December 6, 2006

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Public Urinals To Spray Pee On Relieved Drunkards' Legs

Vancouver is considering installing retractable public urinals for drunken, late-night urination. And "public" does not only mean, "free to all," it means, "in full view of everyone walking the street, including sweet old ladies and lurkers with golden shower fetishes." The reasoning goes that drunks piss on walls and in corners in public late at night anyway, so why not provide them with places to do so cleanly and legally? The urinals are stowed under the sidewalk during the day, and an attendant will use a remote control to bring the urinals up to ground level when night falls. That way the public restrooms aren't an eyesore during the day.

I think this is pretty brilliant, and a nice step toward removing the shame our society directs toward our bodies and its natural processes. But try to imagine a local government trying to do this in America. The protests would be widespread and vehement.

Even I would protest, though I'd be protesting the fact that they are urinals instead of toilets. Because as we all know, I boycott urinals. Since I wear pairs of jeans a good thirty or so times before washing them, I'd really rather not be splashing urine spray on them whenever I pee. And it is mathematically proven that it is impossible to pee into a urinal without some of it spraying back onto one's legs. It even says so in The Bible. Really, it does. Read John 10:13: "And whosoever shall empty himself unto the okay, it doesn't really say anything about urinals in The Bible. But I don't need the Lamb of God to descend from on high and appear to me in a dream just to inform me not to piss all over myself rather than wait twenty seconds for a stall.

Other than that, yeah, I'd go number one in public. But then, I have a blog, so I clearly don't mind spewing other nasty things in public. In general, I'm a very public individual. In fact, I can only think of one thing that I can't imagine myself doing in public under any conceivable circumstances, and that is to pop my shirt collar non-ironically. That's where I draw the line. But I would gladly pee in public on people who pop their collars.

Posted at December 6, 2006 5:20 AM | Comments (3)


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I can't really disagree that urinals mean you're going to get a little splashback, but urine isn't really that bad. If you think about it, whenever you smell urine, isn't that because a little bit of it's in the air, and you're inhaling urine? I can deal with a little piss on my pants, as long as it's not noticeable.

I don't know that I'd go in public, though. I suppose sometimes you don't have a choice, and these things would be better than trying to find a dark corner. There's a spot on a building on H Street, about 2 blocks east of the Chinatown arch, where someone has spray-painted "NO PEE" on the wall. They should have just installed one of these things.

Posted by: anonymous law student at December 6, 2006 9:50 PM


You're right that we inhale small quantities of urine. And after all, it is sterile, according to popular myth. But the benefits of stalls are myriad. In a stall one can take one's time, stretch out, maybe take a nap, pull a George Michael... instead of shoving one's hips into the urinal and staring straight ahead, trying to avoid making eye contact with the six people waiting while three stalls are open. Even I won't wait an inordinate amount of time for a stall, but I suspect that my conception of "inordinate" is different from yours.

Also, I'm guessing that a can of spray paint is cheaper than the urinal system.

Posted by: David Barzelay at December 6, 2006 10:27 PM


Again you are correct David, there is no way it would happen in the US any time soon, but it should damnit!

Posted by: Ryan at December 10, 2006 12:30 PM

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