Okay, I don’t claim this to be an exhaustive review of all the interesting toilets in Europe. It’s not. It’s actually just about two specific ones I saw that made me giggle.
The first thing you need to know, if you haven’t spent any time in Europe, is that Europeans generally refer to what Americans call “restrooms” or “bathrooms” as “toilets”. They aren’t afraid to use the word “toilet” like Americans are. I think that’s amusing (at the expense of Americans, that is.)
Anyway, the first example:, While I was in Belgium about a month ago, I had the pleasure of using a urinal with the famed “fly decal” in it. Yes, they put a fly decal in the back of the urinal to increase the “accuracy” of the gents using it. Apparently you give a guy a target and it…I don’t know…focuses him.
There are companies that sell these stickers, of course. There’s Urinal FlyTM – “Keeps Bathrooms 85% Cleaner!” Then there’s the Urinal Fly Target from Tolco. This one only reduces “splashes on the floor by up to 80 percent.” Finally there’s the The Toilet Marksman which appears to be only sold on eBay and also has the dismal 80% reduction rating. For my money, I’m going with the the Urinal Fly and getting that all-so-important extra 5% improvement.
The other thing I saw was the puke sink. I actually saw this in a fairly nice restaurant in Tostadt, Germany, a tiny little burg south of Hamburg and, frankly, not the kind of place you’d expect something like this to be required.
This isn’t the exact one I saw but it looks just like it:
It has a very large drain (wouldn’t want something like this to get plugged up, don’tchya know) and, yes, two handles for bracing yourself. I like the really thoughtful touch of putting an ashtray right there, up and out of the way so that, once you’re finished with your business, you can finish your smoke. The sink I saw also had a little sprayer attached to it so you could spray it off leaving it fresh and clean for the next overly-intoxicated, vomiting patron. It’s the little things, ya know?
I’m just sayin’…
