This isn't a Porta-a-John at Coachella, folks.

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Are you lost?

July 17th, 2013 · 73 comments

Apparently everyone is “doing it wrong,” says our submitter in Colorado.

related: THIS IS NOT A METH LAB

FILED UNDER: "helpful" advice · Colorado · most popular notes of 2013 · office · toilet

73 responses so far ↓

#1 Lisa

I love everything about this note. Of course, it’s doubtful that the offending party will actually take the time to read it; or, if they do, will totally think it’s meant for someone else.

Jul 17, 2013 at 7:05 pm rating: 90

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- #1.1 Snicklefritz
  
  Unless they had meatloaf for dinner last night
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 9:56 am rating: 90
- #1.2 CG
  
  Or a meth lab.
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 10:50 am rating: 90
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#2 Nunavut Guy

Do professionals poop different than the rest of us?

Jul 17, 2013 at 7:57 pm rating: 90

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- #2.1 A real pro
  
  Yes, we poop gold bars.
  
  Jul 17, 2013 at 9:17 pm rating: 90
- #2.2 H for Toy
  
  I’d like to know how we treat a port-o-let at Coachella in any other month.
  
  I’d also like to know if anyone else thinks port-o-let is a funny name, or if I’m just hot and tired.
  
  Jul 17, 2013 at 9:31 pm rating: 90
- #2.3 Nunavut Guy
  
  Let my people port?
  
  Jul 17, 2013 at 9:38 pm rating: 90
- #2.4 Meagan-a-mess
  
  Ohmygosh, this one is hilarious. I often wonder how long someone takes to forge a note that sounds like they just plucked it out on a whim, but is far too eloquent to have been rushed. Best note I’ve seen on this site, hands down.
  
  Jul 17, 2013 at 9:54 pm rating: 90
- #2.5 Gladystopia
  
  Professionals poop gold bars???
  
  What’s the career path like? I mean, I’m assuming there’s an apprenticeship somewhere along the line where you poop silver ingots…. hell, I’d settle for crapping a few dozen quarters a day……
  
  (It’s just become painfully clear: I really, REALLY need a job.)
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 1:29 am rating: 90
- #2.6 Nunavut Guy
  
  They poop them sideways….thus the note.
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 7:16 pm rating: 90
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#3 Danielle

Bravo! Seriously, there really are a lot of people out there doing it wrong.

Jul 17, 2013 at 8:26 pm rating: 90

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- #3.1 The Elf
  
  There have been times, when I’ve wandered into a stall and wondered the any one or all of the following:
  
  1) Didn’t their mother teach them better than that?
  2) Dear Dog, what must their toilet look like at home?
  3) WHAT DID YOU EAT?!
  4) Is your butt so holy and special that you can’t let it touch an ordinary, clean(ish), office toilet?
  
  Seriously, ladies, *stop hovering*. Yeah, yeah you “don’t make a mess” and you “clean up after yourself”. Suuuuuuure you do. If you’re too much of a germaphobe to touch the seat with your ass, I’m not going to believe you touch it with tp held in your hand. And we’ve got the same parts – I know you’re aim isn’t that good. So, yeah, you make a mess and you don’t clean up after yourself. You leave it for me, forcing me to either clean up after you (ick!) or hover myself and contribute to the disaster.
  
  You’re doing it wrong!
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 10:59 am rating: 90
- #3.2 redheadwglasses
  
  I don’t understand why everybody doesn’t turn and look when they’re done and they’ve flushed, to make sure all the evidence is gone. Are there people who just assume it all went — despite evidence to the contrary based on sound and volume — and don’t think it warrants a check to see if a 2nd flush is necessary?
  
  I would worry that i Left a bunch of icky stuff in there and as I’m leaving the stall, someone else goes in right after me.
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 2:08 pm rating: 90
- #3.3 Raichu
  
  Elf, I do clean up after myself, yes with toilet paper I touch with my hands. You’d never know, though, would you?
  
