Congestion
In pretty much every public bathroom I've ever been in, there's always a larger number of urinals or toilets than sinks. Under normal use this is nothing to get worked up about. But when the bathroom gets flooded with people, the disproportionate sink-to-urinal ratio often becomes an issue.
There's pros and cons of being a male. One pro is that bathroom lines are seldom long. Except maybe at large rock concerts or sporting events, but even then, it moves at a pretty good clip. A large factor being that most of the guys never seem to wash their hands afterwards. Unhygienic, yes. But it does eliminate that potential bottleneck at the sink and makes room for those that do wash our hands.
Surgery, being what it is, is still a male dominated field. So at the conference I was at in Dallas the past several days, the men's room would face mild congestion during the breaks when everybody hit the bathroom, while the women were breezing in and out of theirs. Of course, being that a bathroom full of surgeons is likely to wash their hands more than one full of drunk rednecks at a tractor pull, the bottleneck at the sink was in full effect at every break.
It's funny watching the faces of the women as they walked by all the guys waiting in line to pee. It always looks like they're trying their best to keep from smirking.
As I moved up in line and got closer to the door, I saw that they guys were leaving the bathroom with a look of mild disgust on their faces. Great. Someone must be making a bad poopy.
But no, once inside the doors I realized that the irritant causing the scowls was not poopy, but the aftermath of eating asparagus.
The hotel had been providing a buffet type lunch for those attending this conference every day. On this particular day, they had amongst the other food, asparagus sitting innocently on a platter. Every time I see asparagus, I have an internal debate: eat the yummy goodness and have stinky pee later, or not?
That day, I ate some. Apparently a lot of the other guys attending the conference did as well.
There's pros and cons of being a male. One pro is that bathroom lines are seldom long. Except maybe at large rock concerts or sporting events, but even then, it moves at a pretty good clip. A large factor being that most of the guys never seem to wash their hands afterwards. Unhygienic, yes. But it does eliminate that potential bottleneck at the sink and makes room for those that do wash our hands.
Surgery, being what it is, is still a male dominated field. So at the conference I was at in Dallas the past several days, the men's room would face mild congestion during the breaks when everybody hit the bathroom, while the women were breezing in and out of theirs. Of course, being that a bathroom full of surgeons is likely to wash their hands more than one full of drunk rednecks at a tractor pull, the bottleneck at the sink was in full effect at every break.
It's funny watching the faces of the women as they walked by all the guys waiting in line to pee. It always looks like they're trying their best to keep from smirking.
As I moved up in line and got closer to the door, I saw that they guys were leaving the bathroom with a look of mild disgust on their faces. Great. Someone must be making a bad poopy.
But no, once inside the doors I realized that the irritant causing the scowls was not poopy, but the aftermath of eating asparagus.
The hotel had been providing a buffet type lunch for those attending this conference every day. On this particular day, they had amongst the other food, asparagus sitting innocently on a platter. Every time I see asparagus, I have an internal debate: eat the yummy goodness and have stinky pee later, or not?
That day, I ate some. Apparently a lot of the other guys attending the conference did as well.
posted by THW at 8:18 AM
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