The Ultimate Guide to Life

The Ultimate Guide to Brushing Your Teeth

Why Brush Your Teeth?

Hopefully, we have all brushed our teeth at some point in our lives. By brushing our teeth, we are removing a thin layer of bacteria called plaque, which prevents cavities and tooth decay. Brushing can also stimulate your gums and prevent gum disease. Although most people would agree that brushing your teeth has great benefits, most people do not agree on a single way to do so.

Bristle Wetting Debate

I have ran across this debate on the internet several times, and people seem to have pretty firm opinions when it comes to the order in which you prepare your toothbrush. To answer this question once and for all, I created a form to gather information about dental hygiene (I think that was the first time I’ve ever had to spell that word, and it was difficult), which you can access here: click me to fill out the form. At the time of writing, 31 responses are in and water/toothpaste/water is in the lead with a comfortable plurality at 45.2%. Water/toothpaste and toothpaste/water are tied with 25.8% each. You can review the up-to-date results after filling out the form or by clicking here: click me to view the responses.

I concur with the water/toothpaste/water crowd, as this option seems to do the best job of softening the bristles and preparing the brush for a nice oral cleaning. However, I can also see water/toothpaste and toothpaste/water as viable options to save on time. To the one person who just squirts out some toothpaste and goes to town, who hurt you?

What the Experts Say

By experts, I am referring to the websites WikiHow, WebMD, Dental Health Services Victoria, and Colgate.com. Here are a few suggestions that were repeated across all four websites.

1. Brush your teeth at least twice a day for at least 2 minutes each time.

Each website made it fairly clear that you need to brush at least twice a day for 2 minutes each time in order to experience the benefits brushing provides. Most adults do not spend nearly enough time brushing their teeth, and doing so can lead to tooth decay and gum disease. Making at least one of these brushing sessions an extreme deep clean with flossing and fluoride mouthwash can drastically improve your oral health.

2. Use a toothbrush with soft bristles and replace it every 3 months.

By using a toothbrush with soft nylon bristles, you give yourself the best chance at thoroughly cleaning your teeth without damaging your mouth. Most people forget to replace their brushes or brush heads as often as they should, but after 3-4 months, an old toothbrush will not clean as well as you need it to, and it should be replaced.

3. Brush the outer, inner, and chewing surfaces of your teeth as well as your tongue.

To clean your teeth thoroughly, you should brush the outer surface that people see, the inner surface that faces your tongue, and the chewing surfaces. Brushing your tongue from back to front without throwing up will also clean up bacteria and improve your breath.

You should still move your hand if you have an electric toothbrush though.

Words from the Wise

Now that we have heard from the experts, here are a few comments from survey takers.

I’m glad someone is finally doing this.
Anonymous Survey Taker

I believe in equal rights however, in my opinion, girls/women need to use the girly colored toothbrushes or else it gets way too confusing when you share a bathroom with someone of the opposite sex.
Anonymous Survey Taker

Are you brushing the tongue or is the tongue brushing the toothbrush? I think okay.
Anonymous Survey Taker

When u squeeze the toothpaste out you squeeze it into the bristles so its at the very bottom of em.
Anonymous Survey Taker

Water, toothpaste, water again. That’s law.
Anonymous Survey Taker

Wrapping Up

Just like one of the form responders, my toothbrush suggestion is to press the toothpaste down into the bristles so that it doesn’t fall off right away. This way you won’t end up with a glob of toothpaste in your mouth or on the sink. Thank you for sticking around to the end of my post. Leave a comment if you would like, future post suggestions, compliments, and critiques are all welcome. I hoped you enjoyed it and learned something new.

The Ultimate Guide to Physics

Going Insane

Like many of you, I have been cooped up in my house while avoiding the global health crisis. However, I seem to have had ten times as much schoolwork out of school than I did while I was still in school. Physics is probably my favorite subject, and I wanted to share some of the crazy things that I have been learning.

Why does light bend?

Take a clear glass of water, and stick a pencil in it. If you look at it from the side, you will probably see that it looks like it is cut off or bends at a weird angle. Why is that? In a vacuum (empty space with no air particles to get in the way) light always travels at 299,792,458 meters per second. That is extremely fast, about 671,000,000 miles per hour. In different materials, light travels slower. Just like you would run slower through a forest than you would through a field, light travels slower through objects made up of particles than it does through empty space.

