I tweeted (twitter.com) this a few days ago but got no response, so now I have to bring it here.
Firstly, let me say how happy I am that I'm at a point in my life where I feel I can share these details with you.
I was at the company urinal and happened to notice that I was aiming square for the water and making LOTS of noise - well, not so much lots of noise but compared to the guy at the urinal next to me, who wasn't making ANY noise, it was noticeable. So I now need some scientific data and I'm not about to spend all day hanging around in the restroom to gather that kind of "data" so I'm asking you.
You probably also don't even notice if you're consciously making a choice, so I might need for you to actually pay attention next time you're standing up to the urinal - do you let it fly wherever and slowly drizzle down or do you aim for the target? OR, does your urinal have something in the way (cake, wacky novelty bullseye) which prevents you from answering this question?
YES, I NEED TO KNOW. AND RIGHT NOW.
(I DID try to Google this, but for some reason I kept coming up with articles and blog posts by....women? That's probably some other concept entirely, and not necessarily one *I'D* want to know about. Hey, but God bless you if you're into that, though.)
Depending on the strength of your stream, you kind-of need to "aim for the target", otherwise the splash back will ruin your day. I'm not sure if there's a correlation between stream strength and prostate cancer (I mean, yes if your stream starts to weaken, get your prostate checked), but I've got a family history of prostate cancer and am fairly loud at the urinal (or when sitting for that matter)
"Tattoos are the mullets of the aughts." - Mike Naimark
Toilet: I'll try to hit the rim if the water level allows so that I can be less noisy. Some of the water levels are so low that you have to aim right at the center to get any noise at all. If there's a high level of water, you can't help it; it's loud.
Urinal: some of these have at least a little water in them, so it's easy to hit and be loud, but I always opt to hit the 'back wall' to reduce the noise. Then you have to worry about kickback so it's usually a matter of staying dry versus making noise.
I'm sure proximity from the, er, 'source' to the water makes a difference, right? A tall person with a direct stream into the water would probably get a lot more decibels than a shorter person? Maybe not enough to matter but it seems that way.
I try to be as quiet as possible unless there's someone I don't like in the bathroom - usually one of the chatters at work - in that case, I make a lot of noise on hopes of making them want to leave.
It's kinda bothered me for awhile that when I pee, I hardly make any noise at all. But almost everyone else sounds like a cow peeing on a rock.
I thought there might be something wrong with my "plumbing".
(edited by Kevintripod on 25.2.10 2017) The best part of waking up is not Folgers in your cup, but knowing that Chuck Norris didn't kill you in your sleep.
The urinals where I work don't have water at the bottom. When you flush it, there's water. But sometime they're supposed to be installing these fancy "green" water-free urinals that don't even do that.
So I can't help you there. HOWEVER. When I pee in the toilet, it is as loud as all get-out. It's like I'm taking Urigro.
It probably got that way when I was like 16-17. Or at least that's when I started being embarrassed by the noise. I grew a few inches around that time (in height) and that probably made the difference, because now the pee had farther to travel and so the stream started to seem more forceful.
Because of the noise, I stopped peeing directly into the water and started aiming for the back of the toilet, the 2-3 inches between the water and the rim. That drastically cut down on the noise.
But then, 6-7 years later, I moved into my house with my wife. In our master bathroom, the toilet is inside this little nook that sits back into the wall. The walls surrounding it are all white. Bright ivory white.
About 6 months after we'd been living there, she comes out and accuses me of peeing on those walls. As you can imagine, I was outraged at this. I'm a sharpshooter, man. I'm a peeing assassin. I mean, sure, sometimes first thing in the morning it might have a mind of it's own, but at worst some might get on the rim. I sure as hell wasn't peeing on any walls, for God's sake.
But she showed me these faint, barely noticeable splatter marks on the walls on both sides of the toilet. I didn't know that it was pee, but it's the only thing that made sense. I came back with "how do I know YOU aren't the one doing this?" which got me the best "..." look of all time.
Anyway. I came to discover that, by peeing on the back of the toilet, it was creating a splatter that, while invisible to the naked eye, was nonetheless transferring pee from the back of the bowl onto the walls.
So I had to start peeing straight into the water again. I'd think that act would create splatter too, and I'm sure it does, but it doesn't splatter enough to get on the walls. And that's really all I'm concerned with.
Pee will splatter everywhere, no matter what you do. If you keep your toothbrush uncovered in your bathroom, you may as well just keep it in the toilet bowl. I mean, I keep my toothbrush uncovered, because if I can't see the invisible toilet pee splatter molecules, they can't hurt me, but that's what I've read somewhere.
I work with a woman who once came out of the bathroom stall and told a coworker that she loved to sit there while she flushed because the backsplash against her butt and the backs of her legs was so refreshing. While this coworker was stunned, struggling for a response, the first woman then whipped her pants down to show off her tattoo. It was described to me in the most deadpan voice imaginable: "It's two dragons. They guard the cave." This really has nothing to do with the toilet splashing but I can't tell the first part of the story without the second.
Originally posted by KJames199Pee will splatter everywhere, no matter what you do. If you keep your toothbrush uncovered in your bathroom, you may as well just keep it in the toilet bowl. I mean, I keep my toothbrush uncovered, because if I can't see the invisible toilet pee splatter molecules, they can't hurt me, but that's what I've read somewhere.
I've read that as well, and ever since then I've always closed the toilet lid prior to flushing. (Which is a weird habit now that my toilet is in a different room than the sink.)
I use as much force as is possible when peeing (which of course results in more sound). I am an important person, and cannot be bothered to take my time on something as trivial as peeing. [/hubris] (Plus I pee a million times a day, so that time reduction adds up.)
It is the policy of the documentary crew to remain true observers and not interfere with its subjects. "This topic is going to suck to read in three years." -Psycho Penguin
Originally posted by KJames199If you keep your toothbrush uncovered in your bathroom, you may as well just keep it in the toilet bowl. I mean, I keep my toothbrush uncovered, because if I can't see the invisible toilet pee splatter molecules, they can't hurt me, but that's what I've read somewhere.
WHAT, ew. Thankfully I think my toothbrush is protected via the aforementioned toilet nook that hopefully keeps the pee spray confined to that little area, and it hangs above the sink which, thankfully again, is well away from the toilet.
Still, now I'm worried. You never know where that pee mist ends up. Back when I was first alerted to the pee on the walls, I set up an experiment where I taped toilet paper to the walls to see if it was, in fact, pee splattering onto it. Now I may have to tape a trail of toilet paper all the way to my toothbrush, just to be sure.
I hate to cover it because I saw a thing once about bacteria growing in a toothbrush cover, and it was all black on the inside down at the end. Oh man, it was so gross.
Originally posted by KJames199I work with a woman who once came out of the bathroom stall and told a coworker that she loved to sit there while she flushed because the backsplash against her butt and the backs of her legs was so refreshing.
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