Smells Like Humans
Top 5% global podcast! Smells Like Humans is a seasonal podcast dedicated to bringing a humorous perspective to quirky and curious aspects of human behavior. Each show, the SLH crew will focus on a different topic, and share personal stories and observations in a way that sounds like you’re hanging out with your funny friends. The stories and commentary are presented with humor and warmth, since let’s face it: we all smell like humans. (Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com)
Smells Like Humans
PUBLIC RESTROOMS: WHAT A HORRIBLE WAY TO GO
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The fabulous Jaimee joins Ross to discuss why public restrooms are so unpleasant. Tangents include: Roman bathrooms; the time before splinter free toilet paper; Toga stain; dangerous toilet plumes; steamer trunks. Ross describes his ideal public restroom.
Notes:
- https://www.history.com/news/toilet-paper-hygiene-ancient-rome-china#:~:text=Paper%20became%20widely%20available%20in,500%20sheets%20for%2050%20cents.
- https://ittn.ie/news/what-are-the-best-and-worst-public-toilets-in-the-world/
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-ancient-romans-went-to-the-bathroom-180979056/#:~:text=Despite%20the%20lack%20of%20toilet,to%20dip%20the%20sponges%20in.
- https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/well/live/public-bathrooms-health-safety.html
Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com
And yet, with all that junk in there in an airport bathroom, there's always some goob trying to jiggle the handle.
SPEAKER_03What it's like, uh what can you see the steamer trunk, Jimmy? I'm in here!
SPEAKER_06Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder what and why. I'm Ross, your host, and today my guest is a splendid human, regular guest, and all-around hero to toothless dogs everywhere, Jamie!
SPEAKER_02Hi, Ross.
SPEAKER_06Hi, welcome, and we're down here at Portland Underground Studio. It's the place where we record, and it's the place where we get free coffee. And welcome everyone. Friends, help us grow our community. Jamie, I recently heard that there is a place on TikTok for podcast people. And there are uh TikTokers who recommend podcasts and they share information back and forth. I'm not on TikTok, but maybe we should be. Um I'm hoping that people listening to this are TikTokers and will help us out by recommending our show in that space. That would be extremely helpful. We're trying to grow our tight little community into a bigger, tighter community. Uh if you can do that. And um, so we would appreciate your help. And as you know, you can share the show with people that you know, pass along episodes that you like. That helps us grow as well. Okay, let's get going.
SPEAKER_02Let's do it.
SPEAKER_06Are you ready?
SPEAKER_02I'm so ready.
SPEAKER_06I can tell. Okay, we know that humans love technology, and over the years we have created many new and improved technologies. Just think of all the technology that we have at our fingertips right now. We got a lot of technology. So much. We're in we're as modern as we can be. We're the most modern. Humans have always been inventors and creators, and each successive generation has reaped the benefits. You think about communication, home life, engineering, medicine, and health, travel, all of that has changed so much over just the last couple hundred years, right? So everything progresses. Except one thing. What's that? There's one area that we have been absolutely stuck, mired in the muck. Okay, so everybody knows that when we're out and about, sometimes you get a higher calling and you gotta go, right? Yep. So you go to a public restroom. And one would think, you know, after thousands of years of civilization, we could have come up with a better system than we currently have. Yes. So today we're gonna look back at the rather curious question of why we haven't done better with the design and function of public restrooms by now. You'll be happy to know that I've figured out a solution.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I can't wait for this.
SPEAKER_06It's so good. It's so good. So uh human civilization has been around for 6,000 years. Okay, estimated. So we've had a long time to work on the problem of where to go in public. Let's go back to the Romans.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_06You know the Romans.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I know the Romans.
