Urinal Etiquette

Most members of the male gender out there know that there are unwritten rules when it comes to using urinals....well maybe just one main rule. If you walk into a bathroom and some of the urinals are already in use, it is your duty to space yourself out as much as possible from those already in use. While that seems too much to ask for some guys, I would argue that it is acceptable if you leave at least one space whenever possible.

This brings me to last Sunday night. I walked into the bathroom at Billy's American Grill and Bar on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul. Being a large bar the architect that worked on Billy's was smart to plan for ample urinals....five on each side of the room. I was the first person to walk into the empty bathroom, so I took the farthest one on the left hand side. The next guy in, we'll call him Mitch, decided to take the middle urinal of the five on the same side. Like I described above, not the best choice, but at least he left a space. Guess which one the third guy took. Yep, the one between me and Mitch. So there we were, three guys standing shoulder to shoulder, holding our junk, while five empty urinals sit behind us. If that wasn't bad enough, this guy decided to start talking to me and Mitch. Ugh.

Now before anyone calls this post homophobic or anything of that nature I would just like to say that if the most attractive woman in the world decided to urinate 8 inches away from where I was standing, I would still find it gross. Especially if there was somewhere else she could go two feet away.

It is a little concerning to me that I have now written two urinal focused posts. Apparently my issues with public bathrooms are worse than I thought. I guess I could just go on the side of a building like Tom.

--Doohow