I could use a little help with something, my friends. Have you ever noticed how a funky bathroom is almost always really warm, as well? Why is that? Any ideas? I’d like to know your theories on the subject.
Just yesterday I walked into a smallish public restroom, and a wave of heat and breathtaking stink washed over me the moment I crossed the threshold. “Oh my god!” I screamed involuntarily, before turning and fleeing the Santa Ana funk.
And as I walked away with purpose, I started thinking about the elevated temperatures almost always present in a recently turded-up toilet. Why? Do stink particles vibrate and make the air hotter? Or is it because of the guy who was obviously there, just a few short minutes ago? Perhaps it’s the defecator’s body heat, generated during an especially challenging session?
I don’t know, but I sure hope it’s not the latter. For some reason that would make it even worse… It’s bad enough to be enveloped by a rolling shit fog, but to also sense the presence of the source? No. That would be almost too much to handle.
If you have any insight into why horrible smelling bathrooms are also really warm most of the time, I’d be much obliged if you could share it with me in the comments. And if you have a kid who is trying to come up with an original experiment for a science project… Well, there’s no need to thank me. Just send me pictures of the poster board display, and we’ll call it even.
Pass the beer nuts.
On a related(?) subject, have you been following the story about the stranded cruise ship that was recently towed back to San Diego by a Mexican tugboat called the Chihuahua? Heh. Because of a fire on board, there was no electricity or air conditioning, and overflowing toilets, for four days at sea. Most of the food rotted, and (get this!) the ship was overrun by professional magicians. Can you imagine such a thing? Magicians!
Here are some quotes from news articles about the ordeal:
“It smells like a lot of people are throwing up,” she said. “I can smell that a lot.”
“Anything they could put between two pieces of bread, they did,” said Hobbs. “I had a pork-n-beans sandwich.”
“It was putrid like a pit toilet,” Greg Parish said, 48, adding it was his first and last cruise. “This is a vacation from hell… I think I’m pretty done with this cruise business.”
“It was absolutely deplorable. … I felt marooned on a prison ship, because I was in the dark and I had mayo sandwiches and backed-up toilets. It was just bad, it was really bad all the way round,” he told CNN.
Some images from the first few hours which Mr Heald said stuck in his memory included Captain Cupisti’s hair, which he said usually looked like “he has stepped off the front page of GQ Magazine. …but as I walked on the bridge his hair looked like he had slept in a crash helmet which he had just taken off.”
And then there’s this charming anecdote:
Gina Calzada, 43, of Henderson, Nev., said her diabetic sister, Vicky Alvarez, called her Wednesday morning on her cell phone and started sobbing. She said she has not been able to take her insulin for her diabetes because she is not eating enough.
She told Calzada all that she had eaten was some bread, cucumbers and lettuce.
“She said it stinks of rotten food and smoke,” Calzada said. “It’s dark, and it’s cold.'”
Alvarez’s husband said that when he went looking for food for his wife, a crew member told him to give her a Tic-Tac.
I’ve never been on a cruise, but would like to have the experience someday. I like experiences… Do you have any stories to tell on this subject? I think I might be the last person who’s never been on a cruise, and assume most of you have. Tell us about it in the comments, won’t you? Did anything interesting happen? Hopefully nothing like this?
I’ll see you guys again tomorrow.
Have a great day!
Yes !
Never been on a cruise. Never wished to be somewhere I couldn’t call somebody to pick me up if I wanted to get out.
I guess you can get a heli-taxi or whatever they rich and fancy transport is called–maybe I should rethink. Nope. Cruising sucks.
I am discordantly typing today. I have a big pile of stuff on my side desk and I am sitting sideways and off center. Work, work, work, work. work. Apparently not enough work since I am steady doing this, though. Hmmm.
I think the stink comes from the heat, not the other way around. Other bathrooms may be just as messed up but if they’re cold, you can’t tell. However, if someone stinks it up and it happens to be hot, well then the bacteria and molds present are more active, chemical reactions take place more quickly and everything vaporizes more easily. Same way a tropical rain forest smells way more stinky than a cold pine forest.
It seems to happen every so often on those ships. I thought those deals were something only old people with money did.
As far as bathrooms go, I have to deal with bathrooms used by college dudes, and they can’t seem to even flush.
Never been on a cruise, but I’ve been in some bad bathrooms. I’m thinkin’ that the warm air is what sends the funkometer upwards.
Hey-oh!