Here is a short video I made demonstrating how the speed of a car can change its path:

When light hits a boundary between these different “mediums,” half of the beam will reach the slower medium before the other half. This causes the beam to bend away from a straight line. If the beam enters a slower material, it will “refract” towards the “normal,” which is an imaginary line that is perpendicular to the boundary. If the beam speeds up in the new medium, it will refract away from the normal.

What’s so special about special relativity?

I wrote earlier that light travels at 299,792,458 meters per second. Not only does light travel at this speed in a vacuum, but it travels at this speed no matter where you are measuring it from. If I was running at you at 4 m/s and then threw a baseball at you at 10 m/s, you would see the ball coming at you at 14 m/s. However, this starts to change with extremely high velocities.

If a spaceship was traveling toward you at 1/2 the speed of light and shined a flashlight at you, the light from the flashlight will still travel at exactly the speed of light, not one and a half times the speed of light. The person on the spaceship will also see the light from the flashlight traveling away from them at the speed of light. Because both people have to measure the same speed for light, time and space themselves bend to make the math work out. This video uses an illustration involving a train to show how time and space change with speed.

Conclusion

Light, time, and space do some crazy things. While you are sitting on your couch doing your part to save the world, take some time to keep your brain moving. The internet has a ton of resources that can help you learn a whole bunch of amazing things. Whether it is the finer points of special relativity or a new way to make a sandwich, learn something new every day and we’ll be out of this social distancing in no time.

The Ultimate Guide to McDonald’s French Fries

So Much McDonald’s

From Wednesday through Saturday last week, I ate at McDonald’s every single night. First, it was Forensics. Then, it was our girls basketball sectional semi-final. Next, it was our boys basketball regional semi-final. Finally, it was the girls sectional final and the boys regional final. Although it’s a lot of fun when your basketball teams keep winning, the many road games haven’t been great for my diet. The upside, however, is that I was able to test out different dipping sauces for my french fries.

The place we always go and always feel guilty about it.

Dipping Sauce Discord

During our writing class a few weeks ago, Northwood students began to discuss the best way to eat McDonald’s French Fries. We posed this question to the rest of the class, and there was a variety of responses. I was a firm supporter of the “no sauce” approach to McDonald’s Fries, while my classmate Margaret argued that you have to go and get ketchup. Elizabeth needed ranch, and students from Prairie Farm dipped their fries in ice cream. Our class has been exploring this topic for weeks, and I was given a great opportunity to test the many dipping sauces out.

Wednesday

On the way home from our subdistrict forensics competition, our team ate at McDonald’s in Hayward, WI. I decided to order an Oreo Shamrock McFlurry, and I tried dipping my fries in it. It was disgusting. I highly discourage the dipping of perfectly good, crispy McDonald’s fries in mint-flavored, cookies and cream ice cream. However, I will not discount ice cream as a dipping sauce, because I enjoy dipping fries in vanilla ice cream occasionally.

Thursday

After the girls beat Hurley to move on to the sectional final game, I went to the Hayward McDonald’s for the second night in a row. This time, I stuck to the plain french fries after the horrible experience with the Oreo Shamrock McFlurry. McDonald’s fries are made with just the right amount of crisp, salt, and flavor to be eaten by themselves. Ketchup makes the fry taste like a tomatoey mess, and ranch overpowers the fry’s natural excellence.

Friday

After the boys upset Hurley in an exciting game, the bus stopped in Ashland for McDonald’s. This time, I received an extra packet of ranch (3 total) when I ordered my Chicken McNuggets. I decided this was a sign that I needed to dip my fries in it, and I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoy ranch with my McNuggets, and it wasn’t actually that bad on fries. I would still prefer to eat them plain, but it was nice to change things up.

Some people use the various McNugget sauces to dip their fries.

Saturday

After the boys had another exiting upset against Mellen to win the regional championship, we stopped at McDonald’s. By this time, I had made up my mind, and McDonald’s fries definitely deserve to be eaten alone. However, I dipped a few of them in ranch. I think that the creaminess is growing on me.

What do you think?

Please take a second to fill out the survey below, and let me know what you think is the correct way to eat McDonald’s fries.

Something we should all agree on

Whatever your taste in dipping sauce, we should all know when too much is too much. McDonald’s posted their own video of using ice cream as a dipping sauce, but the amount that they scoop out makes me sick to my stomach. If you do this, I am sorry for all of your friends and family.

Thanks for stopping by

Thank you for checking out my blog. Please have a look around my other blog posts if you would like, and share with your friends and family.