SPEAKER_06Togas, all that jazz. Rome was an empire. Holy cow, man. Empire. And so they were this vast and powerful empire. What did they do for the public restroom situation?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_06They put some holes in marble and they said, go in it, go in the hole. Okay. So you'd go in there with your toga, you'd sit, so all the holes were just right there, and you'd go in and sit down on the stone.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_06With your toga. Now you'd try to manage your toga to give yourself a little privacy because there's no other privacy. You're like basically cheek to cheek with somebody else who you may or may not even know. Yeah. And I don't know what's worse. I don't know if I want to go next to somebody I know or I want to go so next to a stranger.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna go with stranger. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Especially if it's someone you just started dating. Oof. It's like that's too soon. Yeah. And the people who I I gotta this is a comp I this is an unintended tangent.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_06I've never been, when I'm in a relationship, I've never been the guy who wants to share bathroom time with somebody else.
SPEAKER_02Okay, you're right.
SPEAKER_06Right there with you, yes. And but there's people who like see that as like a test of intimacy. Like I can be in here while you're doing your business, and that shows how close we are. And I'm like, no, if you're in here, I'm not in here.
SPEAKER_02Right. We have two bathrooms in my apartment, and I will never go back to single bathroom life with my partner.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it keeps you working hard, right? Those two bathrooms, man. I'll do anything to keep my bathroom. I have two bathrooms too, and I specifically will not let you know.
SPEAKER_04I will never go back.
SPEAKER_06I don't let anyone use my bathroom. Yeah. I don't care who they are. Nope. Um, so you're sitting close to your neighbors. Your only privacy is your toga.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_06A lot of people know this. They know this about the Roman situation, right? It's not a surprise. But what they don't know is that no one was keeping these spaces clean.
SPEAKER_02I was wondering where the hole goes.
SPEAKER_06Well, the hole goes basically into a um uh a gutter. Okay. And the gutter w and the water shoot. Yeah, and the water from typically they were put next to bathhouses. So the water would uh then take the waste, and where would the waste go? To a sanitation uh department? No, it would go into the river, and people would use that for irrigating crops and drinking water.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_06There was no filtration, nothing. It just got washed out. So pretty primitive, right? But see, the Romans were like at the height of they were the most modern people in their moment.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_06They felt like we did.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Like we were with our phones and our computers and our things and all our stuff and our TikTok and everything. We're feeling like, man, there's no we couldn't be more modern. That's how they felt.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06They're sitting on a stone hole next to somebody, and they were the holes are really close together, you know, trying to manage their toga so they don't get toga stain.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_06Because you don't want that.
SPEAKER_02No. I I did, I just went to the Renaissance fair because I'm a huge dork and I like to dress up in costumes. And I was wearing like a full like cloak, a long dress and like a cloak, and it was super, super muddy. It was really rainy that day, and I had to use an outhouse with my long cloak and a bunch of mud. Uh, so I felt like one of the Romans having to like pull up my dress and try to hope that it was mud in the outhouse and not anything else. Right. Yes.
SPEAKER_06I think this is very similar to what the Romans.
SPEAKER_02I felt like I was in Rome.
SPEAKER_06Except you would have been around other people doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_02And there was toilet paper. I must I don't know how they did. Are we getting there?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, you're right on you're right on time. I was gonna say that so these places weren't necessarily clean, yeah, and it wasn't mud. Okay. So, and there was no one like running around cleaning it for you. Right. They weren't the most perfumed environments you've ever been in, they weren't sanitary, they didn't know a lot about the whole connection between contact with certain waste materials and health. Didn't really know about that, they didn't know how you get disease. So they were actually quite disgusting places, and the upper class people try to avoid them, like the richest people, okay. Also, you wondered about toilet paper, they didn't have any back then. There was no toilet paper.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_06So what the Romans used, because they were the most modern people around, they used a stick and sponge system.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_06And there's it's not clear from what I read whether the stick and sponge would be reused from person to person, but probably that was a thing. And maybe it would sit in something like a water jug, or maybe there'd be some vinegar in it. Uh basically, hello.
SPEAKER_02I'm thinking, I'm picturing basically like a toilet brush.
