Many loos are the yucky kind where there is only one reasonable clean stall, and thathas a broken door latch, and you have to find that delicate balance between doing your job in the designated area and holding the door closed with your hands or with your head(if your hands are busy holding your clothes at knee level and your bag out of puddles.)

Rule 4 –Learn the art of suspended peeing. It’s not as hard as it sounds. If you ever exercised, and shame on you if you haven’t, you would have done squats. Same technique- don’t let your bottom touch the seat. Now combine that with target practise, it’s not polite to leave drips on the seat. Tough? Read on

If it’s a western style loo, the seat will invariably be wet with liquids whose origins I won’t contemplate, and if it’s an Indian style whole in the ground, you will end up with wet feet at the least. So here is

Rule 5 –Carry tissues, (the regular kind, wet wipes sting) in your bag/pocket at all times

General tips part 2

Rule 6 -Wash your hands. Yes, this is for the men too.

Rule 7 -Don’t touch anything, including taps and door handles with your bare hands. Use that tissue.

Rule 8 -For those readers who weren’t paying attention, re-read Rule 5.

If you can think of anything else, comment. Otherwise this is

The End