The Ultimate Guide to Raising an Evil Dog

Pure Evil

“Your dog is a psychopath,” said Skylar Shilts, as my dog Sadie was chewing on her foot. I have to say I would agree. Just look at her. If that dog doesn’t scream “I am an insane psychopath that will tear you to shreds,” I don’t know what does. Our family got Sadie in August when she was just a few months old. I thought we were going to get an adorable, sweet little puppy, but when I got home from work, I was shocked to see this terrifying little creature from the underworld.

The Calm Before the Storm

For the first week or so, Sadie tried to hide her nefarious agenda, but I saw right through it. She pretended to “sleep” all day long, when in reality, she was plotting my family’s demise. Sure, she looked cute while she was curled up on the boat, and sure, she had an adorably awkward way of laying down, but inside, she was definitely scheming.

Getting Cheeky

As Sadie became more comfortable with her new home, she began to show her hostility a little more openly. It started with constant angry barking. “Hey, nice to see you, Sadie. How are yo—”

“BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK“

It got really old really fast. After months and months of us ignoring her idiotic interruptions, she finally realized that she needed to get our attention another way.

Biting, Biting, and More Biting

Soon, Sadie began to sink her teeth into anything she could find. Her chew toys, my mom’s Birkenstocks, the leg of the table, my actual leg, nothing was off limits. We learned that the best way to teach a puppy to stop biting was to yelp like a dog when he or she bites too hard. This is supposed to mimic how puppies express pain to other puppies while they are playing around. Maybe this idea sounds like it would work, but you sound like a freaking lunatic. It didn’t really work, and our family sounded like a bunch of morons for a while. We are currently using the “ignore and walk away method,” which is working fairly well.

A Work in Progress

Even though the barking and leg biting is not ideal, Sadie is still just a puppy. It is going to take a while to keep training her, but I think she’s doing pretty well for now. I guess she is pretty cute, and I hope that she calms down and becomes a good girl someday.

The Ultimate Guide to Tying Your Shoes

Called Out

“NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO TIE THEIR SHOES THE CORRECT WAY!!!!” exclaimed Mrs. Laura Magdzas, my Weight Training instructor. It was the last day of the semester, and my first hour class had devolved into a heated debate between ardent supporters of the “Bunny Ears” technique and fierce defenders of the “One Loop” method. I had been diligently plugging away on classwork in the commons when I was dragged into the gym by my friend, Collin, who joined Mrs. Magdzas as the only other person in the class who tied their shoes with one loop.

“Collin tells me you have some ‘special’ way that you tie your shoes,” said Mrs. Magdzas. “I mean, I guess so,” I responded, and I lifted my foot up onto the box that the class was crowded around. I told everyone to watch closely as I lightly picked up my laces. In a flash, a well-balanced, loopy knot was sitting on top of my shoe. “What was that?!” asked a surprised Mrs. Magdzas. “Magic,” I responded.

Three Schools of Thought

There are three basic methods of tying your shoes. Each of these methods will produce the same exact knot but will get you there in slightly different ways.

Method #1 – The “Bunny Ears” or “Double Loop” Method

Before I tell you how I tie my shoes, I will explain the two most common techniques. I will start out with what is probably the most simple shoe-tying method: the double loop. According to “Bunny Ears” enthusiasts, this is the only way to go. First, make a simple overhand knot by taking the left shoelace, placing it across the right shoelace, and pulling it back under the shoelace. Next, form two loops and tie them in the same way, except for this time, go right over left.

Video Demonstration of Double Loop Method

It doesn’t really matter which way you choose to go in the beginning, as long as you do the second step in the opposite direction. Failure to do so will result in a “granny knot,” which means that the knot will orient itself up and down the shoe lengthwise rather than across the shoe.

**Meth*od #2 – The “Around the Tree” or “Single Loop” Method***

Another common method of tying your shoes uses one loop. This method can be called the “Bunny Rabbit” method (not to be confused with the “Bunny Ears” method) as this knot is commonly taught to children with a story about a bunny. After tying an initial right-over-left knot, you make a loop (the tree), take the other end (the rabbit) and go around the tree, and pull the bunny down through the hole, doing so from the middle of the lace and creating a loop. Below is a video demonstrating how to tie this knot.

