When you enter the restroom, you should always select the urinal that is as far away as possible from men who are using other urinals. Here are some illustrations of various urinal situations and the proper course of action for each.

Situation #1
All urinials are empty:

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Correct Action: Take the urinal on either edge. This allows others to comply with the following rules most effectively.

Situation #2: One urinal is taken.

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Correct Action: Obviously, the urinal on the right is the only true choice. This minimizes the chance of any contact whatsoever with the person you're sharing the bathroom with.

Situation #3: Two urinals are taken.

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Correct Action: Middle Urinal. Otherwise, you end up right next to somebody. This is not an option at this point.

Situation #4
Three urnials are taken.

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Correct Action: No urinal is acceptable. The bathroom has reached critical mass and you must either leave and come back later or use a stall. Under no circumstances should more than three urinals be in use at one time.

Some other rules of note:

When choosing a stall, see the above urinal choice rules.

Stools are for sitting.
Do not urinate into a toilet while standing. This is ok at home, but in public no one wants to listen to any more sounds than are absolutely necessary. The sound of pee dropping from 3 feet up into water can be completely eliminated if you just sit your ass down.

Sometimes standing cannot be avoided, generally for sanitary reasons. If this is the case, NEVER pee with the lid down. If for any reason you stand to pee at a toilet without putting the lid up, you will be among the first to be purged when the revolution comes.

Don't grunt.
Your bowels do not require any help from your vocal chords. If you are in pain, take it like a man. Grunting in pain is no different than complaining loudly to everyone in the restroom about how bad your ass hurts. On the other hand, if you are enjoying yourself, reflect silently upon your pleasure and you can tell your grandchildren about it someday. Do not express your joy to the people around you in the restroomm

When other people have to listen to your trials and tribulations, they are made uncomfortable and are unable to calmly go about their own business.

There is a time limit.
Sometimes you get to the urinal and you can't pee - you experience the dreaded "Shy Stream". This is likely to happen if people around you are disregarding the rules. It can happen when you are under pressure, such as when 100 people are waiting on you at the movie theatre, or when the person in a nearby stall is making noises like he's passing an angry goat through his rectum.

If this should occur, there is a time limit during which you can stand at the urinal. That time limit is equal to the longest time which you have ever taken to pee under normal, comfortable circumstances. This is longer than you might think at first - anyone who's ever been in a bar bathroom knows that a good pee can take 40 seconds or more, including pre- and post- operations such as fly opening and shakeoff.

If you exceed this time limit, you must act as if you are finished. Zip up, wash your hands, leave the room. You can come back later, but for now you must accept your shame and pray that no one noticed your failure.

Take note: While phobias about social contact in the bathroom are probably a reliable indicator of many things, they do not guarantee homophobia. For a lot of guys (gays and straights alike) going to the bathroom is an extremely personal affair. It is not the fear that someone might see our genitalia that drives us. It is our fear that someone might expect, nay, force us to share in their bathroom experience.

There are major differences in BR etiquette in various cultures.

For example, it is not uncommon in Rome, Italy, to be approached by a beggar at the precise moment you start urinating in a public BR. Generally, people tend to walk away quickly when approached by Roman beggars on the street, but one just cannot walk away in this situation.

Every time I heard someone complaining about this, the person to whom it happened was a priest wearing his collar, and urinating in a public BR near the Vatican. The beggars apparently choose priests because a priest cannot quite swear at the beggar and is more likely to spare a couple hundred lire just to avoid public embarassment.

This text is written in the hope that it will help those who frequent men's rest rooms. It is not meant to be a guide to end all guides, rather I have written this to address the most frequently encountered situations in men's rest rooms, and as a starting point for those interested in proper use of men's rest rooms. If there is sufficient demand I will write a follow up. Please send all error reports and comments to goatattack@mac.com. Thank you.

1. Waste no time. This vital. Walk in, do your business. Wash your hands. Walk out. A rest room's functioning is directly dependent on the efficiency of the men using it. For as long as they have existed, men's rooms have prided themselves to be far superior to women's rooms because of their greater speed. Don't ruin it for the rest of us.

2. Speech is your enemy. Never, ever, under any circumstance say a single word while within a bathroom. Not to a friend, not to a lover not to Jesus himself. Not only does this grate against all good things and the way of nature, it ruins the efficiency of the bathroom.

Take this example: Steven walks into the bathroom and unzips himself. While he is relieving himself his best friend Eddy walks in. They strike up a conversation about unix and pretty soon, loose track of time.

So there they are, standing at the urinals, discussing the advantages of open source developement. Well, Sammy walks in and he desperately needs to take a piss. But he can't, the two chatter bugs are there in front of the urinals laughing it up. So, he runs to the only toilet only to discover that someone has missed the toilet with their monster loaf and now he's standing knee deep in butt pudding.

Sammy does the only thing he can do, he pukes all over the place, while at the same time unleashing a torrent of kidney juice in his pants.

Steve and Eddy automaticly turn around to see what all the fuss is about. So far not a problem right? WRONG! It turns out that our old friends have not finished relieving themselves and they spray each other, the floor, and the soap dispenser with filtered mountain dew. Well, they do what comes naturally to any man in this situation and begin to toss cookies.

So there they are, three guys puking, and pissing all over the floor. When they finish they simultaneously make a mad dash for the sink. Well of course only one person can use a sink at a time so it eventually degenerates into a fight. Eddy manages to kill them both and begins to clean himself up.

