Vote for America’s best bathroom

by Sean McLachlan on

It’s a room we visit several times each day, but the humble bathroom (john, head, bog, loo, etc.) is rarely celebrated in its true glory. Cintas Facility Services, a leading provider of bathroom supplies, wants to change that with its America’s Best Restroom Award. Check out their website to see the nominees and vote for your favorite. A good bathroom is the traveler’s best friend, and should be appreciated.

But we here at Gadling are too well traveled to get all starry-eyed about the glories of the garderobe. We’ve dealt with squishy Asian squat, public lavatory putrescence, and outhouse odor. So let’s hear your votes for the world’s worst bathrooms. Here’s my nominee:

In 1996 I left the Iranian border town of Zahedan and entered Pakistan. My first stop was Taftan, a miserable hole if I ever saw one. The streets were nothing but sand. Trash blew between bare concrete houses. Moneychangers swarmed around me like flies. Flies swarmed around me like moneychangers. Then disaster struck–I had to go to the bathroom.

The public toilet next to the bus station was an area about ten feet to a side enclosed by a concrete wall. There was no roof. There was no door, only a blind turn before you entered a sandbox that looked just like the street except that it was covered in crap. The flies here were so thick that I put my bandanna over my nose and mouth so I didn’t inhale any. There was no escaping the smell. I picked my way through a minefield of human waste until I found a clear spot for both my feet. The flies were relentless, and I had to fan myself constantly so they didn’t get stuck to my business end.

Like everywhere in South Asia, foreigners get stared at in Pakistan, and they make no exception for foreigners squatting with their pants down. A small crowd of other squatters stared at me with undisguised curiosity as I did what I needed to do and fled as quick as I could.

I only stayed in Taftan an hour until I could catch a bus for Quetta, but I will always remember the bathroom there, and the fact that I got pick-pocketed. They only got about five dollars worth of Iranian rials, but it’s the thought that counts. The thought of some guy’s hand in my pocket. I hope, I pray, that it wasn’t one of the guys watching me in the bathroom.

Think you can beat that? Give it your best shot.

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SkyMall Monday: Gear Shift Madness!

by Mike Barish on

SkyMall Monday loves cars. Sure. the SkyMall Monday headquarters is my studio apartment in New York City and I don’t own a car because I take subways everywhere, but still, cars are neat. Don’t you wish that everything you owned was designed like a car? Cars are just so perfect and amazing and cool. They’re so much more amazing than our boring household items. Thankfully, the good folks at SkyMall understand that we’re sick and tired of our boring and mundane lives. That’s why they feature not one, not two, but three thrilling household products that look like automobile gear shifts! And this week, we’re going to ruminate on all of them.
6-speed Toilet Plunger (pictured above) – Clog the toilet again with one of your Cadillac-sized poops? You could grab your classic plunger but, yawn, what’s the fun in that? If you’re going to go toe-to-toe with a pipe-demolishing clump of feces, you’re going to need six gears of elbow grease. So, confidently continue eating all the Taco Bell that you can shovel into your gullet with the knowledge that your toilet plunger can handle everything that you throw at it.*

Need more proof? The product description is much more convincing than I could ever hope to be:

Well, you need a plunger anyhow, so why not get this one that has a machined aluminum shaft and shifter knob (engraved with a 6-speed shifter pattern). Heck, stick the rubber bellows to the floor and you can practice your speed shifting while you’re doing–well, you know.

I mean, yeah, you need a plunger anyway, so, you know, get the $36 novelty version. And then just stick it to your floor and practice your “speed shifting” while spreading E. coli all over your home.

Gear Shift Coat Rack – Let’s dive right into the product description on this one, shall we?

It has five hooks to let you hang coats, hats, shirts, polishing cloths, etc. within easy reach-each hook is shaped like a classic manual gear shifter.

Oh, so that’s what you can hang on hooks. Coats, hats and shirts! And you’ll finally have a place to hang your polishing clothes. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it,well, probably just once. And this is going to be that one time. Here it comes. Please hang your polishing cloths on the Gear Shift Coat Rack!

Gearshift Wine Bottle Stopper – You’ve just completed hosting another successful cocktail party. You’ve cleared your toilet with the 6-speed Toilet Plunger. Your guests have collected their coats and polishing cloths from the Gear Shift Coat Rack. Now you need to put away that open bottle of Merlot. But you don’t want it to go bad. You need to seal it up with the Gearshift Wine Bottle Stopper. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the product description:

The ideal gift for the wine-loving car buff!