  I clean bathrooms as part of my current job and the nastiest thing I’d had to do on a regular basis is wipe shit smears off the back of the toilet seat (bottom of the U)…it’s only happened in the men’s room, though I see no anatomical reason for that. Maybe it’s just a few of the male regulars. =/
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 9:27 am rating: 90
- #3.4 The Elf
  
  I allow that considerate hoverers exist. Judging by the routine mess I see in virtually every public women’s room, you are in the minority.
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 10:11 am rating: 90
- #3.5 Beatus Mongous
  
  Raichu, if a man is sitting so far back on the toilet that he’s leaving skid marks on the back, chances are, he’s masturbating into the toilet while sitting.
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 5:57 pm rating: 90
- #3.6 Raichu
  
  That…that explains a lot.
  
  Does it also explain why I sometimes have to wipe pubes off the bottom edge of the urinal?
  
  Elf: there are plenty of hoverers who don’t clean up after themselves. As for whether they’re the majority, who can say? If you see a clean toilet seat, there’s no way to know if it was a sitter or a responsible hoverer.
  
  Jul 20, 2013 at 12:28 pm rating: 90
- #3.7 Gladystopia
  
  Raichu:
  
  cf: rocket pubes (http://www.rocketpubes.com/)
  
  It is truly amazing, the quantity of information one can glean from a few hours spent here.
  
  Jul 22, 2013 at 3:31 am rating: 90
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#4 Shaunna

Funniest thing I have ever read, made my day. I wish I knew the person who wrote this to paypal them enough money to buy a beer

Jul 17, 2013 at 8:42 pm rating: 90

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#5 Jenn50

Okay, I’m totally Team Notewriter. It disgusts me to no end to find a stinky, urine and feces swirling mess in the toilet with splatters and smears all over the seat. Especially in a building used almost exclusively by adults. I think public shaming would be awesome if we could find the perpetrators. This note is WAY more coherent than anything I could come up with in the throes of disgust-rage.

Jul 17, 2013 at 9:26 pm rating: 90

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- #5.1 Who passed out the Haterade?
  
  Couldn’t agree more. A few years back, I walked into the bathroom immediately after coworker “B” left… and found a pee-splattered toilet seat. I quietly approached him afterward, and (at the time, mostly as a joke) told him that if he ever did it again, I’d call him out on it. He apologized, and I thought that was the end of it.
  
  Until a few weeks later, that is… when the exact same thing happened. So I asked him, initially in a quiet voice, “B? Remember what I said the last time about calling you out if you didn’t STOP PEEING ON THE TOILET SEAT?” He looked mortified, and the coworkers in the area laughed.
  
  Epic bonus points to another coworker: I didn’t find out about this until later, but after I walked away he started telling the coworker next to him (one of his best friends) that I’d hurt his feelings and he thought it was unfair that a supervisor would treat him that way. She told him “Well, maybe you should do something about it.”
  
  “Like what, complain to management?”
  
  “No, I think you should STOP PEEING ON THE TOILET SEAT.”
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 9:53 am rating: 90
- #5.2 Faye
  
  Haterade, your anecdote reminds me of my fiance’s ex-roommate. This guy was a full on manimal and he’d just pee his feelings out everywhere. Since I’ve been staying there during the summer, I help out with chores, and the one time I cleaned the bathroom before he got kicked out there was pee under the seat from when he’d bother to lift it. The thing, though, was that under the seat, the pee stains were not near the bottom where you’d generally aim if you kind of wanted to make it into the toilet bowl. Oh no. They were at the top, like the apex of the oval. Seriously, you’d have to try to get your pee up there.
  
  Then there was another incident where in he took a massive poo, so large that it defeated the toilet and apparently was so mighty that as soon as he had evacuated it he was so tired he went to watch TV on the couch. He was in no hurry to take care of it and didn’t even post like a warning note. I think he was kind of proud and wanted us to see it. Ick.
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 11:29 am rating: 90
- #5.3 Raichu
  
  Yuuuck. Glad he’s an EX-roommate.
  