Video Demonstration of Single Loop Method

**Meth*od #3 – Magic***

Finally, I will tell you how I tie my shoes. This method is called the “Ian Knot” or “Magic Fingers” knot because it was developed by a person named Ian, and it looks like magic because it can be tied insanely fast. You start by tying the same left-over-right knot at the beginning, and then you make two “humps” with the laces. On one hand, let the loose end of the hump go away from you, and in the other hand, make the hump with its loose end coming toward you. Now, put your fingers under the humps facing inwards in a pinching position. With each hand, grab the opposite hump on the side near the loose end and pull a loop back through the hump on each side. If you do this correctly, and tighten the knot without pulling the loose end through, you will end up with the exact same knot that the single or double loop methods provide. The link to the original Ian Knot website is located below if you want to check it out.

Video Demonstration of the Ian Knot

Science

I conducted a very scientific survey, please add to my data by clicking here. As of the time I am writing this post, the Magic Knot was in the lead with 7.4 seconds, followed by One Loop with 12.5 seconds, and Double Loop was far behind at an average of 20.5 seconds. Click here to see the current results.

Thanks For Visiting!

Thank you for taking the time to check out my blog. I hope you learned something new, and I would appreciate if you shared my blog with all of your friends.

Links to More Explanations

Magic Knot
Double Loop
Single Loop

The Ultimate Guide to Procrastination

Welcome

Hello everyone! You may be wondering, “Why is Haakon writing this blog post on Christmas Eve Eve? Shouldn’t he be spending time with his family?” The answer is yes, I should be spending time with my family, and I am. However, I put off writing this post for so long that I had no choice but to sit down and crank this out while looking over the beautiful, blue water of the Florida Keys. How did we get to this point?

What is procrastination?

Wikipedia defines procrastination as “the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished by a certain deadline.” Therefore, the action step is simple: if something needs to be done, don’t do it. Do you have a big presentation that you need to get done by Friday? Meh, worry about that later. Do you have a blog post that was due on December 11th? You can finish that another time. The premise of procrastination is simple, but there are several ways you can spice up your dilly-dallying skills. Here are a few different kinds of procrastination.

Classic Procrastination

Basic procrastination consists of putting off something important until it is absolutely necessary to complete it. An example of this could be waiting until the day before a project to rush through and get it put together. I spoke with self-described “Master Procrastinator” Jonas Gulbrandsen who told me about a time he procrastinated. “I was assigned a project that was due in a month,” Jonas told me. “I put the whole thing off until after I came back from hunting. I started it the day before we had to hand it in and finished it the day it had to be done.” This brings us to the next type of procrastination.

Hardcore Procrastination

Hardcore procrastination is slightly more advanced. Instead of worrying about completing a paper the night before it is due, you finish the whole thing on the day of. No late nights for you. You’ve got all morning to get it done. However, we can turn this dial up to eleven.

Extreme Procrastination

Extreme procrastination is not for the faint of heart. Forget about late nights or productive mornings. You haven’t lived until you’ve done your homework as the teacher is collecting it. This only works for fairly short assignments, though, like worksheets. Even so, this method is very risky, and doing so successfully is quite an accomplishment.

Procrastination Apologetics

If you speak with a procrastinator, you are bound to hear some sort of defense for their dilatory behavior.

“I was too busy. I had so much other work to do.”

Real procrastination involves putting off something important by doing something that is utterly pointless. Should I study for my final, or should I learn how to write the letter “G” in calligraphy on YouTube?

“I wait until the last minute because I will be older, and therefore wiser.”

The logic is pretty solid on this one. I don’t have much to say about that.

Further Procrastination Education

Procrastination is such a common problem that almost everyone falls into its grasp at one point or another. Here is an amazing TED talk that explains procrastion really well. I highly recommend that you watch it if you haven’t seen it before. It is hilarious and extremely well done.

Thanks for visiting!

Thank you for checking out my latest blog. I’ll be back in the new year with some more posts, so subscribe if you want to be kept updated. If you haven’t read any of my other posts, it would be great if you could check them out right now. Or maybe later.

The Ultimate Guide to Screwing Up Your Entire High School’s Holiday Concert

A Brief Introduction

Hello, and welcome to my second blog post. This post may read more as a story, but if you follow the same steps I did, I am sure that you will be able to reproduce the cacophonous performance that was my rendition of “Symphonic Highlights from Frozen” at my high school’s winter concert. The inspiration for this post comes from my friend Collin, who turned to me after the song and said through tears of laughter, “Wow. You screwed that up.” I say, he was right.

*TL;DR – I sucked at our concert. If you don’t want to read, listen to the professional recording and then listen to what I played in front of a packed auditorium and have a good laugh for yourself.

