thank you rory.

"thank you rory."

You're welcome, George.

Anytime you need someone to flush a toilet handle down a toilet for you, I'm here lil' buddy.

Sweet Jesus.

I had to explain why I made three people outside of my office jump, after I laughed unexpectedly at this.

So, I went into an unnamed establishment today, had to go, did my business in de baño, went to flush, and dammit if someone hadn't flushed the handle and ran without telling someone..... Oh well, leave something for the next guy.

I swear, people are starting to think I'm plotting some diabolical scheme back here when I start laughing, such as at post like these.

Maybe I should start actually planning this diabolical scheme, then they'd have reason to be scared.

OK this is leaving me a little bothered. What kind of vanity is it that says that since other people might have touched things with their hands, that it is now ok (ask the people behind you if it's ok) to put your SHOE on the toilet handle. Now there's a way to decrease the spread of germs. Sheesh.

I have to use my foot as well... what I hate is when you have those automatic flushers that don't work. So you have this little bitty button next to the sensor and, well, your foot can't hit it. Taking off your shoe, using a toe, and then washing your feet in the sink seems like overkill.

So I usually have to hold a foot up to the sensor long enough for the light to do something (blink, go on, go off, explode, etc) before the damn thing flushes.

Automatic flushers, automatic sinks with automatic paper dispensers... just need an automatic bathroom door!

kip -

"K this is leaving me a little bothered."

Might be taking it a *tad* too seriously :)

"What kind of vanity is it that says that since other people might have touched things with their hands, that it is now ok (ask the people behind you if it's ok) to put your SHOE on the toilet handle. Now there's a way to decrease the spread of germs. Sheesh. "

That's why everybody should learn shoe-flushing.

I'm just an early adopter.

autophagia

In other words, the toilet ate itself, pure and simple, so don't feel bad. It was waiting for you to kick the handle in. But don't ask me why.

I'm with kip. There's a sequence of events here.

1) You enter the (insert gender here)'s room.
2) You do your thing.
3) You flush.
4) You wash your hands.
5) You leave the room.

Now, while activity 3) might have temporarily befouled your hands, activity 4) is right there to amend it, immediately afterwards. So, unless there is something visibly and tangibly disgusting about the flushing mechanism, I don't really see the problem with transporting a few germs from the flushing UI to the washer. But that's me.

5) You leave the room, pulling the door handle that Mr Non Hand Washer has touched.

So rather than being a shoe flusher you need to be a shoe door opener...

Is this a power thing like the bed wetting?

I'm a paper towel door opener. Since there is no #4 following, to me that's even more important. Hate those rolling cloth towel things and (hate to do it but) if you don't have a trash can near the door I have no choice. When all else fails I've even resorted to reaching to the top of the door.

Let me ask this: which is the less touched area of a vertical door handle, the top or the bottom??

A local TV news station investigated the sources of bacteria in our lives, including the bathroom. Their exhaustive laboratory tests revealed that public stair rails were the leading home of disgusting, nasty bacteria. Toilet seats were somehow much cleaner. Go figure.

Rory, are you related to Howard Hughes? ;-)

Dang! I check out Scott Adams' Dilbert Blog and discover his latest blog, on hygiene (do you think of someone named Jean when you hear "hygiene"?).

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/

So I guess Rory and Scott are comically (cosmically) linked...

punk programmer -

"So, unless there is something visibly and tangibly disgusting about the flushing mechanism, I don't really see the problem with transporting a few germs from the flushing UI to the washer."

The problem isn't transporting germs to the sink - it's transporting *somebody else's* fecal matter using my own hands as the poop taxi.

Again, this is a problem that could be solved if people just learned to shoe flush.

James -

"So rather than being a shoe flusher you need to be a shoe door opener..."

Always open the door with a paper towel.

Unless there aren't any.

In that case, you should camp out in the corner and wait for someone else to enter or exit the restroom. Then, like the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back, you can just float on through with the rest of the trash...

dn -

"Is this a power thing like the bed wetting?"

No. Accidentally flushing toilet handles down the toilet isn't a power thing.

I'm a victim.

John Hopper -

"Let me ask this: which is the less touched area of a vertical door handle, the top or the bottom??"

That's a fascinating question, and one I've asked myself many times.

