Proper urinal selection is a key component to the daily male routine.  Many public bathrooms have more than one urinal, side by side.  Picking the right one can be a  complex process.  There’s a right choice and a wrong choice depending on what slot’s open and how many people are using the facilities at any given time.  It’s not just a matter of stepping up recklessly and shaking the weasel.  Privacy and expectations of other patrons both come into play.  This little primer will help you confidently choose the right whizzer next time you need to drain the main vein.

Urinal selection is a decidedly male concern.  Women, by nature, handle bathroom business more discretely.  The thought of urinating in an open trough right next to others with little or no privacy is abhorrent to many women.  Men, on the other hand, were raised to pee in plain view of others.  We pee’d with our buddies when we were kids – we wanted to see who could shoot their stream farther or higher, who could be the first one to melt a snowball, flood an ant hill, or write their name in cursive.  Peeing in public is not just a matter of answering nature’s call to men.  There are rules.

Let’s take an example. You enter an unoccupied restroom and have several urinal choices.  Imagine three urinals on a wall, right in a row.  You have a raging need to pull out Big Henry and take a leak.   Which one do you select?  A, B, or C?  Your first inclination might be to say, “What’s the difference?  It’s wide open, it doesn’t matter.”  But yes it does matter because the correct answer would be “C.”  Slot C satisfies our principal desire when executing any instance of public restroom urination – privacy.  As guys, we may very well be unafraid to pee in front of another, but as adults, we still don’t mind keeping our business to ourselves as much as we can.  Plus, peeing with your buddies is one thing.  Peeing with total strangers is another story.  By picking Slot C, you’ve got a wall to your right.  The wall creates a safe zone.  No weirdo will be able to walk up on your right side and try to get a gander at your junk.  Slots A and B, to your left, are still open and potentially vulnerable to infiltration, but you can hug the wall to increase the buffer between you and a potential occupant to your left.

Since this is a multi-hole facility there’s always a chance a second patron could enter ready to drain a couple Long Island Iced Teas and ruin your tranquility.  If a new guy does walk in and you’re occupying Slot C, which urinal should he logically take?  “A” of course.  Since Slot C is occupied, by you, Slot A is the next best option.  Choosing Slot A keeps a one hole buffer between the two of you, giving him the stall wall to his left as a privacy barrier.

Here’s another reason why Slot C is superior to the others.  On the surface it may seem that Slot A offers the same privacy as Slot C but not so.  Slot A has its caveats.  Slot A is adjacent to a stall and at any point, another restroom visitor could enter to use the toilet in that stall for more “advanced purposes.”  It’s always uncomfortable when someone is one foot from your shoes taking a number two.  Nobody wants their Merrells to fall victim to an unwarranted splash, leak, or overspray coming out from under the stall half-wall.  So, Slot A offers more privacy than Slot B but it’s not the safe haven of Slot C.

No matter what, our second restroom visitor could never choose Slot B while you are occupying Slot C.  This would be a serious breech of bathroom etiquette.  Grabbing Slot B while someone is in Slot C and leaving Slot A open, would just be creepy.  It would have a prison shower feel to it.  If you’re in Slot C and a new guy steps into Slot B while a perfectly good Slot A urinal is open it makes you question the new guy’s motives.  Will he want to talk about gladiator movies?  Will he drop a $5 bill on the floor hoping I’ll bend over to pick it up?  It’ll get weird.  Save everyone the hassle.  If you’re not weird, take Slot A and give the guy in Slot C his peace.

All right, imagine the john continues to fill up.  You aren’t finished yet in Slot C and the second dude is still opening the flood gates over in Slot A.  A third patron enters.  What choice should he make?  Though somewhat limited, visitor three still has options.  He could take Slot B but he’ll have no privacy with you and the other guy on either side of him.  Also, though no one would fault dude three if he took Slot B, the guys already at the urinals will be slightly irked that you took away the empty buffer of Slot B.  Guy three also could go into one of the stalls to bleed the lizard in the toilet but guys generally want to whiz with as little interference and hassle as possible.  In the stall you have to open the door, swing it behind you, lift the seat, and endure all sorts of other bothers.  And, deep down, every guy likes to pee outside.  Standing at a urinal replicates outdoor peeing most closely so, most guys would take Slot B, step up boldly, and stare straight forward at the wall.  Just get the job done.

If the situation continued to get really busy and none of you are quite finished, a fourth patron could enter.  Then the the whole process starts over.  The fourth guy would probably take one of the toilets if he really needs to go.  But there’s a chance he’ll wait  for an opening at one of the urinals.  If so, he should stand at the middle of the group a safe distance back, and wait for any hole to open up.  It’s first come, first served at that point.  Ideally, the fourth guy would prefer Slot C to open first, but if he’s a tap dancing race horse, he’ll take the first chance he can get and no one could fault him for it.

Hopefully you’ve emptied the pee bag by that point.  But, if you’ve got the bladder of a camel and are still hogging that prime spot in Slot C, more people may pour into the rest room.  The full-house rules of bathroom etiquette then come into play.  The new guys are relegated to either taking an open stall or waiting in a single-file line behind the three urinals.  First guy in gets the first open hole.  That’s only fair.  It’s not like the grocery store where any douchebag can slip into the first open register even though you’ve been waiting patiently behind the asswipe who needs three price checks, a liquor scan, and a shitload of lottery tickets.  Bathroom etiquette dictates a strict first-come-first-served rule structure.  Things could get messy otherwise.

I hope this clears up the sometimes confusing process of urinal selection.  This is just a primer.  In future posts we’ll tackle the age-old peeing problems of: stage fright, the deleterious effects of vitamins and asparagus, strangers who want to talk while peeing, urinal gas passers, and worst of all, the dude who’s entirely too proud of his equipment, pees hands free, and stands unduly far from the urinal.