Curiosity

Traveling can really be a hassle, and I have found that ‘progress’ doesn’t usually mean getting from one point to another. In fact on my last trip through the airport, I took my luggage to the counter and waved goodbye to it (not expecting to see it for a while), and then I spent quite a few hours discovering useless trivia to occupy my time.


Strangest thing I found out had to do with men’s bathrooms. Men’s bathrooms have often been a mystery to the female gender. Women have toilets, perfume atomizers, changing tables, nursing areas and various necessary dispensers (how’s that for discreet).

Most women just assumed that Men had toilets, urinals, sinks and the occasional mirror. I had no idea that the modern Male bathroom (at least in airports) have changing tables, shoeshine stalls, newspaper dispensers, and a host of other gadgets I could not identify. (We won’t talk about how I found these things out, let’s just say that Men have guarded this secret quite well).

I’m baffled. For years Men have been complaining that Women take too long in the bathroom, and tend to travel in packs. If we had half the stuff that Men do in those lovely airport bathrooms, we would be greedy too. As it is, we usually travel in packs out of boredom.

In a national research survey* (where they actually spied on the male gender!) Men apparently don’t use half this stuff anyway…well the sink in particular. You guessed it, men were the dirtier of the two genders. And it seemed that those lovely, genteel New York City Men were the worst culprits.

Don’t get me wrong. I think those southern gentlemen who sleep with their dogs, and live in their underwear from fall to spring aren’t any prize either. So where are the Men who wash their hands, shine their shoes, change those diapers, and keep themselves well informed about the news of the world?

They live at the airport…where else



* The report was done by Wirthlin Worldwide in 1996 and was an observational study and telephone study. The objectives of the research were to observe adults in public restrooms to determine the proportion who wash their hands, and also to poll the American public to determine how frequently they say they wash their hands in several situations: after petting a dog or cat, before handling or eating food, after coughing or sneezing, after using a public restroom, after handling money, after changing a diaper, and after using the bathroom in their home. The purpose of this research was to increase public awareness of the importance of handwashing.