1,001 Facts That Will Scare the S#*t Out of You: The Ultimate Bathroom Reader (49 page)

CHAPTER 8
Let Me
Hear Your
Potty Talk
The Straight
Poop on
Going to the
Bathroom

351

FACT :
The germs on your fingers
double after using the toilet
, but almost 50 percent of men and 25 percent of women do not wash their hands after going to the bathroom.
That’s why they call bowls of loose candy in restaurants and offices “fecal mints.”

Katy Holland and Sarah Jarvis, Children’s Health for Dummies (For Dummies, 2006).

352

FACT :
Simply washing your hands with soap and water after going to the bathroom
reduces the spread of diarrheal diseases by almost half
.
The simple act of diarrhea is enough to convince me to wash my hands with soap.

“Poo Facts,” Poo Productions Advocacy Group,
www.pooproductions.org
.

353

FACT :
Flushing the toilet can propel
small drops of aerosolized fecal matter
through the air as far as twenty feet, potentially landing on every surface in your bathroom. Studies have found feces on faucets, sinks, counters, combs, brushes and toothbrushes.
Reminds me of the time I ate some of those fat-free potato chips with olestra. Propel is not even close to describing what my ass did.

Philip M. Tierno, The Secret Life of Germs: What They Are, Why We Need Them, and How We Can Protect Ourselves Against Them (Simon & Schuster, 2004), 92.

354

FACT :
Some intestinal viruses can remain in the air
after you defecate and flush the toilet
, and can cause infection if inhaled or swallowed.
Why are you inhaling anyway? You like that smell? I hold my breath until I can get the hell out of Dodge.

J. Barker and M.V. Jones, “The Potential Spread of Infection Caused by Aerosol Contamination of Surfaces after Flushing a Domestic Toilet,” Department of Pharmaceutical and Biological Sciences, School of Life and Health Sciences, Aston University,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
.

355

FACT :
In a humid environment like a bathroom,
a single bacterial cell can multiply into 1 billion cells
overnight.
I imagine all that floating, flying feces doesn’t help, either.

Philip M. Tierno, The Secret Life of Germs: What They Are, Why We Need Them, and How We Can Protect Ourselves Against Them (Simon & Schuster, 2004), 92.

356

FACT :
Forty percent
of the world’s people have no toilet, and must use the bathroom in any public place they can find: bushes, roadsides, alleys, etc.
Roadsides sound especially fun. “Dad, can I borrow the car? I wanna go out to U.S.-1 and take a shit.”

Rose George, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).

357

FACT :
Lack of sanitation and access to a toilet isn’t just a Third World problem: 1.7 million people in the United States have
inadequate or no means of safe disposal of waste
.
Inadequate? There’s no place inadequate for a quick potty break when you really gotta go.

Rose George, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).

358

FACT :
Feces in the water supply
cause 10 percent of the world’s communicable diseases.
On a moonless night, a well can easily be mistaken for a latrine.

Rose George, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).

359

FACT :
People often fart shortly after they die.
Is this what they mean by a “death rattle”?

“Facts On Farts,”
SmellyPoop.com
,
www.smellypoop.com
.