Some Background

I was in 5th grade, starting out on a musical journey that would lead me to where I am today. Mr. Rankila was my band teacher. I asked him if I could play the trombone. He said, “No. That’s too hard, and you aren’t good enough. Try the trumpet.” So I gave it my best shot and practiced my trumpet a whole 5 times that year. Yeah, we weren’t very good.

I continued to play the trumpet throughout middle school. I think we were so bad that we made Mr. Rankila quit. He went on vacation one day and never came back. We then went through about a bajillion substitute band teachers over the course of 3 years (I told you we were bad) before we were lucky enough to land on Mrs. Amy Graf. Mrs. Graf turned our music program around, and we went from horrendous, to unpleasant, to slightly below average, a HUGE improvement.

The French Horn (and a million other instruments)

The French Horn, a beautiful instrument if you ask me.

Our band was tiny. Very small. Miniscule. To broaden our sound, Mrs. Graf had me learn the french horn. I switched between my trumpet and the french horn during the concert, and I was pretty good if I do say so myself. Sadly, Mrs. Graf moved away, but this time, we were lucky to have an even better teacher take her place, Mrs. Britany Turinske. Mrs. Turinske kicked our band up a couple notches from slightly below average, to quite good, to FREAKING AWESOME. In this new era of Northwood Band, I played the trumpet, french horn, trombone, baritone, and the tuba.

Preparation

Our band is not this big. In fact, we do not have a single one of the instruments that are displayed in this photo.

We are back to the present day. We started the school year by preparing for our winter concert. I play the trumpet for two songs, then french horn for one, and finally tuba for the last song. We will focus on the song I played on the french horn, “Symphonic Highlights from Frozen.” With Frozen II coming out around the same time as our concert, this was a great addition to our lineup. In this song, I had a solo. Right at the end of the song, everyone builds up to one point, and then it gets quiet, and then I play and launch us into the final part of the song. Here is a professional recording of the build up:

https://voca.ro/avP5fEjTysp

So you can see that something dramatic is supposed to happen here, right? Well, here is what is supposed to happen:

https://voca.ro/9SaW1sHh8tM

Sounds pretty cool, huh? I thought so too. So I get to play this at our concert. Right on! I practiced quite a bit until I could play it just like the recording, well, almost like the recording. During practice the day of the concert, I nailed it. Finally it was concert time.

Concert Time

You could say I was nervous. The first two songs on my trumpet went great. I put my trumpet down, picked up my horn, and waited until Mrs. Trurinske started conducting. The song went pretty well, I was doing everything I was supposed to do. And then it came to this part. Everyone built up the moment pretty well:

https://voca.ro/dDGtEbtPWKi

What happened next, I can only describe as shameful. All alone, for my solo, my big moment, I played the following:

https://voca.ro/2ugOPFNEyZP

I don’t know how it happened. If you want to re-create this wonderful moment, I suggest you just blow into your horn as randomly as you can and it will probably sound better than what I did.

In Conclusion

Tonight was my last winter high school concert performance, and it was one to remember. Today’s post was more of a reverse guide. If you do not want to suck at life, don’t do what I did, and you’ll be fine.

If you would like to continue to receive the latest and greatest life tips, like and subscribe to my blog. Thank you for checking this out.

EDIT: I was encouraged to include the senior picture we took before the concert. I am the one in the obnoxious suit. Yes, I was wearing that while everyone watched me step on a goose.

The Ultimate Guide to Men’s Restroom Etiquette

The restroom, lavatory, washroom, water closet. Potty, if you will. Whatever you call it, you’ve used one at some point in your life. Hopefully, you use one every day. However, the toilet is such a taboo subject that we sometimes overlook the basic rules of engagement when one uses such a space in public. A trip to the privy is as much a personal journey as it is an experience we are forced to share with others. This ordeal that is both intimate and social brings with it a variety of awkward situations. Today, I am going to share with you a few tips that you can use to make your everyday excursions a little more civilized. Because I am a man, I will be writing about the Men’s room as I have little experience with the Women’s room. I am sure that some of what I have to say is applicable to the bathroom belonging to the opposite sex.

Some Background Information

Obviously, we need to start with a quick refresher on quantum mechanics. Everything in the universe is made of atoms, ourselves included. An atom has a small, dense nucleus containing protons and neutrons surrounded by a diffuse cloud of teeny-tiny electrons. Electrons orbit around the nucleus at different levels. In a 9th grade science classroom you may have heard of these “electron shells” where the first shell holds 2 electrons, the second 8, then 18, then 32, and so on. You are shown these as dots in neat concentric circles surrounding the nucleus like in the picture below.