Here are the issues:

1) The cleanest looking part of a vertical door handle is the part that's touched most often (people's hands wear through the scum, leaving a shiny, if somewhat oily, looking handle)

2) Some vertical handles are washed regularly, which makes it difficult to tell which part has been touched most often, but we can rely on the information from item #1 to determine that

3) I've found that the Very Tippy Top and the Absolute Bottom of the vertical handle are usually the dirtiest looking per the visual inspection technique described in item #1

4) Major problem: Even though the bottom of the handle might be touched less often than, say, the middle, it's probably the part that a child would touch when using the door, and all children are vectors for disease, so the bottom, though not often touched, is clearly out of the question

5) The bottom, as I've said, is out of the question, and the middle is usually the "clean looking" bit, so the Very Tippy Top must be the best choice, and particularly if there's a way to grab the handle that is a bit uncomfortable - most people would probably avoid touching that part of the handle because most people are lazy slobs looking for the path of least resistance

I'd have to say, then, that the top is probably touched less often than the bottom, and that the touches are less of a threat because it's probably other paranoid people who are generally very clean and running through this same thought process.

The top.

That's my answer.

This reminds me of an incident 25 years ago at work whilst standing at a urinal doing #1...

A co-worker was in one of the toilets doing his usual post-lunch #2. I heard him get off his butt, shuck-up his pants, and getting ready to give the handle the ol' college kick. After hearing his foot connect firmly with the handle, I hear this awful clanging noise followed by a loud howl of expletives. Since I didn't feel a thundering crash to the floor, I was pretty sure he didn't slip and crack his head on the toilet or partition. Then I heard this maniacal splashing around in the water along with demands of "Give it back you shit-head!". (If ever this is an appropriate time to use the word "shit-head", this would be it.)

At this point, I figured I'd better offer to help, since you never know.....he might have slipped and gotten his foot stuck in the toilet. Upon a "Everything ok in there buddy?" he slammed open the door and told me his key ring which WAS firmly attached to his leather belt had slid off his belt and down the drink...while it was going down, of course!

I stood there as he stuck his whole arm down that sucker thinking that by some miracle his wad of 2 pounds of keys was going to magically defy gravity or get stuck going down.

To make things worse, one top of having his P.O. Box key and safe deposit key on the ring, he told me the office keys were on it as well. Of course, those office keys were for the exterior doors of a very large datacenter (think: $2-3B of mainframes). I had to take him down the street to the nearest bar for a stiff one to calm him down... (He was actually thinking of spelunking down the nearest manhole...again thinking he could intercept it before it went all the way down to the sewage-treatment plant.)

He spent weeks and hundreds of dollars replacing those keys. (He even visited the sewage-treatment plant to see if they had a "Lost & Found" desk. They actually did, but his keys hadn't shown up...)

About six months later, this same dude not only kicked the handle off of the same commode (I think in revenge), but also broke the valve and started a fire-hydrant-style leak...which put several hundred gallons of water on the floor before it could be turned off.

Some people just don't have a good "user experience" with toilets.

I learned from this that sometimes there are worse consequences to your visit to the bathroom then some evil bacteria...

I think that people who avoid germs at all cost are usually the ones who get the sickest when finally exposed to a germ.

Oh, wait... This is Rory... Suddenly, things are starting to make a lot of sense. ;-)

Jason F -

"I think that people who avoid germs at all cost are usually the ones who get the sickest when finally exposed to a germ."

Hey... I'm *not* actually sick all the time.

I'm just...

You know...

Like...

Allergic to germs.

Or something.

Steve, thanks for the laugh! Almost swallowed my fork. This is exactly why guys need to carry manbags. First, your pockets are empty and second, you can't flush manbags.

I think this calls for the manufacturers of public toilets to reconsider their users and reinvent the toilet flusher handle.

They may call this device the footle, since users wish to migrate from using a hand to using a foot instead.

The footle, of course, needs to be much closer to the floor....
On second thought, deliquent users (strong supporters of the handle) may band together and begin kicking the footles of new toilets off....

Ehh...
Why even start, I'm positioning myself in the camp with the clear "upper hand". Long-live the handle!

Sorry about that Rory, my earlier comment seemed to have been eaten.

1. In Mexico most of the public toilets and urinals have a foot flushing system which is a pedal mounted on the wall about a foot from the floor. So you just do your business, step on the pedal and Roberto es su tio.

2. "Then, like the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back, you can just float on through with the rest of the trash..."
Then we've got to find a safe port somewhere around here. Got any
ideas?

Rory:

"The problem isn't transporting germs to the sink - it's transporting *somebody else's* fecal matter using my own hands as the poop taxi."

I might be naive, but I'm counting on people using this thing called toilet paper to isolate their hands from the fecal matter. If not, that case is covered by the "visibly and tangibly disgusting" part. In which case I really don't want even my shoe touching the flushing mechanism - what wrong has my shoe ever done to me? In fact, why do shoes always have to be stepped on?

What about if you have cuts on your hands? Would you like someone else's fecal matter marinating in your bloodstream? I can handle my own but I draw the line with yours.

