Thomas Crapper

I just had the misfortune to fly across country and while stood outside the restrooms waiting for a vacancy was hit by the following question.

What exactly goes on inside American public restrooms that takes so bloody long? I thought it was a phenomenon that only the “ladies” experienced, but it seems that given the privacy of a completely sealed restroom, the average man will take just as long. I mention this because the normal state of affairs for mens rooms in the US is somewhat unnervingly “public” for my delicate British sensibilities. The desire to defecate “almost in public” or whilst having a conversation with a friend who might be using a nearby urinal seems a little indelicate to me. For the benefit of the Ladies or foreign readers, most men’s restrooms have a two foot gap all the way around the bottom, while the cubicle comes up to about chest height and there is about a 3 inch gap all around the door. The design, which seems so readily adopted across this nation, must have been executed by a bikini designer with compulsive voyeuristic tendencies, or a woman with a sense of humor. While we’re on the subject, just why in hell are they called restrooms anyway? The last thing you in there for is a rest. Relief yes! Maybe this is where a real life misinterpretation is happening and perhaps people are resting in there after all, slipping in for a quick snooze. This theory falls somewhat short when you  look at the inside of the average public crapper..

And so the same for “bathroom”. We don’t bathe in there, or if we do… we need guidance, there is no shower. The problem is to do with the “T” word. Toilet, Toilet, Toilet, Toilet. Toilet however still seems acceptable in the “Toilet water” setting as perfume. So much for applied logic. I swear in the last 5 years Toilet Paper became Bathroom Tissue, who knows why? Maybe it’s the efforts of advertisers trying to induce a Prozac like cloud of comfort around the experience or perhaps a throwback from the Victorian sensibilities which still seem to hold most of US society in the dark ages.