SPEAKER_06It was like a toilet brush. Okay. Yeah. It looked like also a good place to trap bacteria. Yeah. And spread it from person to person. Yep. Uh toilet paper, by the way, I did not know this about toilet paper. It wasn't really invented until the 1850s.
SPEAKER_02Wow. That's a long time.
SPEAKER_06We've only had toilet paper for about a couple hundred years. Wow. Okay. Until and it wasn't until the 1930s that it was advertised as splinter free.
SPEAKER_01Oh no.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Think about that.
SPEAKER_01Oh no.
SPEAKER_06In very ancient times, people wiped with stones and other natural materials like leaves or water or snow.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Wake up. Good morning. Morning time. Some cultures opted for seashells. I'm not seeing it. And animal furs, that makes sense to me. Okay. Hopefully the animals were not alive. Because that would stuff. You grab a squirrel and you're like, hey, bud, can you can you do me a solid?
SPEAKER_02I got a job for you. Can you do me a solid? I mean, literally.
SPEAKER_03People use broken bits of pottery.
SPEAKER_01What?
SPEAKER_06What's wrong with people? Well, they're just using what's available.
SPEAKER_02Whatever's in arm's reach.
SPEAKER_06There is some evidence that Pompeii, you know, that's the place where the they had a little um they had a little volcano problem. Yeah, a little crispy. They uh there are evidence that um people might have used cloth, but cloth would have been extremely fancy. That would have been like you just didn't use cloth. Gotcha. Some people use corn cops. Not making this up. Um in the early 18th century, people in our country were using the Sears catalog pages and the farmers almanac pages in public restrooms. I kid you not.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_06Now, this is before they were the shiny, they were just actually people. Okay. So that was a thing in a public restroom. They'd have a Sears catalog in there, people would read it and then tear the pages.
SPEAKER_02No, they didn't have catalogs before toilet paper.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, they were using magazines. Okay. Yeah. They were using magazines. Eat and the farmers almanac actually started selling their journal with a pre-cut hole so it would be easily hung in an outhouse.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_06Because they knew people who were using it, they would read it and then dispose of it in the best way possible. So America has famously bad public restrooms. Yes. Some countries do a good job. Uh Japan is one, Singapore, Germany. They they are known for their great restrooms. I went to Japan a couple years ago, and the public restrooms were a dream. You had all these controls, all these things you could do. One of my favorites is you had sound control, so you could create cover sound for your activities. They have air fresheners, all kinds of washing devices. Um you could vacation in there. It was nice. Uh also I flew on a Japanese airline and I had to go to the restroom in the middle of the night or whatever. So I go, do the thing, you know, air airline restrooms, not always great, but this one was really clean. Okay. I get out, there's a a flight attendant right there, and I'm like, okay, what happened? They're smiling. I as soon as I leave, they go in and they clean the entire place. Oh wow. Spray it down, wipe everything, throw the toilet out the window. They, I mean, it's just it's incredible. So I mean, they really know what they're doing. Okay. And apparently Singapore and Germany are good. The worst are, of course, America. We're at the top of the list. Yeah. France, Italy, Spain, all known for not great public restrooms.
SPEAKER_02I will say, when I go on like a road trip, yeah, I only stop at McDonald's bathrooms. That's a good idea. Because McDonald's bathrooms are the cleanest and you can get in there. Taken care of. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_06They won't bust you for walking in there.
SPEAKER_02Never go to a gas station. Those are a crapshoot. Literally. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02McDonald's is where it's at.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I think that's a good idea. I have used that too. Also the way they're located, and most of them, you can slip in that side door and you never have to really confront the people selling fries, and they don't really care.
SPEAKER_02They don't care.
SPEAKER_06They don't really care.
SPEAKER_02But sometimes I feel guilty for not buying something if I stop somewhere with McDonald's.