  Haterade, I love your story. I don’t know if I could bring myself to call someone out like that but it must be hella satisfying. (Too bad it would have zero effect on my brother…but he’s gotten better about that in the past couple years.)
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 9:30 am rating: 90
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#6 H for Toy

Dear NW,

Have you seen the way people treat their professional office environments, what with the Comic Sans, the chattering appliances, and the big jobs? Be careful what you wish for.

Jul 17, 2013 at 9:27 pm rating: 90

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- #6.1 Mel-K
  
  Well said. Surely there is some crappy clip art that could go on this note.
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 5:02 am rating: 90
- #6.2 The Elf
  
  Wouldn’t any clip art associated with this be, by definition, crappy?
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 11:01 am rating: 90
- #6.3 H for Toy
  
  That’s what I was thinking. Pun intended, Mel?
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 12:34 pm rating: 90
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#7 Joe Tanaka

I’d like to call out people whose droppings somehow land on the lid or other areas outside the bowl. How the hell does this happen?

Jul 17, 2013 at 11:58 pm rating: 90

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#8 Brian H

Great letter

Bet she’s glad she doesn’t share the bathroom with Asian tourists.

Jul 18, 2013 at 12:15 am rating: 90

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- #8.1 B Hole
  
  Drunk _____ (insert any nationality or ethnicity) college kids are capable of being just as disgusting. No need to bring race into it.
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 12:45 pm rating: 90
- #8.2 VM
  
  I thought the Asian tourist reference was in regards to cases of people accustomed to the “bomb site” type of toilet (hole in the ground with two feet rests, essentially) being confused by our design and ending up standing on the seat. A cultural confusion equivalent to the tales of American tourists being perplexed by bidets in Europe (look, it’s a water fountain! Or is that a footbath?). No need to bring “no need to bring race into it.”
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 12:22 am rating: 90
- #8.3 thrall
  
  Last month I went into a bathroom in a national park after a bus load of adult tourists and found a perfect pair of forward-facing sneaker prints on the toilet seat–about a size 6. I decided I did not need the loo as badly as I had thought.
  
  Jul 20, 2013 at 10:06 pm rating: 90
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#9 sima

I am new here, wondering what is this note related with our passive aggressive ?

Need help
pleaseeeeeeeee

Jul 18, 2013 at 12:20 am rating: 90

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#10 Beth

Haha… meth lab in Greeley…

The only thing in Greeley are meth labs and cows that stink up the entire front range when the wind is strong enough.

Jul 18, 2013 at 6:01 am rating: 90

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- #10.1 Beatus Mongous
  
  Greely, where Chinese fire drills happen nightly.
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 11:28 am rating: 90
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#11 spacenomyous

she must moon-light in a methlab in Greeley.

Jul 18, 2013 at 7:22 am rating: 90

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#12 Amy in Toronto

I may need to adapt this note for our office with Canadian regional references…

Jul 18, 2013 at 8:05 am rating: 90

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#13 Maitri

Ok I’m all for cleaning the seat if I get something on it, but if the bowl isn’t sparkling white when I leave, what exactly am I supposed to do with it? Am I supposed to clean a public toilet with my hands and some toilet paper?

Jul 18, 2013 at 8:29 am rating: 90

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- #13.1 The Elf
  
  With low-flow toilets, a few skidmarks are just gonna happen sometimes. As long as they’re in the bowl and not the seat, I don’t much care. You can flush a few times to get it mostly down, though.
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 11:14 am rating: 90
- #13.2 bob loblaw
  
  Plus what if the porcelinisn’t white? Perhaps it is harvest gold or beige or pink or black or purple or lime green or …
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 12:44 pm rating: 90
- #13.3 redheadwglasses
  
  We all should have brown toilets.
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 3:25 pm rating: 90
- #13.4 sunshynegrll
  
  Brown (and yellow… sorry ‘gold’, avocado, and rust orange) toilets were a thing in the seventies. Let’s not ever go there again.
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 8:18 pm rating: 90
- #13.5 Kimberly
  
  Avocado colored everything. My parents built their house in the 70s, my mom wanted an avocado colored fridge and stove. My grandpa, a builder, talked her out of it because he said they would go out of style quickly, she is very thankful to him.
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 9:51 am rating: 90
- #13.6 Kelsey
  
  I have an avocado colored stove and oven in my kitchen, and they’ve actually grown on me quite a bit. Since I’ve painted my cabinets they look charmingly retro rather than puke-inducing.
  