The security guard hears all the noise and decides to take a look. The poor guy takes just a peek and he knows he's gonna need backup. So to make a long story short the cops are called in and a sniper paints the walls with Eddy's brain.

Now a biohazard team is called in to clean things up. They obviously need to close down the bathroom so all the men are forced to either soil themselves or go to another building. Two guys meet and they start a conversation. Repeat. This eventually leads to the destruction of organized society as we know it. Don't end the world.

3. Never make eye contact. This could be seen as a proposition and could result in an unwanted beating or a sexual encounter that will put you into a therapist's chair for a long, long time. This also runs against everything we've ever been taught.

So there you have it folks, now go out and empty those bladders.

-- 11.30.00 Reformatted the text to make it easier on the eyes. Replace "torrent of yellow liquid" with "torrent of kidney juice"

Here are a few tips for you folks out there who do not know how to use the urinals! Actually, this is mainly for girls. It should entertain you. :)

Rule 1 : The small urinals are for CHILDREN. Do not use them. At all costs, avoid urinals that stretch to the floor, unless they have an open drain. Failure to do so will result in splashback and plenty of peer laughter when they smell the urine eminating from your pants.

Rule 2 : Always make certain that you are as many urinals away from any other man partaking in the urination festival as possible. Failure to do so will be viewed as an admittance of a homosexual nature and can result in anything from a black eye to a sore ass, depending on what kind of man you cross.

Rule 3 : If no one is at the urinals, take the end urinal. Don't be a dick. If there are three urinals, do not take the middle urinal. This is another social taboo.

Rule 4 : Eyes forward and staring straight ahead, or, also accepted, at your member. Any slight indication that you are looking to the side can again be interpreted to be a homosexual hint, and is punishable by the aforementioned ways. In addition, sizing up another guy, whether you are a homosexual or not, is simply rude.

Rule 5 : No talking. Men feel uncomfortable enough in the bathroom with other men as it is. They do not need a further distraction, such as you saying, "Whoa, where did this wart come from?" or "God DAMN I need to pee like a racehorse... hey, man, you're hung like one!" Such acts of random prose can result in much more painful torture than above, too graphic for this guide.

If given the option, whether you need to sit down or not, use a stall. It is much easier to avoid any temptations or accidents in this way. And above all, practice safe peeing. Do not pee on others. Thank you for reading the guide to urination. If you have any problems with urinating, please call us at 1-800-YOU-SUCK and we will be sure to laugh at you.

I can't wait for the aliens to find THIS node!

Okay, this is primarily aimed at the fellas, as I don't know what happens in the women's bathroom at work. First, don't look towards another guy's penis when you are both standing at the urinal. Keep your eyes in front of you. don't make eye contact until you are both leaving to wash your hands. This brings up another good point always wash your hands after using the bathroom. No one is particularly interested in getting better acquainted with your smegma, or, even worse, fecal matter. Believe you me, people notice who does not wash hands. I know people who don't even wash after taking a dump. Disgusting.

This provides a nice segue to my final topic. One of the most difficult things to do is to have a squat at work. Always use the seat protector. Try to time your appointment immediately after the cleaning staff hits the bathroom. Try to ignore the explosive, gaseous sounds coming from the other stalls. If everyone observes this, embarrasing encounters may be avoided. At all costs DO NOT START A CONVERSATION WITH ANYONE, ESPECIALLY SOMEONE IN ANOTHER STALL. I think the most annoying event I ever had at work was when I went to the bathroom, sat down, and a co-worker came in right after me and sat down in the stall next to me. This was a Friday, and he just decided, out of the blue, to strike of a conversation:

Him: So, what cha doin' this weekend?
Mefeeling a bit uncomfortable, and interrupted: Umm . . . nothing . . .
Him: Some of my friends and I are going to Masquerade tonight. Wanna go?
Me: Uhh . . . I think I'm going to hang out with my cousins. Thanks anyway.

discontinuity

Trust me, you have a captive audience on the toilet, but not one who will wish to see you much in the future. Save the convo for a better time.

Wash those hands!!

Eeee, this node is pretty huge and usually editors/gods no like huge nodes. Anyways, I think ApoxyButt might have the most informative writeup with respect to the node title, but here are some additional factors influencing your urinal choice and etiquette:

    1. Liquids belong IN the urinal
    Well truth be told, some people have poor aim and you obviously don't want piss on your shoes. Urinals at pubs seem to have this problem. Gee I wonder why...

    2. Pubes
    It's quite engrossing when you see hairs all over the rim of the urinal and wonder who they used to belong to. Well maybe you don't, but obviously you should choose the one with the least amount of pubes and if you're courteous, please keep your pubes to yourself.

    3. Keep your pants on
    Little children oftenly do this and I've been tempted to do this due to extreme drunkenness, but you should always keep your pants on while urinating. Simply unzip yer fly and you'll be fine. If you do however choose to drop your pants to the floor, exposing your bare naked ass. All I can say is be prepared for something to happen.

    4. Control your anxiety
    This is from personal experience. Try not to be too anxious in whipping out your little buddy. Make sure that you are within range of the urinal before taking out instrument of evacuation or evacuation for that matter (rule #1). Otherwise, you might give the wrong idea to people disobeying rule #3.

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