I don’t know how many times I’ve watch that clip of the cruise ship on the high seas…. 2 things always strike me….
– what kind of sound that piano must have been making as well as how much would getting run over by it hurt
– doesn’t tubby know diagonal stripes are slimming? He really flies on the last fly by though
Been on one cruise. I would do it again tomorrow. But I agree with Vicki, there is a certain amount of trust, loss of freedom, ability to bug out if needed involved when you walk up that gang plank.
In order to achieve true gag worthy toilet artistry, you have to open the gates of hell. Explains both the heat and the aroma.
Reagarding further evidence… I’m convinced that the US totally fucked the Japanese up by dropping those bombs. Not the radiation, but the mental stress of having that kind of destruction. Every time you hear about a pre-teen soiled panty vending machine, blame Truman.
Joe
The further evidence. I might be done with the internet for while.
I was thinking – “aw c’mon, how bad can it be?”
It’s bad.
Did I miss anything in the last 2 minutes?
Try explaining this to your elderly parent.
It just kept getting worse….it just kept getting worse. So, I’m guessing “Yamada” is like, “Fred” or “Larry” or something.
4 years on an Aircraft Carrier and now I own my own boat. Best part of the deal, telling Marines where they can go!!!
Ahhh, the Navy’s policemen..
We went on a 3-day cruise about 15 years ago and I’ve been wanting to go on another one ever since then. I got horribly sea-sick, though, when I removed my scopolamine patch. If you are going to go on a cruise, get the patches from your doc and don’t ever take one off without replacing it immediately!
I don’t know about funky bathrooms always being warm. As a youngster visiting my great-grandparents on their farm in Wyoming Co., WV, their outhouse always smelled horrible – even in the winter when it was very cold and snow was on the ground. Luckily they got indoor plumbing by the time I was twelve.
I always assumed that cruising would suck. Being on a fucking boat for a week? But after we took our first one on the Bahamas we’ve been several times more.
The worst one has to be a cruise out of Mobile, AL. It was also a Carnival ship – that looked like it had been retired for 40 years. A real jalopy. I was seriously worried that we might not make the voyage. It made all kinds of creeks and noises. And it was considerably smaller than the other ones I’d been on. Also, the crue was super rude. One guy, working the pizza bar, earned the nickname “Senor Asshole”.
Based on our experiences we consider Carnival to be the charlaton of cruises.
Cruise ships are a great place to get laid. Mostly because there isn’t very many places for them to run and hide.
Was it the Sensation? The think looks like it was decorated by Liberace’s slightly gay brother on acid.
Still a good time overall though.
I think Carnival is pretty much the Walmart of the cruise industry. I’d like to try one of the more upscale ships next time. I think most of the cruise lines are owned by the same company but different standards for different entities.
gay s/b “flamboyantly gayer”
No, I think this floating turd was called “Elation”. I’ve also been on Carnival’s “Ecstasy”, which wasn’t half bad.
My new favorite is Royal Caribbean. They’re very nice.
I’ve been on 7 Carnival cruises, 1 Royal Caribbean and 1 Norwegian. I HATE RC, they were rude and you could never find anybody to help you.
LOVE Carnival, going on #8 in January. I think all the pizzas guys are a little rude. I guess if I had to deal with 500 kids day I would be too. Otherwise everybody else I have ever come in contact with on Carnival was very nice.
Can’t beat the value and getting to see so many different places. We always try to go somewhere warm and exotic int he winter months.
I highly recommend cruising, just make sure to smuggle your alcohol in a white mouthwash bottle, otherwise your bar tab will be outrageous!
Sensation, Ecstacy and Elation? Sound like condom names….
Other ships in the Carnival fleet?
Erection
Ejaculation
Secretion
Vibration
Lubrication
Penetration
They sho nuff have some funny names for their ships, yo.
They name all their ships after strippers.
jtb
One ticket for the Vibration transferring to the Penetration, please.
Gives new meaning to the phrase “went down on the Titanic”. hehe.
As I said at the tail end of the Cheeseburger Suctioned to My Crotch entry, I wonder how many magicians were nearly throttled with their magic handkerchiefs on board the S.S. Schiesse. I would have surely drowned the Doug Henning types in a stopped up toilet and not felt much remorse.
Speaking of which, I’ve never noticed the recent defecation heat (RDH?) of which you speak. Perhaps it’s a man thing??
I think it is a man thing, Gretchen. Lots of men are public shitters.
Except Jeff.