SPEAKER_06I gotta tell you, for years, uh I whenever I was driving somewhere, I used that as an excuse to get McDonald's.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Because I gotta tell you something, I kind of like them. Delicious. I like a little cheeseburger.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_06A little French fry action as I'm driving down the road. One time I was in Paris, so there was a uh vanity uh privacy like screen, so people couldn't see your swimsuit area, but they could see your face and your feet as they walk by in a line. And so you're supposed to be, you know, doing your doing your stuff, uh, and you're like face to face with people. That's kind of intense for me. Totally.
SPEAKER_02You know, what if you're like having a moment or you're fighting for your life?
SPEAKER_06Well, this was this was your face. This was a stand-up situation.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_06So I don't this wasn't a this I don't remember what what if they had any stalls, but for guys just wanting to go number one, you were like face to face with people. They were like like a foot away, and they're just walking by on a line to go into like a like a museum or something, and you're out there, and so you're actually like standing it without that wall there. I mean, they could it would just be over there.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_06It's pretty interesting experience.
SPEAKER_02Really to like encourage people to get on with it, but not dilly-dilly.
SPEAKER_06I just don't think they care over there about anything.
SPEAKER_02Gotcha.
SPEAKER_03They just don't care. They don't care.
SPEAKER_06What happens? I went to Wrigley Field in Chicago once to watch the Cubs play, and that was really fun. And then I really had to go and I got in there, and they had a trough for the guys.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_06And the trough was uh like a double-sided buffet. So you got people standing all around facing each other, peeing into a trough in the middle of the space.
SPEAKER_02And uh I found that a little challenging. Did you make hard eye contact with the person across from you?
SPEAKER_06It's you know what it is? Uh you know what it is is like you don't really know where to look. You're trying to avoid looking down or to the side, yeah, but you're become aware of all these penises around you. It's it's challenging.
SPEAKER_04That's for sure.
SPEAKER_06So let's talk about why I think these public restrooms have really lagged behind technological advances. And I was reading about this stuff, and it's just like, I can't believe we're still doing this. Yeah. That we still have this setup. Okay. So we know, health officials know, that the spread of certain disease-causing viruses and bacteria live in public restrooms. Salmonella, Norovirus, and hepatitis A, and other pathogens and microbes, all living on the toilets and other services in public restrooms. Most of these pathogens find their way onto bathroom services via the toilet bowl because feces and even urine contain many bacteria and viruses. Here's the thing you think you're being a good citizen, like you ever go into a stall and it's not flushed, and you're like, ugh, people, you're so disgusting. Well, guess what? Flushing the toilet is the worst thing you can do. Uh-huh. Why? Because it disperses the microbes in an aerosolized plume, which can reach three to five feet into the air and remain suspended for an hour or more before settling around the surfaces. So when you go right in after somebody else, you're basically breathing their microbes. Poop fumes. Poop fumes. The plume, the toilet plume. I'm like, what? So those flushes, and you know, those automatic flushing toilets, they're like flushing all the time. Totally. So you're constantly doing that. And then people say, Well, but is it safe to sit on toilet seats? And it's like, oh yeah, that's okay. I mean, it's basically safe, except you can get MRSA, a type of bacteria that's resistant to antibiotics and tricky to treat. It's rare, but still, hello. Yeah. If uh you can hover, that's a better plan.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_06Sort of. They say, they say, oh, well, if you carry disinfecting disinfectant wipes, you should wipe down the toilet seat. But don't throw the wipe in the toilet.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_06So like some of the advice they give in this article, which I'll post in the notes, it's like, well, what are you doing with the wipe now?