Oh yeah, I've been there.
Stupid Pet Peeves
- Thread starter Hartsock
- Start date
When a coworker says something that makes you feel that it is necessary to explain that dinosaurs and humans did not live on earth at the same time. Then they ask if I'm sure about that and I'm like, well, unless you counting Woolly Mammoths, yeah I'm pretty sure.
Beer
Well-Known Member
Nike running shoes are horrendous
Except the fact that they are not. They are literally the best running shoes ever right now from research. Their new shoes increase your time by 4% the next closest shoes are +2%.
Don't you want running shoes that DECREASE your time?
idestroyedthetoilet
Well-Known Member
That's not really true for Utah's problem. Most of the pollutants of concern, from the majority of vehicles, are produced in the first few miles of driving. Something like 95% or more. If you're worried about CO and CO2 then it would matter. If not then reducing trips is the way to help clear the air (of NOx SOx VOC that nucleate into particulates).
Miggs
Well-Known Member
I can piss without urinating on myself.
From this column: https://www.straightdope.com/column...supposed-to-wash-their-hands-after-urination/
Dear Cecil:
First, an (elderly) joke.
A Harvard man and a Yale man are at the urinal. They finish and zip up. The Harvard man proceeds to the sink to wash his hands, while the Yale man immediately makes for the exit.
The Harvard man says, "At Hah-vahd they teach us to wash our hands after we urinate."
The Yale man replies, "At Yale they teach us not to piss on our hands."
My question: why is it customary for males to wash their hands after urination? I never do, which shocks and disgusts some of my guy friends. I bathe daily and wear fresh underpants, so how does my penis get dirty? It's not like I dig a ditch with it. However, my hands might get dirty from daily activities. Is it not more sensible then to wash my hands before touching my clean penis? Is posturination hand washing a throwback to the bad old days, when sex was "dirty" and so, by extension, were sex organs? I'm serious about this. Please advise.
Tom Sharpley, Los Angeles
Cecil replies:
Good (if elderly) joke. Common (but stupid) attitude. Rank (but important) topic. Some facts: The purpose of washing is not to get pee off your hands. No amount of washing will make you clean. You have to do it anyway.
I’ve said this before: your boxer-shorts region — from belly button to mid-thigh — is crawling with germs known as coliform bacteria. These bacteria originated in your intestine, and some of them are deadly. Remember punji stakes? They were sharpened sticks that the Vietcong concealed point up along trails and daubed with excrement. If you stepped on one you had a good chance of contracting a fatal infection. Similarly, an otherwise not-so-serious gunshot or knife injury could kill you if it perforated the intestine and allowed coliform bacteria to spread around your abdomen.
But you know this (or at least you ought to). What you may not know is that washing will not make the coliform bacteria go away. They’re holed up in the pores of your skin and nothing short of sandblasting — certainly not your morning shower — is going to get them out. Showering merely gets rid of the ones that have strayed onto the surface. The bacteria won’t do much harm if they stay put, but when you urinate your fingers come in contact with Mister P. long enough for the coliform bacteria in your pores to hop aboard. Your fingers subsequently touch lots of other infectible items. If you don’t wash your hands with soap and water (soap gets rid of the skin oil that the bacteria stick to) … hello, Typhoid Mary.
It now dawns on you: jeez, if merely touching my privates is enough to transmit bacteria, it doesn’t matter if I pee or not! Just so. Urine itself is actually fairly sterile. Cecil has read reports of it being used during wartime in poor countries as — I’m not making this up — a sort of battlefield Bactine. (U.S. doctors generally blanch at this.) The lesson to draw from this, however, is not that you can go forth dripping (yuck), but rather that just because you didn’t pee on your fingers doesn’t mean you can skip washing up.
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edit: P.S. @Wes Mantooth - Feel free to add this to the TIL thread if you really didn't know that the point of washing your hands after urinating was not to rinse off the pee.
Can you enter and exit a restroom without touching a door handle, a sink lever, a countertop, a wall, a hand-dryer button, etc.? Our hands are constantly in contact with nasty surfaces. There's a sink in the bathroom, we all ought to wash our hands more often. Seems like a great time to get a hand washing in.