First of all, my apologies for neglecting blog. It's the busy holiday season, something clearly had to give. And next I feel obliged to apologize for returning to do a blog entry on toilets, which is not only not the cleanest of topics, but one I've touched on before.
Here is a recap of what I've previously covered: the lack of toilet seat covers in UK toilets (where, to the best of my knowledge, there are no outbreaks of 'bum on toilet' disease or whatever might happen if you don't use a toilet seat cover) and the general preference for hand dryers over paper towels (although my work place has paper towels).
Okay, now my next discovery: stall differences.
The difference in general stall design didn't really hit me until I was using the bathroom off the casino at the Paris in Las Vegas. And I'm not sure if this made sense, but I'll give it a whirl and then come back to the bathroom at the Paris.
A typical large restroom will, as per in the US, feature a number of stalls. In the US, the stalls are somewhat 'open', that is to say that there is a good foot tall gap between the bottom of the stall door and walls and the tops of the stalls often linger at about 6 feet off the ground (perhaps it's higher in men's rooms to account for the differences in heights?). Efforts have been made to move bag hooks away from the middle of the stall door to combat the easy theft of reaching over a stall door and grabbing a bag while the owner is in no position to come running after them. So sometimes you find hooks on the sides, or those little levered shelves that I can never actually get my bag to stay on.
Now the anglo stall. Stalls tend to be actual rooms, with walls extending from floor to ceiling and doors that do the same. As a result, bag hooks have remained on the back of the door and thieves are at a loss.
So what was so odd about the Paris Las Vegas bathroom stalls? Well, I walked in, saw a wall with a row of stall doors and thought, ooh, how Euro of them. So I step into a stall, and what do I see? Behind the facade there was just a long row of typical American stall walls, barely clearing my head. Although I must admit that I did not make a mental note of where the bag hooks were located...
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5 comments:
something is definately different with public 'loos' in the states and here!
My first observation is that the stalls in the states have gaps in the walls and the door wide enough to easily see in - i found this bizare and it was common place. I found myself feeling exposed and having to go speedy style!
Second is the taps...they are the hygenic touch free ones that are increasingly becoming common over here - however they never work/turn on for long enough and some have a auto soap dispenser in the same region so when your rinsing it squirts out more soap!
Third is that UK/US are similar in many more ways than the differences between UK and French restrooms...
Fourth...i found it bizare that in vegas each restroom has a full time toilet attendant
This is an overshare, but the middle stall at my office has...reflection problems. Meaning the paint on the side of the handicapped stall to its left is shiny and reflects what is shown through the cracks in the wall and the door. The handicapped stall is longer than the stall to its right. At certain angles you can, well, see everything going on in there.
I much prefer the actual door/room-type stalls. They don't require you to do more than the normal strategic choosing (has it been or can it be flushed, is it a pee seat, is their toilet paper?)
Being a woman is so hard.
Ack! I've used an incorrect "their/they're/there"!
It just shows the type of day I've had...(which had nothing to do with bathrooms, at least.)
The one down side I can think of regarding the 'room' stall is that if the lock ever breaks there's no way to escape. With open stalls you could always line the floor with toilet paper and wiggle out. I imagine it could get quite disturbing spending too much time locked in a toilet stall...
When our old office building had the men's bathroom remodeled, the contractor hinged the door on the incorrect side. So, when one opened the door to the restroom, one could see a huge mirror, which was on the opposite wall as a row of urinals. Someone quickly put up a sign on the mirror that said "Objects are larger than they appear in mirror."
Seriously, I do have a beef with plenty of stalls, some here in this office building. There isn't a lot of space between the door and the back of the stall, so the door barely clears the toilet. So you have to squeeze next to the wall or the toilet (ick) to close the door once you are in the stall. I hate that. I wonder what big people do.
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