By the way, what I want to see come from the Carnival Splendor debacle is a horror movie about zombie magicians on a cruise ship. Awesome.
I’m with Jeff on the public shitting thing. Zombie magicians that eat brain sandwiches. Or mayo sandwiches when they’re in a pinch.
There’s a little trick that the kids like to do in which they shit in the tank of the toilet rather than the bowl. It’s left there to stink the place up. They always do it at a particular Books-a-Million and it stinks to high heaven.
This girl I know got a job at that very book store and she said they also have a “shit man” that visits fairly often. He likes to write on the walls with his feces and he’s been known to leave cups of shit here in there in the store itself. Sometimes, she said, you can pull away a book and they’ll be a cup of shit on the shelf.
Ah yes, The “upper decker”. Tons of fun at a party.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Upper+Decker
That is so not ok.
A cruise?!?
No freaking way you’ll ever see me on one of those. Between the rogue waves, the Noroviruses that seem to prevail onboard those boats, and the risk of the type of accident that befell the ship of magicians this past week: Why would anyone in their right mind want to spend their vacation time this way?
Whenever I think a cruise might be fun, I hear a story like this one or where everyone gets sick and spends their vacation puking or crapping or both. That seems to happen a lot..
Public restrooms stink because they are used by the public. Do your business at home, like God intended.
I think it’s the shit that produces the heat. It’s all thermal. When you do a pee in a cup, (for medicinal purposes) the pee is warm. SO I would imagin a back door explosion could raise the temp a few degrees. And sometimes the act produces sweat so I think it’s a whole meltown going on.
No cruise for me. I came really close but the thought of standing around with 1,000 or more strangers oohing and aahing an ice sculpture and getting drunk with “Hey! Macarena” drumming through my head, didn’t entice me enough. I did go to Sandals one year and “All Inclusive” is the way to go!
I always wanted to go on a cruise. But sail to a destination, stay for a few days, sail back. I don’t like the idea of sailing to a different port every day and only having a few hours at each place. I “watch the clock” every day at work I don’t want to have to worry about watching the clock on vacation and getting back by a designated time.
I also think I would feel trapped after a while. When we were in Mexico for an all-inclusive, it was fun but advised not to go off the resort grounds. After about 5 days I was ready to go home. One more day of listening to AC/DC “Shook Me All Night” in techno spanish I was ready to wander out in the machine gun laiden streets of Riviera Mya.
Poop stank is poop stank. Hot, cold, warm, whatever.
The problem with the restroom you described is poor balancing of the HVAC system. Restrooms have no return air ducts, which makes sense, who wants poops spores recirculated through the whole building. They have a supply duct for hot or cold air and an exhaust fan which vents outdoors. If the system isn’t balanced properly you can end up with more hot air pouring in than the exhaust fan can pull out and the restroom becomes very warm which as stated by Eric above becomes a stink balm (bomb get it?)
I don’t know shit about Kurzweil but I can bullshit my way through a restroom stink question.
Hell no on the cruise, 0% chance before this latest fiasco -0% chance after it. To paraphrase Vicki, if I can’t turn in my hotel key and walk out to my car or rearrange a flight, I ain’t going.
The only thing that kept those passangers from mutany was that they were all high on Jenkem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenkem
Hot…
“slightly gay” is funnier. Just FYI. Actually, the original was a terrific line.
Why do chicks hang out at the navy yard?
They’re hoping to see the crews’ missiles.
I would have punched a magician in the throat. Between cruise ships on fire, exploding aircraft engines, and brand new aircraft catching on fire I’m travelling exclusively by pogo stick from now on.
I’m not big on boats so I sure as hell wouldn’t get on a cruise. They are like disease incubators. No thanks.
Bathrooms should get a/c year round. Warm bathrooms bring out the funk in them.
I only travel by rickshaw that is pulled by an idiot savant servant that I purchased from Mongolia. “Mush Batarr! Mush!”
I’ve been on one cruise, Holland-America from Vancouver to Alaska. No kids, no “whoooo” -ing drunks. Just a bunch of old people.
And I only poop at home.
My bathroom at home and at work is always hot because it’s small and heats up the quickest. I like Eric’s answer.
Never been on a cruise. My in-laws go every friggin’ year on at least 3 or 4. They love them. They seriously had me contemplating going on one, but after hearing of that disaster I quickly went back to playing World of Warcraft in the comfort of my jammies. The thought of being stuck in the middle of the ocean with sharks circling the boat in hunger & toilets overflowing just doesn’t sound too appealing.
