No, seriously. A lot of the time after I use one, it results in some kind of mess with varying degrees of subtlety. It’s been mildly irritating for years and I’m starting to feel like I’m missing something obvious.
Are you supposed to aim toward the center? To one side? High? Low? Into the drain/water?
I’ve tried aiming near the side so that the stream hits the urinal quietly and has a low angle of deflection, thinking it’ll minimize splash back. But sometimes it seems like there are tiny droplets in a radius around the stream and some flecks will get onto the outside of the urinal, which is no good.
I’ve tried aiming at the deepest part in the back of the urinal, hoping that the intense splashing from hitting it at close to a 90-degree angle will be counterbalanced by the greatest amount of surrounding urinal surface in the vicinity, but this is too optimistic and tends to deposit a fine mist on the floor between me and my target.
I’ve tried aiming downwards at the drain, or when it’s the style of urinal with a standing water level, at the back half of the water where it’s shallow. This is loudest and probably provokes silent judgment from anyone else unfortunate enough to be using the bathroom at the same time as me, but it doesn’t seem to be especially good at minimizing mess and in the case of standing water, has a low chance of splashing an actually threatening amount of liquid back in my direction.
Perhaps it’s just inevitable that this particular plumbing fixture comes with a little mess involved. In other areas of life we are fine with periodically cleaning in our Sisyphean struggles against the various avenues where dirt and grime accumulate. But I want to be a conscientious user of shared facilities, damn it. And there’s only so many times a guy can discreetly wipe off his shoe with a paper towel before going insane.
Please help.
Do you know what an arabic toilet is ?
It’s a pistol, not a rifle. Get closer.
My technique is come in at a sharp angle, aim for the porcelain and not the water/drain/cake. 98.5% of the time this results in no discernible splashback, for me at least. If there is splashback, it’s usually due to the design of the fixture itself and I quickly adjust to compensate - some are more shallow or rounded, others are awkwardly curved or angled, and the height at which it’s mounted matters as well.
You might just be unlucky and have a super powerful stream or something. If that’s the case, you’re probably better off just sitting to pee.
I’m with you on this. But the good thing is, we’re not alone.
Around 1 million liters (264,172 gallons) of urine are spilled onto the floor and walls of public restrooms each day in the U.S.
We theoretically predict and experimentally validate that when the impinging angle is below an invariant critical value of ∼30◦, the flow rate of splashback under human urination conditions can be significantly suppressed…
I feel like I’ve found my people. Thank you. This is incredible.
Urinal physics before GTA6
A pub that I like shows football (n.am. soccer) matches. The urinals have little football nets with a little football hanging from a string mid-net, and if you aim just right, the ball spins around and around. I aim for that.
This advice is not easy to generalize outside of this particular pub, but I wish you luck.
Sometimes they have a picture of a fly at the optimum spot.
It is lower down
The only thing I’ve found that helps is if the urinal has one of these deodoriser mats. As long as you aim for the mat (coaster sized) there’s no splashback, and a fresh scent to boot.
You might think theres no splashback but I hate to tell you others will smell the spray from the deodorizer mat on you
Yes. And the awkward social situation is when they ask what I’m wearing, but I didn’t pay any attention to the brand of the urinal mat.
I don’t want that to happen again, so now I’m careful to take note of the urinal mat branding.
I miss urinal cakes. Not accurately named.
I’m ok with smelling like wild cherry for part of the day.
“Aim”? What’s this “Aim” you speak of?
The only way I’ve ever known is to stand four feet back, whip down your pants and skivvies right down to your ankles and just firehose that sunuvabitch.
As God intended.
Oh, hey dude. Haven’t seen you since our office moved, was wondering how you’ve been doing?!
Same as always. Just going with the flow.
Over here urinals sometimes have a little image of a fly inside. This is where you aim for.
It all depends on the shape of the bowl.
Sitting is always better though.
…man, don’t sit on the urinal: it just leaves a mess and leads to awkward face-to-face conversations with the guy standing next to you…
Yes, thought I’d see this comment. Sometimes it’s a bee.
Pee on the bee!
The best solution is to stand slightly to one side and pee almost parallel to the curved wall of the edge of the urinal. The goal is to get the stream to immediately adhere to the wall of the urinal and have friction slow it down as it curves toward the back, minimizing escape.
This is the way. Little to no splashing, very effective
I found a spot to do it where it splashes into my eye.
There will probably be a small logo, a mark, or, commonly, a depiction of a fly.
Pee on that.
It’s not just urinals. The first day of the year with shorts at home always brings a surprise chilly mist on my shins from a regular toilet. It is what it is. You’re doing it as good as it gets. Either you’re experiencing the normal amount of spray or your stream makes extra spray. Either way, it is what it is, it sounds. All you can do is lean forward and spread your feet asuch as you can to avoid collecting the mist. Side wall is my go-to. Lipped walls are my enemy.
[off topic]
Every once in a while I find a place with the old style chest to floor urinals, the ones with a bowl the size of a sink at the bottom.
It took me years to realize that these were designed so that a drunk could stand up and vomit like a gentleman.
This is what they took from us.
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In elementary school we would count to three start the flow and then see who could back up the furthest while still getting it mostly into the urnal.
…ye gads, elementary school boys are the worst: we had gang urinals (big open troughs) and the shenanigans were epically horrific…