A foot pedal is a novel idea. It's used for trash cans even though the mechanisms break more often then they're actually used (about 90% of trash cans with the pedal don't have a pedal that works). There could be a pedal for the door too that when pushed would gently open the door. It doesn't even have to be all the way, just enough to stick an appendage through to wiggle your way to the other side.

I avoid germs about as much as Rory and I literally get sick probably once a year if not every other with the same sinus infection type thing roughly around Thanksgiving/Christmas. I don't get colds or the flu so either my body is too toxic to allow other invaders or I'm extremely lucky. Then again it could be that I wash my hands way more than I should and treat possible areas of infection as someone in a hazmat suit treats uranium.

The door handle is tricky but the best people to judge any of this is the people who's job it is to clean up public restrooms. It wouldn't take long to gather enough data about how relatively clean surfaces are. Let's all be honest about humanity. People have a relative respect. They won't throw trash on their living room floor but they will throw it out of their moving car. They won't rub crap all over the mirrors of their own bathroom, but won't think twice about doing so in a public restroom. Not all people are looking for excuses to treat the world like a giant wastebasket/toilet/sesspool. I'm willing to bet a good majority are though and only think about the consequences if there's a chance of getting caught.

Rory:
"Always open the door with a paper towel.

Unless there aren't any.

In that case, you should camp out in the corner and wait for someone else to enter or exit the restroom. Then, like the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back, you can just float on through with the rest of the trash... "

This reminds me of Aviator, where this guy did exactly the same thing, because he was afraid of germs.

I'm with Rory here - never touch that handle... sick.

The biggest problem I have is the knowledge that unless the toilet seat is closed when flushing, *it* can be transmitted via the air up to 6 feet from the source. That means you're breathing it in and it's landing all over your clothes, hands, face, hair.

I think the UK has figured this out as many of the stalls are fully enclosed (no gap on the top).

Public restrooms are really just a big problem... I never leave a public restroom any happier then when I entered.

"This reminds me of Aviator, where this guy did exactly the same thing, because he was afraid of germs."

That's interesting - I've never seen the Aviator, but people keep referencing it in conversations with me.

They say that I'm just like the guy from the movie, except that nobody likes me and I don't have any money.

Paul -

"I think the UK has figured this out as many of the stalls are fully enclosed (no gap on the top)."

I noticed that in a few locations, and I really appreciated it. Not so much because I thought I was protected from disease, but because I've always felt that the reason for the "abridged" stall walls and doors here in the states is a "That's right - we're *watching* you" paranoia.

Like your boss periodically comes into the restroom to look under the doors and make sure no employees are doing drugs or getting it on with street walkers.

That's what I like about being a remote employee. Not only can I do whatever I want in my bathroom, I can even do it during phone meetings, and nobody's the wiser.

The only drawback is I'm really not very exciting, and about the naughtiest thing I might do during a meeting is apply underarm deoderant to my naked pits.

Bah. Who am I kidding. I don't even do that. I don't like to touch toiletries and then touch the phone, so I couldn't do both at the same time.

Never mind. Being a remote employee is just kind of lonely.

Pity me.

It happens to all of us Rory.

We all do it.

So, Rory, you've got to have an OCD thing about wearing shoes in the house, then.

Is it all shoes, all the time? Or, shoes don't go past the door?

Cause with all that shoe flushing, you certainly don't want to track feces all over tu casa, and then happen to later walk around barefoot.

Sorry if I just introduced a new fear for you to obsessively compulse over.

Jeremy:
"What about if you have cuts on your hands?"

Well, if I'm bleeding to death, I'm probably not going to visit a public restroom in order to do #2. Instead, I'll be yelling to someone to dial 911 (obviously I can't manage to do so myselft, because my hands are cut up!). Even if the wounds are not likely to be fatal, I think I'd stay out of the restroom - not so much to hinder fecal bacteria from entering my blood stream, as to avoid smearing my blood all over the place.

Count me in on the Shoe Flusher Gang.

You can also count me into the “Get a bunch of wadded up towels Gang”

Daniel

I too am a card-carrying member of the 'Shoe Flusher' club. Also am a card-carrying member of the 'paper-tower-open-door-to-exit' club as well.

I once have a similar experience but instead of the handle flying off, the 'water-exploded' upwards. Boy, am I gladed that I was a shoe-flusher cuz otherwise, it would have hit me right at my face.

We are missing a handle and no I think we know who the culprit is....which brings me to another point, why not make toilet with a 2 speed flush rate control (low range for big loads when power is the key, and high range for those quick courtesy flushes). Then make the actual flush mechanism like an accelerator pedal? I swear to God, paint them like your favorite NASCAR ride and we are sitting on a gold mine gentleman. I can see it now, "Honey, I am goin' to go do some qualifyin' runs on the Dale Jr."

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