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Okay, so you wipe down the toilet seat before you go. Yeah. What are you doing with the wipe? Where's the wipe? You're holding it? Where's it? Where you don't have putting it somewhere? That's not a good idea. That just spreads. It's like, and they say, oh, you throw it away. What but so where are you holding in your mouth? What's going on with the wipe? So, you know, though we talked about this before in another show, those those automatic toilet seat covers or the ones you can put on yourself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the paper ones.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, they don't really offer foolproof protection. They can be contaminated from poop fumes. Yes, exactly. Or other stall occupants doing whatever they're doing in there. Sometimes they're not available. So, yes, if you've got strong muscles, as one doctor says, by all means hover, but only if you have good aim, which we know a lot of people, again, we've been doing this for thousands of years, and a lot of people still cannot hit the hit the basket.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_06You know, a lot of people are coming short to the rim, and I've seen some things in my day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06We're gonna get to that. So, thanks to the toilet plume effect and the use of hand air dryers, those things can spread germs from wet hands or nearby open trash cans, which probably have those wipes in them that you keep holding. And full of poop wipes. As far as 10 feet, so all the surfaces, forget about it. Anything you're touching in there, when you go in there and you put your phone down, whoops, better throw out your phone because that thing has yeah, been flumed. Flumed or plumed? I like flumed. I think that's good. Flush handle, stall latches, sink taps, exit doors, all of it. Contaminated. Contaminated. Contaminated. So we're basically we're no better than the Roms with the Romans with their uh poop sticks. So here, so they're giving other tips in this article. And they say, Oh, if you bring a bag or purse into a public restroom, avoid putting it on the floor. Again, where's it gonna be? Right. Some places some places have the hook. Some places have the hooks, but if there's a toilet plume, does it matter?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, true. It's all probably better than the poop floor, but it's still everything is covered in poop.
SPEAKER_06But if you're traveling like in an airport, you're gonna have a couple of because the old days before 9-11, you could leave your bags places. Yeah. But one of the cool things that happened after 9-11 is now you gotta go into the stall, you gotta take all your junk with you unless you have a sucker out there that's willing to watch your junk.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Trying to cram your suitcase into a tiny bathroom stall with you and finagle how to close the door, and then you're trapped, you can't get out.
SPEAKER_06And yet, with all that junk in there in an airport bathroom, there's always some goob trying to jiggle the handle.
SPEAKER_03It's like what can you see the steamer trunk, Jimmy? I'm in here. Get it back off from the toilet plume, Jimmy.
SPEAKER_02And some someone comes and knocks or jiggles the handle, or like obviously someone's in here.
SPEAKER_06Don't jiggle the handle.
SPEAKER_02I think you should get nobody jiggle the handle.
SPEAKER_06I think you should get a moderate electric shock if you're a handle jigger. Yes. Just like this is okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, when the when the dial turns to occupied, electrify the handle.
SPEAKER_06How about the people I like that this has happened to me on planes where
SPEAKER_02They don't throw the latch so it says it's open and then I pull it the I'm they get mad at you for opening the door.
SPEAKER_06When I open the door and somebody else is doing their Scooby-Doo, I don't want to see that. I don't want to see sidebutt. I don't want to see any of it. No. And then keep your phone stowed away. Okay, well, forget that. Everybody's on their phone. So that's contaminated. Try to avoid touching anything. Uh I'm still holding my little wipe in my hand. I got my bag in the other hand. I don't know what's going on.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Also, they say, consider closing the toilet lid before you flush to cut down on the plume.
SPEAKER_02Oh. Um, like stall bathrooms don't have lids? It's just a what's he talking about? Lids.
SPEAKER_03When's the last time? Where's it?
