Terlets

***warning - this post may contain graphic ideas - do not read it if your poo doesn't stink***

I have been spending time with Jason at work recently. I must say that I have been very impressed with the toilets there. Most office restrooms in China are laid out more or less like this:

and while it's nice that there is reading material provided, I must say that I wouldn't mind a little privacy. That's why I was pleasantly surprised to find that the toilets at Jason's work are divided, at least in part, by vision obscurers. I was also happy to note that patrons are often kind enough to leave reading material around the stall for others to use as well.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with a urinal, but in China, we simply called them "go outside". My first urinal experience came at a sports arena, and it was one that could be shared by as many men as could fit shoulder-to-shoulder. It was called a manger, so-named because it resembles the thing out of which barn animals eat. Or in which Jesus was born.

Clean, I know, but still lacking in privacy. Jason's work has some of the most amazing urinals ever - complete with .5 meter tall dividers so you can't see at least .5 meters of your neighbour. Best of all, because they are "going green", they have waterless urinals! That's right - all the convenience of peeing against a wall without that pesky clean water to wash away the scent of your co-workers' spray!

As everyone knows, the urinal was invented by Russian engineer Sir Thomas Crapper in response to the time that he dropped his cell phone in a public crap hole. He made his wife retrieve the thing then and there, but he vowed at that time to invent a toilet that "wouldn't make me strip to my skivvies just to fish out a dropped phone." He named his invention after the fabled Urinal Mountains, which divided Europe and Asia in the time of the Huns. Here is his story: