Public Washroom SHE Building

Sadly, I have spent about 5 years on the 5th and 6th floors of the Sally Horsfall Eaton Centre building (SHE if you will) at a certain university in downtown Toronto that is not UofT. It’s a relatively new building with all the ‘technology’ and windowless class rooms you can want in a modern day learning environment. On the 5th floor of the building, women started complaining about the long lineups for the women’s washroom. They complained how unfair it was because there are more women on that floor than men. This is true because most of the floor belongs to the early education program which consists almost entirely of female students and the token homosexual male student. The women argued that there should be a higher proportion of stalls for women because of the higher proportion of women on the floor. A few years back the decision was finally made to convert the only men’s washroom on the 5th floor into a second women’s washroom. I honestly don’t know why the solution to reducing lineups at the women’s washroom was to take the men’s washroom away, but it happened! From that day onward, any males on the 5th floor of the SHE building if for some reason required the privilege of using the facilities would have to use the single toilet washroom which is otherwise reserved for disabled people. I’m not sure if the reasoning behind that decision had anything to do with women’s belief that men have some kind of cognitive impairment, but the decision was made. It was also decided that this single toilet washroom retrofitted for people with disabilities that could also be shared if required by males, became open to female as well, in case they might require the privacy that only a single stall washroom can provide. If men have any problem with this, they are free to walk up to 6th floor and use the facilities there. It should be noted that on the 6th floor, the men’s and women’s washroom doors are facing each other. To describe to you the washroom on the 6th floor, if you should be fortunate to climb all the steps and make it there in time, if both doors to the men’s and women’s washroom happen to be open at the same time, people in the women’s washroom have a clear and direct view of anyone standing and using the urinals at the time. The washrooms do not seem to have been designed with a kind of barrier or second set of doors to impede the view of those relieving themselves at urinals. I’m not sure if the GabyN’Fish toilet expert has any comment about this situation or perhaps might at least provide some insight to enlighten me on the complexities and reasoning that went into this design and washroom politic.

For this story I have created a new symbol which represents the sexist ideology of the university.

Public Bathroom Strategy 101

I've been meaning to start some sort of public bathroom advice piece for a while now, but I have never really got around to it until now.

My first column on ‘public bathroom strategy’ will be drawn from personal experience and will cover the ever so important issue of “what bathroom stall should I choose in a public bathroom?”

I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me and said “Gaby ‘n Fish, I’m in a real conundrum, I never know what bathroom stall to choose when I walk into a public bathroom and inevitably, I somehow manage to always end up in the one that resembles the aftermath of a nuclear war, can you help me?”

I usually need a little more information before proceeding to advise people in this situation. It all depends on your frequency of attendance at that particular public washroom. For example, I work in a fairly large building, with a public bathroom, which I frequent on a regular basis. This allows me to observe any abnormalities in the washroom and develop the best plan of action. For instance, I’m now so familiar with this particular public bathroom, that I know that the usually position of all the stall doors is open. That actually makes sense, if a door is closed it means that someone is behind it. However, there’s one exception, the third stall has a broken door and it is always closed. The strategy in this situation is fairly simple, most people assume that someone is in that third stall simply because it’s closed, but those people are mistaken, because that stall is not only empty, but it’s sparkling clean.

I’m fairly certain that the third stall has actually become my personal bathroom, because the toilet water is almost always blue. For those of you who are a little inexperienced in the world of public toilets, that means that no one has used the toilet since its last cleaning.

But what happens if you’re in a public bathroom for the first time, what factors should you consider when choosing a bathroom stall? Perhaps we can discuss this in a later column, wouldn’t want to give away all my secrets in one sitting (haha!).

Truly Amazing

Yesterday I spray painted a bookshelf that I had bought for Torah High, as it was in dire need of a paint job and I learned a very valuable lesson: "Always listen to warnings".

Apparently you're supposed to wear a mask and gloves while spray painting, but I didn't take that too seriously. Anyhow, I now have sparkling white nose hair. Yes, you heard me right. It doesn't help that I have a huge nose (thus more nose hair) and very large nostrils (thus more visibility of the aforementioned numerous nose hairs).

At least I get a preview of what my nose will look like 50 years from now.

The Voldie Oldie

"Concrete Sea" (Terry Jacks, 1972)

QUOTI OF THE DAY

"Now he's got his Jew-cut."

- RBC, re. 8-day-old BP baby boy

Resurrecting old TV shows

I discovered that the TV networks have decided to create a "new generation" of 90210. (Gaby, now I know what you are doing with all your free time.)
If you had the choice to make the "new generation" of one of your favorite (favourite)TV shows from your youth, what would it be? For me, it would have to be the A-team.

Calvin and Hobbes in the new millenium

Nice new glasses AB!

the TO update.

I would like to update everyone as to some recent ottawa news from Toronto... all revolving around the one formerly known as goldie (they call him by his proper first and last name now, and i cannot explain or begin to understand as to why) .. he's been throwing these HUGE shabbat dinner parties at his house.. and I'm talking HUGE. It was extremely awesome with an amazing group of people, who ever knew one can have such a nice time in the Tdot. But for some reason, during that party, he felt the need to scream out to a couple of us that "Ottawa SUCKS!!" I asked him to repeat himself and 2 more times, he very clearly stated that "Ottawa SUCKS". I don't know what the repercussions of his actions will be, but I did tell him that I would be posting this on the blog... and he then proceeded to make fun of the title of this blog!!! In what may be his inexcusable defense in case he wishes to withdraw his stated comments ... he was somewhat inebriated throughout the entire evening...

Vancouver Newspaper

From our travels, one of the most common ads in the paper: