Pee. Pee. Pee. It is amazing. One of the most underrated pleasures. Nowadays, I am trying to drink a lot of water therefore frequent trips to this pleasure land are inevitable (Spoiler!). So today, I will share two very profound observations I made while I was releasing the pressure (or at least thinking about it).
Aim and shoot
I recently got a chance to visit a newly constructed, state of the art building (my new office😛). So after a lot of fooling around it was pee-pee time. I quickly went to one of the washrooms and as I started with my cannon, I suddenly noticed something familiar on the urinal wall.
Look how tempting that lady bug is!
Needless to say, I made it rain on this little ladybug sticker. I did the same in all my subsequent visits. It was fun, but it felt a bit strange. Like sticking a sticker over every urinal wall? There was something more to it.
When I was in college, I did some language course. In one of the examinations we had a small comprehension that talked about role of psychology in maintaining hygiene for public urinals. It was the same thing! I must admit, it was pretty hilarious to see how beautifully that theory worked for me.
Basically, there was a research conducted which claimed that:
“Guys are simple-minded and love to play with their urine stream, so you put something in the toilet bowl and they’ll aim at that”
Klaus Reichardt (Inventor of water less urinals)
Therefore the familiar sticker was put at a very strategic position to reduce the splash back and thereby keeping the ground clean. This simple trick had been shown to reduce cleaning costs by 20%. How amazing is that?
Faith keeps it dry
This one is from Delhi, about an year old. I visited that city sparingly and was feeling kind of touristy. So I was clicking random photographs while walking down the typical Delhi streets. Trust me, when I clicked this one, I knew that I would be writing about it one day.
Such Godly deterrence!
This was some dilapidated building on a narrow street. I must mention that there was no urinal nearby (no KFC, nothing!) so as far as my experience goes, this wall should have been stained with Paan and Pee stains but it wasn’t. Why? Because someone thought of better strategies than “Son of a bitch is peeing here!” or “If you pee here, fine is Rs.500/-“.
Nobody wants to commit the sin of urinating at a place where mighty gods lie. They might as well die of bladder rupture but the damned deed would have been unthinkable. I am not sure about the actual intentions behind these tiles but if seen from my perspective, it is ingenious. This is the epitome of jugaad that we Indians are so famous for.
Final drops…
So I think before I zip it up and go back to whatever I was doing, it is necessary to appreciate the presence of psychology in our daily lives. Sometimes it is pretty evident while the other times it just keeps on shaping our decisions quite subtly. We can’t choose to be cognizant about it all the time. But once in a while you would be reminded of how deeply it is annealed into your life and how far reaching simple modifications to the environment can be. Till then, please remain hydrated and pee a lot. (Specially women!)