I have been considering not traveling anymore, unless where I am going can be accessed by car or train. I have to fly to Texas this weekend & the whole thought of being patted down by a high school reject (aka TSA “agent”) or sent through an untested cancer scanner isn’t making me excited to see the grand-folks. I’ve already warned my family that if my choices are to be patted down or scanned, I’ll take Curtain 3 & go home. I’ll let you know by Saturday if I am on any No-Fly Lists.
I always like to fantasize that my TSA agent will be a buff version of hunky Harry Hamlin (c. 1982) and he’ll give me a vigorous and thorough pat down. The reality is closer to this, unfortunately:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WBZRTjPCQIs/SntVPp3TwnI/AAAAAAAAAJo/7ciIdbnw5x4/s1600-h/tsakid.jpg
Hey, one can always dream.
For real. I’ve always had the notion of a “critical trip distance”; farther than X and I fly, closer than X and I drive. The value of X has been going up and up lately.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/beyond_security.html
…note that this is a year old, but it still works.
.
It’s already a reality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EqV2Rmkqaw&feature=share
Melissa,
You should let them feel you up. I always try to have fun with it. If I know I’m going to get a cavity search I’ll put things in my ass such as a roll of Mentos, a toy truck, and a note that says “you’re getting warmer”.
I agree with you on the whole adrift cruise ship though. I think a law should be passed that if a cruise ship loses power then the military should be sent out the next morning to torpedo the thing down. That’s a lot more humane than make people eat bean and mayo sandwiches while thier up to their hips in their own shit and vomit.
While someone pulls a rabbit out a hat….then eats it.
I concur that I would prefer not to be on a cruise. For one thing, when I travel I like to make my own plans. Secondly, cruises have always seemed like a bad frat party only with old people wearing sequined tops featuring anchors. Or so it seemed to me from the pictures my grandparents brought back from theirs.
I always thought that warmth and damp exacerbated the bathroom stank, not the other way around.
When I was 10, I took the big cruise. My mom, aunt, uncle, and I took a British ocean liner from New York to Southampton to see my aunt, whose husband was in the US Navy stationed in England, because my mom was afraid to fly. It took 5 days to get there. I played ping pong and watched movies the whole time. The food was great. One time, the ship ran into a storm, and started that back and forth stuff. I blew lunch for hours until we got through it. Not even the Dramamine helped. We flew back.
Bathroom funk and heat seem to go hand-in-hand, but I’m not positive there is a causal relationship either way. Establishing or disproving such a relationship is left as an exercise for the student – I’m not going near that shit!
I’ve never been on a cruise, and don’t have much interest in going on one. A cruise seems like the aquatic equivalent of driving around for its own sake without really going anywhere. Yeah, apart from the bacteriological stew.
Speaking of cruises, and back to the time travel thing, I *would* have liked to experience some of the luxury travel (travel, not cruises) that existed in the 1930s. Orient Express, cross the Atlantic aboard the Queen Mary, fly somewhere in a China Clipper, that sort of thing. Mmm, smoking lounge on the Hindenburg.
.
I’m guessing you were only in there to take a piss and not sittinging for a couple of minutes wearing ankle pants. Piss…get the fuck out or go look for a dumpster to piss behind.
Over-run with magicians…yeah I read about that when it first came out. I thought…what’s the problem? I’d eat the rabbits and doves…ball the magicians’ assistants and shut the fuck up. Fucking whiners….
wHICH brings up is there going to be a cruise ship baby boom after this?
Ever been fucked face first in an overflowing toilet while vomiting a rancid mayo sandwich? Roooooomance.
I name all my strippers after ships:
Titanic
Lustitania
Mary Rose
Golden Hind
Skipjack
and The Sullivans
Vicki…
Thank you for “discordantly typing”. I have never seen that construction and it is perfect.
best…
jtb
I have no idea how far over the line “The Sullivans” is with regard to strippers and ships. It’s definitely over, and I definitely laughed.
jtb
A couple friends and I just got back from a Jillian Michaels Health and Wellness Cruise . (Jillian is the chick on the Biggest Loser who terrorizes fat people into working out and eating better). It was a decision we made willingly for some reason. Anyway – we soon found out that not only were we going to work our butts off and eat only healthty food but there was NO soda allowed on the cruise ship and NO MARGARITAS. Some bologna about high suger blah blah blah. I would have welcomed the mayo sandwich.
