Latest / Privycast / [RERELEASE of Ep. 14] Toilet Taxes and Pay Toilets

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[RERELEASE of Ep. 14] Toilet Taxes and Pay Toilets · Privycast

• 0:00
  Would you prefer them not to pay and just fill the streets with fecal matter, gentlemen?
• 0:06
  No?
• 0:07
  Okay, well then allow me to levy my tax to do this.
• 0:26
  Privy, potty friends.
• 0:28
  Privy is a podcast about bathrooms, the culture, etiquette, and history, and the things that we find inside of toilets.
• 0:37
  My name is Hunter Hoover.
• 0:38
  I love bathrooms.
• 0:39
  And I'm convinced that the more that we look at the history and culture and etiquette of privies, of these spaces, the more thankful we will find ourselves.
• 0:50
  And it's been a kind of a wild week out here on the...
• 0:54
  uh
• 0:54
  Willamette Valley, Oregon Coast area.
• 0:58
  So I'm from Montana and kind of, you know, when we get snow, it's kind of like a, it doesn't make any sense, but it's like a dry snow.
• 1:05
  And so when it's cold, it's, yeah, it doesn't really like sit on stuff.
• 1:11
  And out here when it rains or even threatens to snow a little bit, the stuff kind of freezes and then it sticks to everything.
• 1:19
  And then,
• 1:20
  trees start to fall down.
• 1:21
  So that's kind of what's happening now.
• 1:23
  I know there's folks who don't have power.
• 1:25
  I know there's folks who've lost trees.
• 1:27
  We have a tree in our yard.
• 1:29
  And while I was doing my janitorial duties yesterday, I had a tree come down on the property where I work, not too far from where I was at, but far enough to where I safe,
• 1:40
  but it was loud and it scared me, but not bad enough to where I had to go in and hit the John.
• 1:46
  So this is privy and
• 1:49
  It's that time of year everybody.
• 1:51
  It's everybody's favorite time of year.
• 1:54
  That favorite holiday thing that is coming up in February here in just, you know, maybe by the time you listen to this you've already celebrated it or done it for February.
• 2:08
  You know what I'm talking about.
• 2:09
  Everybody's getting excited for that day.
• 2:15
  It's tax season.
• 2:16
  Haha.
• 2:18
  It's tax season here in the United States where the government demands a portion of our income simply for making income.
• 2:24
  So that's pretty cool.
• 2:26
  And I recently found out that if you receive Social Security, that's tax too.
• 2:32
  So it's taxes all the way down.
• 2:34
  Here we go.
• 2:35
  Welcome to tax season.
• 2:36
  And since this tax season is approaching, I thought we could talk about something kind of like a tax.
• 2:45
  We're talking pay toilets today.
• 2:48
  So pay toilets, if you're new to what a pay toilet is and you hear that and you go, what in the world is he talking about?
• 2:56
  Pay toilets.
• 2:57
  Every toilet I use is free, especially the ones in Target.
• 3:01
  It's pretty much exactly what it sounds.
• 3:03
  It's a toilet that you have to pay to use.
• 3:06
  And you're sitting there thinking to yourself, well, I have a right.
• 3:09
  I have rights to do my situation wherever I want.
• 3:13
  I'm not going to like pucker all around and waiting for somebody to take my cash so that way I can drop my splash.
• 3:19
  It's just not happened.
• 3:21
  But this is different than if you've ever been to like a gas station or a restaurant and you go in, especially if you've got little kids.
• 3:30
  This happens when you got little kids, especially when you're on road trips.
• 3:33
  Like it is like written into the laws of nature that when you stop to use the restroom,
• 3:42
  When you have small children, the moment that you get in your car and begin to really put some work into getting rid of miles that are left in your total travel time, as soon as
• 3:55
  you get up on that road and get going, one of the small children is going to have to go to the bathroom.
• 4:00
  Even though you just stop, it doesn't matter because the laws of the world have dictated that kids need to go to the bathroom when it's already past time to have gone to the
• 4:09
  bathroom.
• 4:09
  And that's totally fine.
• 4:10
  We were all kids once and you know that we all did that to our parents.