Now, I would have thought that this was the ideal gift for the wine-loving car buff, but I don’t write for SkyMall, so what do I know?

And there you have it. Three delightful gearshift-themed products and two ways to spell gear shift. SkyMall doesn’t care if it’s one or two words so long as it’s the design focus of as many products as possible.

So, shift your credit card into high gear and enjoy life in the fast lane. See what I did there?

* Don’t throw feces. That’s just gross.

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.

Ryanair – to pay to pee or not to pay to pee?

by Scott Carmichael on

Oh Ryanair, how you mock us.

Yesterday, every news source in the world (well, many of them) were abuzz with the news that Ryanair exec Michael O’Leary announced he’d be introducing coin operated bathrooms on his planes.

Normally, when an airline owner announces something on the news, you take it seriously. Apparently that is no longer possible when it comes to stuff O’Leary says.

The latest update in the “paid bathroom concept” comes from a Ryanair spokesperson who’s actual statement was:

“Maybe O’Leary was just taking the p*ss this morning. Michael makes a lot of this stuff up as he goes along and while this has been discussed internally there are no immediate plans to introduce it”.

Someone might want to keep O’Leary away from the press for the time being, before you know it, he’ll be saying something really stupid like that he wants his flight attendants giving free oral sex on his upcoming transatlantic flights.

Check out these stories of booze gone bad in the skies

Babykeeper Basic hangs your baby close while you pee

by Mike Barish on

I thought writing product reviews couldn’t get any better than Skymall Monday. But then a product comes along that is so patently amazing that it takes my breath away. I stare at my computer screen, mouth agape, and wonder how I ever lived before experiencing such wonderment. I can only imagine that this is how one would feel upon encountering a unicorn in a meadow filled with daisies and trees that fruit lollipops. Ladies and gentleman, I am pleased to introduce you to The Babykeeper Basic.

Traveling with kids is hard. Or at least that’s what people tell me. I’m single and childless (as far as I know), so I just throw some underpants and toothpaste into a bag and off I go to my next exotic destination. But I imagine that when you travel with kids, you can get a tad flustered. You have your luggage, the kids’ luggage, diaper bags, purses, stuffed animals and other nonsense to carry. That’s a lot to handle. And, at some point, you’re going to have to use the bathroom.

Well, you can’t just ask some stranger, or worse, your spouse, to hold your child while you urinate (or defecate, your choice). That’s where The Babykeeper Basic comes in. Simply select the lavatory of your choosing, place the hooks over the stall divider and overcome the stage fright that you will inevitably encounter as your child stares at you judgmentally while you try to relax and let the river flow. Nope, nothing to see here. Just a baby hanging precariously from the wall of a bathroom stall while you empty your bladder and/or bowels.

Look, I’m not saying that you should just put your kid on the bathroom floor while you do your business. That’s foolish. Your child could then easily abscond with your luggage while your pants are at your ankles. What I am saying is that hanging your child from the bathroom stall in some medieval harness might not win you Parent of the Year at your church’s next family fun day.

For our readers in Japan, I have great news. You can save $25 and just use the amazing public restrooms in your forward-thinking country. They have the baby seat built right in.

[Via Buzzfeed]

How do you poop on Mt. Everest?

by Jerry Guo on

The days of poop-behind-a-rock be gone – a Nepali climber has recently started promoting the use of a packable toilet for hikers up the world’s tallest mountain. Tired of the 965 kilos of waste he picked up during an expedition in May (including a corpse dating back to 1972! wtf!), Dawa Steven Sherpa is determined to make Mt. Everest a cleaner place.

His solution is the Luggable Loo – a portable bucket-cum-toilet that stores waste in a gas-impervious bag. This way, hikers will have a potty to sit on (plus!) but poop to haul out (not so much plus). The bags do their job to keep unwanted aromas from reaching expeditionists while they hike.

Still, if hauling your own waste out seems like too much trouble, what the hell are you doing climbing Mt. Everest anyway? Any good hiker knows that the first rule of messing with Mother Nature is to leave her exactly as you found her. That includes poop, too.

The loo retails from Cabela’s Outfitters for $15 – not too shabby – and 6 of the “Doodie Bags” (as they are so named) will cost you $12.99. If I were Mr. Sherpa, I’d be handing these things out at the base camp. Who wants to clean up someone else’s 20-year-old, iced-over poo anyway?