The diva of daytime television, Oprah Winfrey, has declared war on distracted drivers who use cell phones while driving, but the ultimate No Phone Zone should be the restroom, especially a public one.
Granted that many hotels provide guests with telephones in private bathrooms, giving the impression that phone conversations and toilet time should for some reason be combined, visitors are still left to wonder:
What was the last guy doing when he used this phone?
Is that a smudge on the handle?
Telephones are not a vital feature in restroom design for one reason:
No one wants to hear your business, while you’re taking care of business.
Even if public restroom visitors follow other rules of etiquette while using the facilities, such as flushing when done, or “in between when necessary,” it is still rude and awkward to add a phone conversation to the activities involved in “taking the browns to the super bowl.”
Not only is listening to someone’s private conversation distracting to the 17 million Americans who experience Paruresis, otherwise known as “shy bladder syndrome”, it is equally traumatizing to the person on the other line.
Imagine receiving a call from your significant other and hearing the familiar whoosh of the porcelain throne right as you’re about to say “I love you, babe.”
Love, especially early on in a relationship, has its limits—an arm lengths reach to a roll of toilet paper.
Ladies, no matter how much perfume you doused yourself in or how curly your lashes are, there is nothing your man will find cute about you calling him to send kisses while your bottom kisses the bowl.
Remember: men are visual creatures by nature.
Provide them with an image that doesn’t involve you thinking, “Gee, hope no one heard that.”
This includes photographing yourself in the restroom and using a potty glamour shot as your profile picture on social networking Web sites.
Texting should also be conducted as a post-game activity.
While toilet seats actually happen to be one of the more sanitary surfaces in public restrooms, several other areas, especially wet ones, carry millions of disease-causing germs, according to the American Society of Microbiology.
It is still believed by the medical community that STDs are not contracted through simple contact with a toilet seat, but the thought of clicking away on a miniature keyboard as someone else’s Chlamydia pathogens dance around one’s fingers is revolting, no matter how miniscule the probability of infection.
In other words, you’re advised to wash your hands after “dropping a load” for a reason.
Unless your local loo provides visitors with cell phone sanitizing wipes, or you’ve fallen and you can’t get up, leave the toilet talk to bad comedians and politicians.
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