SPEAKER_06I don't know. To me, this is the equivalent where we are with the public restroom is is if you went into the doctor with a cold and the doctor says, Yes, we're gonna treat you with leeches.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_06And you'd be like, leeches? What that's what? You're still using that? This is how I feel like we are. There was another time in my life when I was running all the time. So I would run in uh races. Okay. You know. Now, a lot of these races were like they would uh locate the start like at some public space, like a school or some a park, and that would be the place where it starts. So, you know, the restrooms would be kind of sketchy in terms of what you could use. But you know, that was my routine. So one time I uh had to go and I was at a park and I could see uh a couple hundred yards in a distance that was looked like a pretty small public restroom. Okay, there I go. Yep. So I did all my stuff, I'm on my way. There were two kind of like paths that converged at this restroom coming from different locations. And as I was kind of on my way, I noticed to my right on this other path, there's another guy kind of on his way. And I'm like, this is probably only a one-holer, and I was getting kind of I was feeling that urgency concerned, like if I have to wait, it might not be good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_06So I kind of start picking up my pace, you know, pretending like I don't, I don't know, he's even there. Yeah, we're far enough away where there's this plausible deniability, like I was to you. But he starts picking up his pace.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_06So we both are in the same boat, it becomes clear to me. So I start to hustle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_06And I beat him to the restroom. Sure enough, there was one stall and one urinal.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_06There. I get in the stall, close the door, I'm great. I feel kind of like I win.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_06The other guy comes in, sort of panting. I can hear him, I can't see him.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Now, I don't know if I can describe this very clearly, but so imagine a typical stall set up and the toilet itself is against the wall, and then just to the right is the urinal, it's very small space. Yeah. And that's on the same wall. So it makes sense for the plumbing that both receptacles are on the same wall and you're separated by the stall door. Typical stall, you know, that goes halfway and under three-quarters of the way, but you can see underneath. So he comes in, I'm like kind of in my mind going, haha. Well, it turns out his situation was quite urgent. And I intuit from the gasping and grunting and thrashing about that he's gonna use the urinal for his experience. He's gonna go downtown that way. Okay. So I'm like, okay, I could see that. I could see that. So that starts to happen. And the next thing I know, a wad of poop comes uh under my stall uh area right next to my foot.
SPEAKER_01What?
SPEAKER_06And I'm like first of all, I'm stunned because it's like wow. And then secondly, I'm like, how did that happen? Yeah. Because if he was backing up to the urinal, what is it, a rebound situation? Where's it?
SPEAKER_03How is it getting under it is this a liquid or a solid state?
SPEAKER_06It's like both.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_06It's like both. Uh it's like beef stroganoff.
SPEAKER_02A bit of a poop soup. Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. So yeah, it's pretty gross, but it's like, whoa. And I mean, I one hand I feel bad for the guy who's obviously in distress, but also I'm like, is he spinning around? How is this stuff right talking about a toilet plume? Yeah. This guy, whoa, surfaces? Hello. Right. So I'm stunned. Like, I don't even, and I'm a big mouth, I'm always talking. I don't even know what to say. Like, you know, like, miss me. I don't know what to say. I don't like I might I I don't have any rejoinder for this. I don't have a transitional thing. Like, everything okay? Nothing. I'm just kind of stunned into silence. And then and then all of a sudden, underneath the stall wall there, where there's that little gap, two hands.
SPEAKER_01Oh no.
SPEAKER_03Two hands come, scoop the poop. Oh no.
SPEAKER_02With his bare hands and take it away. Oh my god. He scooped his poop. That's the craziest thing I've ever heard. It was crazy. It was very polite of him, I suppose.
SPEAKER_06Well, I thought it was um really the ultimate act of personal responsibility.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_06I mean, a lot of people would have been like, hey, my blob, your prob.
SPEAKER_04You know, it's like it's not and it's it's like I was like, oh my God, he that is nuts.
SPEAKER_06So he was like totally responsible. It's like, well, I did that, I'm gonna fix it, but gross, right? There was gross. I don't remember what the washing up situation was in there.
SPEAKER_02Dire, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_06But it I mean, I doubt there was anything, but um, yeah, I was really impressed with the display of humanity there on on all fronts, you know. Yeah, uh, first of all, obviously he was in a tough situation that any of us have been in and he made the most of it. I still don't know the physics of it. I don't understand, like it was like a spin cycle, I don't know what was happening. But for that scoop to happen, uh that I don't know if I would have done the same.
SPEAKER_02I would not. I would have uh I would have just taken off running again, I think.
SPEAKER_06Right. My thought was on the one hand, I was impressed with his bravery.
