Readers keep the very important thread going:
I wanted to share a useful tip for using paper toilet-seat covers (or “ass gaskets”, as they’re commonly known). If you deploy it the “normal” way, so that the flap hangs down and touches the water in the bowl, it quickly wicks up water and pulls itself partially off the seat before you get a chance to sit down. I’ve found that they work much better if you fold the center “flap” down and leave it outside the toilet bowl.
Another puts things in perspective:
Here’s the thing: the germs to fear in a public restroom are on your hands. So taking a paper cover and using your hands to fix it to the seat is significantly more disgusting than having germs on your outer butt cheeks. The last thing you need is your hands on the seat.
So if you want to avoid the germs of a public restroom, wash your hands thoroughly, then only touch the faucet and door handles with a paper towel. Try not to think about the germs from all those badly washed hands covering the doorknob as you go back out into the world.
Another woman’s strategy for avoiding germs:
My grandmother used to carry a full-size can of Lysol and spray the seat prior to use and then wipe with toilet paper. She rejoiced when Lysol came out with a purse size can so she doesn’t have to carry a huge pocketbook anymore. My sisters and I have also kept the habit. When my babies were young, I would Lysol the changing table and then dry with spare diaper just for that purpose. I also “cleaned” up after my kids when they “missed” aiming while potty training.
I found that if people care, they clean up after themselves. For example the public restrooms in Walmart are universally a mess whereas the ones in Target are generally clean. The cleanest public bathroom I ever found was at the African-American Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida. The church ladies not only cleaned up but would scold anyone who “made a mess”.
Another notes a flawed technology:
I used to live in Chicago, which meant I used O’Hare airport with some regularity. At some point in the last 20 years, O’Hare switched from relatively normal public-type toilets to commodes with electric-eye-operated automatic toilet-seat-cover dispensers. Every time a person would enter (or leave, I guess), there’d be a little whirring sound and a fresh segment of plastic wrap would circle round the toilet seat. Voila! I can only image the cost of this system.
The only problem was that either to make the engineering functional or to save money on plastic toilet seat wrap, the bowl and toilet seat are shrunk to about 70 percent of their normal size and are perfectly round. This complete disdain for ergonomics (in a place one would hope they’d be paramount) means that using one of these toilets is akin to squatting over a cellophane wrapped coffee can. Not exactly conducive to the peace one hopes to attain through one’s Morgenscheisse (to employ a favorite Dish-found word).
Toilet-seat covers are a boondoggle, and I’m glad I now live near Boston, whose Logan Airport has normal shitters.
Update from a reader:
No reader has addressed the most criminal flaw in public toilet technology: the auto-flush that flushes when you are mid-stream, spraying god-knows-what onto your nethers. This is far more distressing than any germy seatcover could ever be.
The Dish 