Yeah, no. It’s a lot more complicated than that. If you’ve gone on to take a higher level science class, like Chemistry, you might’ve seen what I’m talking about. The electron shells are actually split into various “orbitals” that have crazy shapes because electrons aren’t just tiny particles, they’re waves too.

This doesn’t concern us too much, what matters is that within an energy level, there are multiple orbitals that each hold two electrons. Electrons will fill in these energy levels from lower energy levels to higher energy levels. However, they do not fill each orbital before moving on to the next one. If multiple orbitals are at the same energy level, electrons will distribute themselves among the available orbitals at that energy level. They do this because it’s awkward to cram into the same orbital when there’s a free one right next door. Actually, it’s because of something called Hund’s Rule. In the diagram below, each box represents one of those weird shaped orbitals. You can see how instead of cramming themselves into the first box, the electrons fill in one by one.

Hund’s Rule does not apply only to electrons filling in orbitals; it also applies to men using urinals in a restroom. Quantum mechanics has it down. Electrons get it. Men don’t seem to understand all the time.

Back to the Bathroom

The urinal. A fancy hole in the ground that a man walks up to and pees in. This simplicity makes urinals extremely convenient. No need to worry about trying to see if someone is in a stall or fighting with a latch that was purposely installed so that it doesn’t line up. You can have a whole wall filled with urinals, and everyone can pee at the same time. Genius! Or is it? You see, urinals come at a cost. It’s ease of use is complicated by the fact that you have to pee out in the open. Sure, you can hide your private parts, but it doesn’t diminish the vulnerable feeling that comes with doing your business in full view of everyone else in the room. The last thing you want is to have a stranger, or even a friend for that matter, invade your personal space and use the adjacent urinal while you are trying to tinkle. This is where Hund’s Rule applies to urinals. The “Urinal Rule” states that one is never to use a urinal neighboring an occupied urinal if there is an open urinal at least one empty urinal away from the nearest occupied urinal.

One might still wait to pee if the only open urinals are adjacent to urinals that are occupied. This rule, however, is thrown out the window at movie theaters, rest stops, and other areas with high urinal traffic. In these places, the use of any available urinal is acceptable after every other stall is occupied.

The Urinal Rule can also apply to stalls, but there is more flexibility in this case. Just as in bathrooms with high urinal traffic, it is acceptable to use an empty stall neighboring an occupied stall if there are no isolated stalls left. With stalls, it is always perfectly fine to go ahead and use any open stall if there isn’t a stall with a suitable buffer. This is permissible because stalls come with a barrier between you and the next person.

Test Your New Knowledge

Image result for quiz time — Here is a link to a quiz on the Urinal Rule

Some Quick Etiquette Tips

Never, ever make eye contact or look over at the person next to you while using a urinal. Look straight ahead. You don’t want to accidentally catch a glimpse of anything you don’t want to see.

If you are in a stall all alone in the bathroom and someone walks in, make your presence known. That person might think they have the place to themselves, and when you go to flush, it might give them a heart attack.

Shut the stall if you are in one. This includes men who use them to go number 1. No one wants to look in and see you peeing.

“If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie.”

Actually, just put the seat up. Don’t pee on the seat.

A Word on Conversation in the Bathroom

In his article about Men’s room etiquette, Ray from BroCouncil.com writes, “when you open the door to a public bathroom, you should shut your mouth.” He believes that “nothing is important enough” to talk about while in a public restroom.

I agree with him that you should never speak while you are doing your business. Don’t talk too much, if at all, while you’re using the bathroom. It is really awkward. No one wants to have a conversation with the person taking a dump in the stall next to them. However, I believe that it is acceptable to make polite conversation while using the sink or drying your hands, as long as the person you are talking to is doing the same thing and not still going potty. It isn’t polite to ignore the existence of someone standing next to you.

A Few Notes from the Girls

I gathered a few rules regarding female restroom etiquette from a few of the girls in my class. Here are their tips:

“Try to never pick a stall right next to someone else’s stall” – Amanda B.

“If someone runs out of toilet paper HELP THEM” – Margaret H.

“If you’re in a public restroom and have to hover over the seat and get some urine on it, clean it up. The next person does not want to go anywhere near your pee” – Margaret H.

“WRAP UP YOUR TAMPONS, DON’T BE A LIL NASTYYY” – Elizabeth H.

“Don’t flush the g** d*** tampon down the toilet” – Amanda B.

“Don’t put the used tampon on the back of the toilet” – Elizabeth H.

Thank you for visiting!

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