SPEAKER_02Impressive, yes.
SPEAKER_06But I also couldn't, I didn't want to, I couldn't make, I couldn't deal with him face to face.
SPEAKER_02Oh no. You had to stay in that stall until he left.
SPEAKER_06I waited, I was prepared to stay in there for a fortnight if I had to. He eventually left, uh, so I could go safely out.
SPEAKER_02So we were impressed.
SPEAKER_06We I was extreme I'm not kidding. I was like, wow, that's a commitment to like making up for your mistakes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. The worst is being a girl is if you're wearing um a romper or like a jumpsuit. It's like a one-piece thing, and you when you go to the bathroom, you have to take the whole thing off the street. Yeah, and where's all just junko? Yeah, but you're just like sitting there with your titties out on the toilet, and the goobs peek through the crack to see if you're in there.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Like, there's the internet, there's all sites, there's all kinds of sites for this.
SPEAKER_02I'm like, it's clearly taken. Don't peek through the crack at me. I'm I'm very vulnerable right now.
SPEAKER_06What about the ball gown people? What are they doing? What about the queens and stuff wearing the big ball gowns like Cinderella and all that jazz? What's happening there?
SPEAKER_02I feel like that's kind of like my Renfare situation where you gotta like pull up a bunch of stuff and try to figure out how to not dip it in the toilet bowl, toilet bowl. I said that weird.
SPEAKER_06I didn't want to just you know go on a rant here about this horrible state of public restrooms. I wanted to come up with a solution. I wanted to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Obviously, we need public restrooms, we can't do away with them. I wish we could. I wish we could all wear some kind of weird astronaut suit and everything's just taken care of like on board. Yes, and then we get home and it gets disposed somehow. But that's we're we're not there yet. No. Maybe we'll evolve someday into people who don't need to do that. But that's a couple million I think a couple million years off. I need I need something now that's doable. Okay. All right, so here it is.
SPEAKER_02What's the solution?
SPEAKER_06First of all, in my ideal bathroom, I don't see anybody. Yes. I don't want to see anybody. Yeah, I just don't want to see people, I don't want to hear them. That's another thing. I hate hearing people use the bathroom. Is that weird? Yeah, no. It's we've talked about it before. It's like people just act like they're given birth in there sometimes. Totally.
SPEAKER_02I love it when I go to a place and the bathrooms are single stalls instead of like the partitions.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, single stalls, yeah. Except for the toilet plume. It's a great idea. Yeah. Single stalls now are probably the most dangerous because there's nowhere for the air to go. Right. But but at least you have your privacy. So I don't want to see anything. I don't want to see people doing weird stuff. I don't want to hear them doing weird stuff. I don't want to hear them talking on the phone, doing the bathroom calls. Don't want any of that. And why should anybody have to see me or deal with me? Because I'm I'm not a picnic in there. Right. So I'm I'm so how do you how do you avoid seeing anybody? So when you're in a public space, you go, there are a number of well, however number of toilets they have or whatever, there's a transport tube. So you're not actually going into the restroom, you go into a transport tube.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_06You step into the tube and you get transported, zoop, like you know.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_06I don't know how they do it, but you know how that the banks used to have those. It's kind of a pneumatic suction tube of sometimes. You get sucked around. I don't know. Doesn't sound that bad. But no one's in there with you. Okay. And you end up in your own private space where the toilet is to do whatever you need to do. So no one's in there in your own space. It's completely sealed off from any other spaces. Totally soundproof. Everything.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_06There's no there's no one like jiggling the door handle or looking in the cracks. It's totally hands-free. So there's a just there's a series of sprays and mists and dryers, and you just don't have to ever touch anything. Okay. Everything is in between uses, it automatically is like there's no person that comes in there to clean. Everything is like automatically, all the surfaces are treated with disinfectant, and there's uh the air is completely exchanged, so you're not breathing, like all the poop air is sucked out, and you're breathing fresh air. So everything's sanitized. And in the stall itself, there's like a you know, a hand wash station, but it's all touchless. Like you put your hands out, your hands are cleaned. It's not like something where you have to use a towel, there's no air dryer. Yeah, it's just all taken care of, and you can actually do everything without actually touching anything. You there's options you can have you can go old school, not so old, you're not we're going Roman time. There's not a toilet paper, super old school. There's not a wipe stick, but but there's toilet paper, but you don't have to use it. You're completely good. You get back in the tube, out you go.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_06That's a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_02That would be wonderful.
