I am in the "why is it that" stage of my life--akin to the 3-6 year olds who always ask "why"? I don't really ask why, but I do ponder the "why's" for many things. Guess when you get to a certain age, the experiences you have had give you a large database from which to draw some conclusions.
For one thing, why is it that male restrooms are ALWAYS more dirty, smelly, and "trashed" than women's? Now, some would wonder how I became an expert on male bathrooms (I am myself female) and it has a lot to do with my job---which I have vowed not to talk about in my blog---so lets just say that I have the opportunity to legitimately visit multiple male (and female) restrooms all over my state in the course of my work....And universally, the male facility is not as clean as the (usually paired) women's restroom.
Males seem to be flush adverse--regardless of where I am. It is some primal, "hunter" man thing? It is a marking thing? Are they just lazy? Do they need to leave evidence behind--threatening to the next competitive male toilet/urinal user? Are they just gross? Haven't answered the "why" on this one, but I can assure you that I occasionally find a lack of flushing in the women's room, but I routinely find a lack of flushing in the men's room. If a women created those auto flusher things (don't know who did, but my guess is that women are more likely than men to care about such things!)my guess is that she had a job like mine!
Which explains (I guess) the smell--sort of.
I also suspect that regardless of the flushing habits of natives in a particular location, the odor is also "enhanced" by the attitude(s) of the persons who have responsibility for cleaning the bathrooms. I suspect that there is a direct correlation between the adversion to flushing and the attitude of the person cleaning the facility. Less flushing = less enthusiasm for cleaning---or maybe the smells just hurry them along. Regardless, my "research" so far is that even if there is no immediate evidence of flushing adversion, the male bathroom will be less "clean" and smell worse than the female facility in the same location.
That being said, sometimes women can be messy. Especially if appropriately sized containers are not provided for the things they wish to dispose of...Or if those containers are full. Paper products will end up on the floor in those cases--in the vicinity of the containers...... Not so in the men's room. Their disposed of "stuff"--which often is much more than hand towels, is likely to be any and everywhere--newspaper, toilet paper, even food wrappers (I wonder why--ick!) and today, I actually happened upon a discarded 1/2 sandwich (so gross) in the middle of the bathroom floor. What is it that those men are doing in those smelly, dirty bathrooms? Surely one cannot want to spend time in there reading stuff (ohhhhhh, the smell) or (here is where I gag...) eat food in there. I guess maybe women have a purse to stuff all that into---but men just drop it wherever they are done with it???? Better explanation than actually contemplating the alternatives.
Now, most men and boys I know share a home with someone (or more than one) female. I am not sure of the exact ratio of people to bathrooms in the average household, but again based on my experience, if there are both genders in a household, I am pretty sure that at times they use the same bathroom...None of my friends have bathrooms in their homes designated "male" "female". Also, none of my friends or even acquaintances have bathrooms that approach the conditions (even on their worst day) of most "public" restrooms.
So, the Why is also that if these men/boys can somehow manage to share a bathroom with the females in their household without creating the same conditions that exist in "men's" rooms, is it tied to exclusivity? Just for males---smelly and gross--shared with females....Better behave...Be neat...Clean up....At least somewhat (hey, I have lived with 3 males in my house)
So that brings me to today's final why--related to all this pondering...
when we moved into our house in the woods three years ago, our cleaning person of many, many years opted not to follow us to the new abode. Although this was devastating (I have to clean???) I accepted it in stride, deciding that it was less effort to clean myself than to retrain someone to do it my way...And I am willing to allow a little more dust and a few more cobwebs. Also, with fewer people in a bigger house, the dirt spreads out into a thinner layer--less noticeable for a longer period of time. So, the cleaning lady who drank all the windex (a story for another day) abandoned us, and we were on our own. I pointed out to the spouse that it seemed a little unfair that I should take on all this responsibility alone--we both worked, commuted, etc. He agreed to have a job....A being no fool, I offered up cleaning the toilets--which he gleefully accepted.
He has a tool kit, with multiple chemicals, sprays, brushes, and devices. He also has an assortment of septic friendly stay clean additives that you place in the tank to extend the time between cleanings. The cleaning lady who drank Windex would have thought she was in cleaning Disneyland with all this stuff!! Yet, the bowls do not sparkle at my house like they do on the TV commercials. All four (yes four) get his attention only after I have proclaimed that unless he "gets around" to cleaning the toilets, I am going to ......(choose a relevant threat here)....So, despite my best efforts, the teaching of his mother (I saw her toilets, and she did have clean ones!) the executive vice president of toilet cleanliness in my household must be using the public men's room standard to prompt him for the proper time to haul out his equipment and give them a once over. If this is some type of male trait, it probably explains a lot of divorces....
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