The Port-o-Potty Experience

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I was forced to use a Port-o-Potty over the weekend, and I can't help but believe there's alot of room for improvement... it is such a thoroughly vile experience. If we can place skateboards on Mars, how can we improve the lowly, disgusting Port-o-Potty?

― andy --, Tuesday, 28 March 2006 16:28 (twenty years ago)

I'd rather crap behind a tree and bury it.

― Holy makkara, Toivo! (OutDatWay), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 16:34 (twenty years ago)

The only winning move is not to play.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 16:39 (twenty years ago)

When I was very young, we used to take a little port-o-potty/chemical toilet in the back of our Chevy Suburban on long trips, instead of stopping for rest areas.

Upon reflection 20-odd years later, this seems very, very odd.

― kingfish ubermensch dishwasher sundae (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 17:06 (twenty years ago)

There are a lot of unpleasant and dangerous things about the work I do - exposure to radiation, toxic waste, excessively high places, things that explode, having to wear a hardhat/hearing protection/SCBA gear/bunny suit in godawful heat - but using the portapotties (aka "yellow rooms") is THE WORST. Aside from stinking and being filthy and gross, they are always damp and bugs like them.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 17:20 (twenty years ago)

You could pack me into a box the size of a cubic yard, send me to Wellington, and I wouldn't get claustrophobic.

However, five minutes in a port-a-pottie at Riverfest and I start giving up troop locations and naming names.

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/1217/4f944ca.jpg

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 17:56 (twenty years ago)

Porta-Potties are disgusting, but I've never had too much of an issue using them.

However, it's horrible when you enter into one that hasn't been emptied out for a long time, and the stack of shit/TP is actually higher than the rim of the toilet seat.

However, the absolute WORST is when you manage to land a turd just wrong so that you get splashed all over your ass and lower back. At that point you're thinking "Should I bathe myself in bleach" or "Have I just got some kind of disease?"

― A. Lingbert (A. Lingbert), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 18:13 (twenty years ago)

In American home toilets (possibly not european), the crap drops into water... but the poop-mountain in a port-o-potty at a festival is possibly the most revolting thing imaginable... can't they hide it from view somehow, like an airplane toilet?

― andy --, Tuesday, 28 March 2006 18:23 (twenty years ago)

I've never had to take a crap in one, thank God. It's bad enough being in there long enough to pee.

― Big Willy and the Twins (miloaukerman), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 18:31 (twenty years ago)

I think something like the Litter Locker would be better - everything from each user sealed up in a plastic bag. Or, have it all drop into a tiny incinerator. Though there's potentially a methane problem with that.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 18:34 (twenty years ago)

there's a company here, Brenda's Portable Toilets. they have trucks that haul them around for events and whatnot. (probably including riverfest, eh, pleasant plains?) and i always just think "there you go, brenda. living the dream. congratulations."

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 18:55 (twenty years ago)

Oh, man, I took my dive training, and still take some specialty courses, at an inland quarry here in Virginia. The only facilities there are porta-johns. Being stuck in one of those things in the July heat, with the stench and the bugs, while trying to peel down a 5mm neoprene wetsuit, just to take a leak? No thanks. Most people diving there just wait until they're at 30ft. or deeper and go in their suits.

Dropping a #2, on the other hand, is more problematic.

― phil d. (Phil D.), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 19:03 (twenty years ago)

Know what's dudder than porta-potties?

Those cesspools that swimmers and campers are forced to shit in at Corps of Engineers sites.

The building itself is made of brick and mortar, but the toilets don't have pipes to take away the waste. Instead of seeing porcelain when you look down into the commode, you see a large dark pool of human waste, akin to where the Star Wars gang was trapped. Along with the giant catfish at the bottom of the dam, one of the most popular rural legends out there is about the dumbfuck tourist who fell into one of those while reaching for his wallet.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 19:09 (twenty years ago)

I was going to follow up lunch w/ some Kozyshack chocolate pudding, but fuck that now.

― phil d. (Phil D.), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 19:12 (twenty years ago)

I totally remember an urban myth from my childhood about a pervert in a wet suit that would lurk down in the green juice so he could people poop. He was arrested. It was common knowledge, at least in sixth grade.

― andy --, Tuesday, 28 March 2006 19:28 (twenty years ago)

"watch" or "enjoy" is missing from that sentence.

― andy --, Tuesday, 28 March 2006 19:29 (twenty years ago)

~~so was "gulp"~~

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 19:31 (twenty years ago)

It's also one of the not-so-great aspects of Burning Man, though there are hundreds if not thousands of them there, and they are cleaned and changed relatively regularly, so it's not that terrible. (Except for that one year there was a strike ... ugh.) It's just that they're so HOT in the middle of the day in the middle of the desert -- you have to strategically plan how best to remove your outfit as quickly as possible in there. (That may explain why 20% of the population is naked.)

― Limecake, Tuesday, 28 March 2006 19:44 (twenty years ago)

an acquaintance of mine got tipped while using one by some rowdies at a festival. they're horrible, horrible contraptions. also dud: chemical toilets.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 19:48 (twenty years ago)

we tipped the one at the baseball field with my friend's little brother inside.

― Houdini Gordonii (ex machina), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 20:04 (twenty years ago)

Ugh, that's awful. At a former job of mine, we took a Makita driver and screwed the door of one where my coworker was doing his business. He didn't seem that annoyed because he had a newspaper and it had been recently cleaned. We released him after a half-hour or so.

― andy --, Tuesday, 28 March 2006 20:05 (twenty years ago)

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