SPEAKER_06It's a and it's none of that is. I mean, I don't exactly know how the tube works.
SPEAKER_02The tube complicates things.
SPEAKER_06But maybe it could just be I mean, uh you could have a series of pulleys and winches.
unknownSure.
SPEAKER_06There's always some kind of mechanical thing that we can create to hoist you into the space that you need to be in.
SPEAKER_04Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_06But to me, when you think about everything else we have at our disposal and the fact that we're still going into these disease-infested disgusting. Yeah, they're gross. They're dirty, they're grossed. People are people. You know, we're animals.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_06And we act like animals in these public spaces.
SPEAKER_02When I walked into work yesterday, there was a man sitting next to the outhouse, smelly smelly outhouse, eating a tub of chocolate Ben and Jerry's with his bare hands.
SPEAKER_06Oh, so you were wondering about the f the flavor profile that he was experiencing. Because you get a lot of your taste through your old factory.
SPEAKER_02Plumes, for sure.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Well, that's that says a lot. That's that says a lot for Ben and Jerry's, though. It's like this ice cream, you can eat this.
SPEAKER_02It's still delicious, even next to a poop plume. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Like part of it is that people just accept it. They're so glad to have a place to go. Like they forget that, wow, we've been doing it basically the same way. Like, so you take a Roman.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_06And you time travel him, maybe in a tube. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_06Maybe stepped in the wrong tube, and instead of going to the bathroom, he's now here. But you take a Roman with the toga and you take him to a public bathroom, he's not going to be that impressed.
SPEAKER_03He's not going to say, Oh my God, I don't know. What is this? This is so strange.
SPEAKER_06At least in America, you go into a public bathroom and here you have a hole, and there might be a door, there might not be a door. There's other people in there, it stinks, it's smelly, all that bad stuff. It's filled with germs. It's kind of like, hmm.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Especially the outhouses. That's basically the same thing.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Yeah. So it'd be like, well, you a couple thousand years, I guess you guys haven't really been working on this, have you? I mean, and we haven't.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_06Why have we been so complacent? Right. Why? What makes people so complacent about the quality of public restrooms?
SPEAKER_02Yes, it's something we use a lot.
SPEAKER_06Why are we okay with this, Jamie?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. There has to be.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, but I mean, come on. We we're sending the we're sending vehicles to Mars and into outer space. I mean, if the aliens ever show up here, they're going to be very disappointed with the restroom situation. Yeah. Hey, thanks, Jamie, for talking about this with me. I d I don't know anyone else who would have this conversation.
SPEAKER_02I'm I'm all about it.
SPEAKER_06And thank you everyone for joining us for this episode. Uh, if you like what we're doing, we would love your help. So you can follow the show on Instagram, you can email us, you can share the show, you can go on TikTok wherever they're talking about podcasts, and you can talk us up. That would really help us. Oh my goodness. We are independent and uh our marketing funds are limited, so we really rely on you to share the show and talk up the show. And if you're doing that, thank you very much, and thanks for considering doing it. Also, if you can give us a strong review uh on an app that allows you to rate us or review us, if you can give us the highest rating and a sparkling review, some of you have done that. That's really cool. Apparently that helps people find it. And uh, of course we're on Patreon as well if you want to support us that way. And we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you are reaching in for the ultimate scoop or just someone doing the Ben and Jerry's challenge, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans, sometimes more than others. Goodbye, everybody.