Did you actually see Jillian Michaels? Every photo I see of her she looks more and more like a tranny….with or without the operation.
I don’t find her appealing at all. And Bob acts like he could be gayer than laughter. Just sayin’.
I agree, I use her workout videos but the whole time I’m doing them I’m like ‘God I wish she would stop talking…” Her books are bull too. $400 a week grocery lists, including Octopus and other veeery expensive items for her diet plan…I mean really? I’m thankful I got a deal and only spent 6 bucks on the book because as soon as I saw that you couldn’t drink ANY alcohol at ALL ever and the grocery list, I retired the book into the cabinet never to be seen again.
I take that back, she did say you could drink alcohol, but had to limit yourself to like 2 drinks a week with vodka and diet pop. 2? Really? Whatever, I like beer.
I think the trick is to hold off for several weeks until you save yourself up a 12 pack. Then go batshit. I don’t think I could do it – I KNOW I can’t do it.
Whoever said, “We’re meant to go through life sober.” Is a fucking idiot and a liar.
I was sober Monday night and it was horrible.
I actually started drinking Select 55 and have lost a considerable amount of weight. Screw diets, I still eat what I want, work out, drink beer, and I lost close to 25 pounds and counting. What’s the fun in going out to eat if you can’t get what you want?
I saw an episode of Biggest Loser last season where she put a literal buffet of take out food in front of the orange team while still at there biggest. I forget what the point of it was, but she ended up taking a bite out of a few taco bell items and what not. She was gagging and wincing like she just ate a peice of shit. It’s no wonder she’s a raging bitch…live a little Jillian Michaels, eat a goddammed McNugget and drink a Bud Light for a change….
Why hasn’t South Park done of a parody of her yet?
Yeah, we got one workout with her and one seminar. She did walk around a little with her body guards. True to form she screamed at my friend during the workout and said we would all have to stay in the same horrible position until SHE did it right … I guess we got what we signed up for. ARGH I was a fan before hand, now not so much. Yeah – I don’t get paid millions to work out all day and preach eating well, I’ve spent 20 years working a desk job 8 hours a day soo well ya know.
I was invited to a cruise by a retiring colleague. She brought ten or eleven people she had worked with over the years. I always thought she hated me, and apparently she hated all of us, because that cruise sucked it hard. It was like being at the mall for 5 days. Royal Carribean “Sovereign of the Seas”. I got so bored I spent one night filling up plates of food and hot fudge sundaes and throwing them over the rail. When I deplanked I paid a $400 booze ransom to escape. I would only go again if they let me drive the boat.
The man and I went on a cruise to the Bahamas and Key West on the Carnival Conquest. It was ok, we loved Key West and can’t wait to go back, The bahamas were like a giant flea market. It was a nice trip until the man ran out of Copenhagen and the cruise ship did not sell it on board.
The Child Bride and I went on a cruise for our 10th anniversary. The cruise itself, to the Bahamas, I thought was awesome. I may have been blinded by the unlimited food. My wife hated it. However, it was decent, except I was dragged to an 80’s revue (or is it review) show, where a few women and an extrodinarily high amount of homosexual dudes belted out one eighties song after another. I told my wife that may have been the gayest thing I have ever seen, not counting some guy sucking off another guy in the bathroom at a Judas Priest concert. Couldn’t help it, I just walked in on it. Anyway, the pool was awesome, as well as the food, and I was happy. Then we landed in Nassau.
Of course, the ship could not dock at Atlantis, and we didn’t have the money to go there, so we scurried off into downtown. Bars on the windows, like Detroit. Flea markets everywhere with toothless natives in your face asking you to buy something from their boof. A traffic cop taking a box to each intersection and standing on it to alleviate traffic, since there were no stop signs and it was a free-for-all. And little children coming up to me and asking if they could sing me a song for a dollar. I received 1000 dick points from my wife for screaming “I’ll give you a dollar to leave me the fuck alone!” at one of the road urchins.
I don’t know if the other ports (i.e. Cancun, etc.) have those types of shenanigans going on at their ports, but I would have been happier just staying on the boat while it was docked.
In other news, Dr. William Grey’s updated hurricane predictions came out nearly on the money after he revised it five times. That Dr. Grey is a fucking genius.
Carry on.
I seem to remember that this was going to be one of the worst years on record for hurricanes. Or is that every year now, in May?
Only thing it was the worst thing ever to be this year was Haitian.