Urinals

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy peeing while standing as much as the next guy, but there are so many things that can go wrong with the urinal situation that it often makes for more of a hassle than an easy solution. You would think that after so many years with indoor plumbing that we as a human race would have figured out the best system for urinals and stick with it, but alas, that is not the case.

The first thing I hate about urinals is that the owners of the bathroom feel they have to cater to midgets and children, even in places not frequented by these creatures. At the end of every bank of urinals, almost always on the far left end (I don’t know why it’s always on the left, it just is), is a urinal shorter than the rest. Not just a little shorter mind you, but so short that for someone of my stature, the top of the urinal reaches my knees, rendering it completely and utterly useless. A waste of perfectly good porcelain and copper piping.


The second thing I loathe about urinals is the trend towards not putting dividers between them. Really? The last thing I want to do when I go to the bathroom is to be standing next to some guy, without anything but air between us and our respective units while we go about our business. People would never consider putting in full toilets without a divider in between, so why not spend the $3 and put that piece of plastic coated particle board up in between the urinals so we can have some privacy? There’s nothing like having to urinate only to run into a bathroom, seeing all but one urinal open with no dividers between them, and the guys on either side look at you with a disgusting smirk and look like they just walked out of a panel van. That’s just simply unacceptable. Just as you wouldn’t walk up to a bush that was being occupied by another man, these urinals without dividers should simply be banished outright.


Worse than the lack of dividers, is the trough. Normally only seen at sporting arenas, this is truly a terrible experience, each man lining up, brushing shoulders to get a spot in order to relieve themselves.

Other manifestations of this include wall urinals, where the entire wall is a giant urinal, and you just do your business on it and walk away, as if some 3 year old was designing it and decided that the most fun thing a man can do in a day is to piss all over a wall. This leads to another issue, men who simply refuse to use these and instead use the stall, who are seemingly unable to aim and render that stall useless for the rest of the day until it is cleaned. I would take the time to apologize to the few female readers of this blog, but from what I’ve heard and read, women’s bathrooms are no picnic either.