  Jul 20, 2013 at 10:45 am rating: 90
- #13.7 j
  
  ahaha, we have a gold toilet.
  
  Jul 21, 2013 at 1:29 am rating: 90
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#14 Paula K

Joe, they HOVER. I used to have to deal with one of those morons here. I know who it was. She was the only other woman in the building that used this bathroom. Bitch would NOT clean up after herself. Thank god, never fecal matter, but finding urine on the seat-the hard way, mind you-ACK! I don’t miss her. At all.

Jul 18, 2013 at 9:22 am rating: 90

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#15 kingbuzzie

I like how the poster of the note threw in some anonymous cred. “Yea I saw Morrissey at coachella, so suck it”

Jul 18, 2013 at 10:08 am rating: 90

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#16 Ely North

You’d be surprised, but meth labs are actually quite meticulous in the way they keep their bathrooms clean.

Jul 18, 2013 at 10:18 am rating: 90

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- #16.1 kaetra
  
  Especially Walt and Jesse’s
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 7:48 pm rating: 90
- #16.2 FeRD
  
  Well, of course! Some tweaker’s been continuously cleaning in there since February 2003!
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 11:14 am rating: 90
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#17 CG

Dear NW,

I’m with you on this one, but let me tell you: People are not confused. They know exactly where they are (most of the times), they just don’t care. Some people are disgusting and don’t care about other people’s well-being. I know it’s hard to accept, and you can keep trying to change things one PA note at a time, but the most probable thing to happen is when you come back to check on the effects of your note, it’ll be covered in poop.
I’m sorry.

Jul 18, 2013 at 11:04 am rating: 90

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#18 bob loblaw

What is this note taped to? A light?

Tomorrow’s note.

In future, please don’t tape notes to the lights. It is unsightly and is a potential fire hazard.

Jul 18, 2013 at 12:36 pm rating: 90

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#19 Doug the Head

This note leaves me just begging for a tl;dr version:

“Poop, pull green handle. Leave clean. Not porta-john. Not meth lab.”

Jul 18, 2013 at 4:56 pm rating: 90

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#20 Jaid

What gets to me is when there’s perfectly good toilet seat covers in the stall, and a woman still hovers.
I admit to being a slob at home, but at work? R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Jul 18, 2013 at 4:59 pm rating: 90

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- #20.1 Kimberly
  
  What gets me is when people use toilet seat covers and then leave them on the seat. If you don’t want to touch something that your ass touched I sure as shit don’t want to.
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 9:53 am rating: 90
- #20.2 The Elf
  
  Yes, Jaid! Yes, Kimberly! It really chaps my ass when women leave behind a mess.
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 10:09 am rating: 90
- #20.3 FeRD
  
  “Sure ass-shit”, Kimberly?
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 11:15 am rating: 90
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#21 KittenPlaysTheViolin

Okay, so I totally used the bathroom today and a guy was just getting done taking a crap. I use the urinal, wash my hands with soap and water, and dry them. The guy follows me out without doing any of that! The worst part of it is he doesn’t have any shame! Sick! His mama didn’t teach him very well. And he’s like 60!

Jul 18, 2013 at 5:16 pm rating: 90

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- #21.1 Raichu
  
  my roommate used to use the bathroom, flush, and then walk out without even touching the sink…I hate that so much. SO GROSS.
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 9:49 am rating: 90
- #21.2 Beatus Mongous
  
  There’s a guy at work that never washes his hands after using the bathroom. It’s the same guy that rips donuts in half.
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 6:09 pm rating: 90
- #21.3 Raichu
  
  yuck!! there’s an extra dimension of gross to that when you know he just had his dick in his hand…
  
  Jul 20, 2013 at 12:32 pm rating: 90
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#22 kaetra

We used to have a lady with heavy flow issues and 1 week of every month the bathroom frequently looked like a murder scene. Seat splatter, wall splatter, giant gobs of gore in the toilet and trash can, sometimes even the sink. It was unfreaking real. People can be such pigs. Imagine what their bathrooms at home look like!!!!

