Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

That would have been the green garden hose in my childhood

I also think the idea of an elevator in a house seems less strange than a drinking fountain. I've never actually seen an elevator in a house, but I could imagine that if someone had a huge multi-story mansion they might have an elevator. Or maybe if someone was in a wheelchair and their house was big enough to install an elevator they might have one. But to me a drinking fountain is something you have in places where you don't have cups, like the hallway at school, and you have cups at home, so why do you need a drinking fountain? It does seem less weird to have one in your backyard, though.

My elementary school had a few drinking fountains with really long troughs and 3-5 spigots so a lot of people could drink at once. I've always wanted one.

Katya wrote:

Chrysanthemum wrote:I'd just like to point out that while drinking fountains are strange, the idea of elevators and circular staircases is, to me, normal.

Elevators in single-family houses? Where did you grow up?

I went to a very affluent high school...It was kind of crazy...

I am not from Utah, but I know at least one family in my neighborhood that has a water fountain in their house.

I also know several families, residing in Utah, who have water fountains in their houses.

I bet pizza man "Papa" John has a drinking fountain or twenty in his castle. I like the 22-car multi-level underground garage with valet office But where does the underground entrance on the lower-right of that picture go?

A home I rented for a few years had a urinal in the master bathroom. My wife loved that the toilet seat was always down!

S.A.M. wrote:A home I rented for a few years had a urinal in the master bathroom. My wife loved that the toilet seat was always down!

There's a urinal in every house - it's called the shower.

Ugh. That's nasty. Do you spray the shower with Clorox when you get out? If not, everyone that uses the shower will have ...interesting germs all over their feet-compliments of you and countless other men. * so glad that I shared a bathroom with my sister...

Actually, urine is fairly sterile...

Squirrel wrote: . . . compliments of you and countless other men. * so glad that I shared a bathroom with my sister...

The shower isn't sexist.

Squirrel wrote:Ugh. That's nasty. Do you spray the shower with Clorox when you get out? If not, everyone that uses the shower will have ...interesting germs all over their feet-compliments of you and countless other men. * so glad that I shared a bathroom with my sister...

Every poll I've seen on this subject shows a higher percentage of women pee in the shower than men.

I pee in the shower. I live by myself, and I don't pee in public showers or other people's showers, but I'm not grossed out by the thought of other people's pee in the shower. Urine is pretty sterile in people our age, and even if someone did have a UTI, chances are it's not an organism that's going to infect my feet.

I'm confused... Yes, urine is sterile- I know it's supposed to be an emergency wound disinfectant. But it plays host to bacteria, right? What am I missing here?

Sterile, by definition, means free from bacteria. The big issue with urine (as I understand it) is that it's basically your body's chemical waste disposal system, so it's loaded with all kinds of stuff that you probably don't want to put back into your body.

I don't see anything nasty about peeing in the shower, especially since the whole thing is getting washed by flowing water. Peeing while taking a bath is a bit different. But honestly, I'm pretty certain you'll get more pee exposure in a public pool than you will in any shower.

yayfulness wrote:I don't see anything nasty about peeing in the shower, especially since the whole thing is getting washed by flowing water. Peeing while taking a bath is a bit different. But honestly, I'm pretty certain you'll get more pee exposure in a public pool than you will in any shower.

Anytime I worry about pee in a public pool, I just remember that I've swam in lakes, where wild animals do all sorts of things.

One of my geography professors, referring to floods, said that rather than asking what's in them, a better question would be to ask what's not in them. Lakes aren't quite as extreme, but the principle's the same.

In people our age, urine has no bacteria in it unless you have an infection somewhere in your urinary tract (could be a bladder infection, which is what people usually mean when they say UTI, or a kidney infection, or a urethral infection, which is usually an STI). If you have any kind of urinary tract infection, you will know about because they are painful. So if it doesn't hurt when you pee, and you're not having intense kidney pain or anything like that, you can be pretty confident that your urine is bacteria-free. The bacteria that cause bladder infections tend to be things from your GI tract. So if someone does have a bladder infection and pees in a public shower, that's kind of a gross thought, but it's unlikely to do anything to you unless you have open sores on your feet or something like that. The potential foot fungus from other people's feet in public showers is more of a threat than the hypothetical bacteria in their pee. Elderly people sometimes chronically have bacteria in their urine that isn't causing active infection, but that bacteria is very likely to be the kind of stuff that already lives on your skin anyway.

#funpeefactsfromNerdGirl

NerdGirl wrote:In people our age, urine has no bacteria in it unless you have an infection somewhere in your urinary tract (could be a bladder infection, which is what people usually mean when they say UTI, or a kidney infection, or a urethral infection, which is usually an STI). If you have any kind of urinary tract infection, you will know about because they are painful. So if it doesn't hurt when you pee, and you're not having intense kidney pain or anything like that, you can be pretty confident that your urine is bacteria-free. The bacteria that cause bladder infections tend to be things from your GI tract. So if someone does have a bladder infection and pees in a public shower, that's kind of a gross thought, but it's unlikely to do anything to you unless you have open sores on your feet or something like that. The potential foot fungus from other people's feet in public showers is more of a threat than the hypothetical bacteria in their pee. Elderly people sometimes chronically have bacteria in their urine that isn't causing active infection, but that bacteria is very likely to be the kind of stuff that already lives on your skin anyway.

#funpeefactsfromNerdGirl

#thingsThatComeUpOnDrinkingFountainThreads

Okay- as long as we're making this thread extremely entertaining for lurkers, I just want to make sure I understand. It sounds like you guys are talking about the bacteria already in urine, as opposed to when its in the shower and bacteria come and say, "ooh! I want me summa dis!". There has to be a difference between the two, right?