Jul 18, 2013 at 7:45 pm rating: 90

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- #22.1 BDC
  
  Okay, as someone with heavy flow issues myself, that is both disgusting and somehow impressive. Yeah, the bowl proper might require a 2nd flush, and occasionally the seat needs a quick wipe-off, but the WALLS and SINK? How?! I mean, I guess the trashcan was a pad that either wasn’t wrapped or soaked through the wrapper, but the walls?
  
  Jul 18, 2013 at 10:00 pm rating: 90
- #22.2 Raichu
  
  what…what the…
  
  o_______O
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 9:52 am rating: 90
- #22.3 The Elf
  
  Tampon bolo. It’s the only explanation I have.
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 10:10 am rating: 90
- #22.4 vstorevigilante
  
  I also have those issues, and yes, there can be some seat-mess on occasion. However, I too had never seen it become a gigantic, public problem til I went to a small college this year, with one, 3-stall women’s washroom for 80 women.
  
  One woman, we knew exactly which one, got blood every as well – the floor, the stall walls, the counters, dripping up to the sink and the hand dryers. It was disgusting. She was morbidly obese, and being larger myself I realize navigating and wiping the area of the stall is a hassle, but it was EVERYWHERE, and she never bothered to tel anyone. The stall mess was always discovered by the only person who was forced to use the big handicapped stall this woman used – my wheelchair-bound friend. She was traumatised. I’ll take comfort in knowing my classmates and I weren’t the only ones who had to deal with it. The poor lunch lady was in tears mopping it up four to five times a day for one week each month.
  
  Jul 22, 2013 at 12:33 pm rating: 90
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#23 eiorfoiefnpo

I work in a profesional office building. There’s a shared bathroom on each floor.

There’s one urinal, and two stalls.

Every day, someone, who apparently cannot use a urinal, urinates all over the floor, leading up to, and around the urinal. I’m not talking a few “oops” drops, but an actual river of urine…
No one else can use the urinal afterwards for a few hours until it dries (unless they like wet urine on their shoes). But really, do you want to step in dry urine?
No amount of signs asking the person to stop has helped.

Jul 18, 2013 at 8:36 pm rating: 90

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- #23.1 Tesselara
  
  Electrify the floor. It’s clearly the only solution.
  
  Jul 19, 2013 at 5:10 pm rating: 90
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#24 Tard

I are lunch at an inexpensive Chinese restaurant twice a week for a few years with coworkers.
My level of sanitation awareness is higher than most, I order from the menu and then go wash my hands before the food arrives because menus are dirty. Nobody else does this.

One day, I watched one of the cooks come out of a stall after dropping a deuce (it was obvious) in his *whites* and walk out without washing his hands.

Never ate there again but everyone else told me I was a giant pussy. OK, maybe, but a giant pussy WITHOUT hepatitis!

Jul 21, 2013 at 12:18 pm rating: 90

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- #24.1 redheadwglasses
  
  I wash my hands after handling the menu.
  
  But I also got food poisoning from a THai restaurant that had no hot water in the filthy bathrooms. But the food is so good, we went back anyway. #stupidbutworthit
  
  Jul 22, 2013 at 11:28 am rating: 90
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#25 cakegirl0905

Well, in all honesty, Greeley is the worst. The absolute worst. You can seriously smell it in a fifty mile radius on some days.

Jul 21, 2013 at 10:37 pm rating: 90

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#26 Holly Jahangiri

Totally stealing this one.

Aug 20, 2013 at 2:55 pm rating: 90

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#27 CoachellaFan

I’ll be totally passive aggressive and note that Coachella isn’t in July. Street cred only works if the reference is correct. Yes, it would be nastier in July…but it’s plenty nasty in the spring already.

Aug 29, 2013 at 6:09 pm rating: 90

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