• 4:13
  So it is what it is.
• 4:14
  But if you've ever been in that moment where you stopped and there was a pristine restroom and it was perfect spot to go to the bathroom and then you hit the road and you're out
• 4:24
  there and you're going and then you have to go pee.
• 4:27
  And sometimes that comes from the adults and that's okay.
• 4:29
  But now it's time to stop.
• 4:31
  But there might not be as convenient or a more make sense area to go to the bathroom where you are at now.
• 4:39
  And so now you have to get kind of creative.
• 4:41
  You have to kind of like, oh, what's available?
• 4:43
  Hey, there's a little mom and pop restaurant.
• 4:45
  I'm going to go drop in there and maybe go.
• 4:47
  And sometimes you approach these places, these especially smaller gas stations and smaller little restaurants.
• 4:54
  And what I'm getting ready to say is not me complaining.
• 4:57
  This makes total sense.
• 4:59
  But you approach this and there's a sign restroom is for paying customers only.
• 5:06
  Now.
• 5:08
  The reason is the same.
• 5:09
  So that's not what we're talking about.
• 5:11
  That is a different situation from pay toilets, but the pay toilets that have existed exist pretty much for the same reason that companies and businesses may say, Hey, we need
• 5:23
  you to buy something.
• 5:24
  We need you to be a customer in order to use our restrooms.
• 5:27
  And that's totally fine.
• 5:29
  Also companies have every right to ask you to pay or buy something to use their restroom as user.
• 5:35
  And you you might hear that and you go, oh, whatever.
• 5:38
  But like, just remember, you are using a service that they provide you and you are using their water and their supplies to do your cleanup business while in the restroom there.
• 5:50
  And so you can't expect, especially these smaller places, these mom and pop shops, like if they let you use their restroom free of charge, that's of the kindness of their own heart.
• 5:59
  Like those places might be struggling to make it and
• 6:04
  You know, you figure if 10 people come in a day looking to poop, using that toilet paper, toilet paper ain't cheap.
• 6:11
  It adds up.
• 6:13
  But in most public areas and most public places, especially here in America, you don't have to pay to use a toilet and there's no requirement that you pay to use a toilet.
• 6:26
  So why are we talking about pay toilets?
• 6:29
  Well, as I said, it's tax season and
• 6:32
  They're taking your money for other reasons, so they might as well take it for pay toilets.
• 6:36
  the first recorded establishment of a pay toilet was in 74 AD.
• 6:43
  74 AD, not 1774.
• 6:46
  That's still pretty old.
• 6:48
  But 74 AD by Emperor Vesp...
• 6:50
  Vesp...
• 6:53
  Roman names.
• 6:55
  Emperor Vespasianus.
• 6:57
  Now see, that's probably exactly how you say his name and that's what we're going to go with.
• 7:01
  Emperor Vespasianus, Emperor V.
• 7:04
  He instituted the pay toilets essentially as a tax levied on those who would want to use the public potties.
• 7:13
  And he had some deficit to make up from many, many costly wars that had been fought.
• 7:20
  So he decided to tax
• 7:24
  taking a dump.
• 7:25
  Good guy, this guy.
• 7:27
  If you need to poop, hand out money in my palm and then you can poop.
• 7:33
  his rivals also let him know their displeasure with this choice to which uh Vespasianus, we're gonna go with that, replied, Pecunia non olet, which translates roughly, money
• 7:49
  doesn't stink.
• 7:51
  So.
• 7:51
  Why is Emperor V shouting money doesn't stink at his people who are arguing against him that he should not be taxing toilets?
• 8:02
  So unless you've ever actually smelled money, which if you've smelled money, you know that money does stink.
• 8:08
  Mostly because some dude probably rolled some something inside that money earlier on.
• 8:14
  Whatever.
• 8:15
  You know that's not true.
• 8:16
  But point taken.
• 8:18
  Money doesn't stink as bad as the poopy that maybe the money is being generated off of.
• 8:24
  So he said that because he's kind of doing this tongue in cheek thing of like, oh, would you would you prefer them not to pay and just fill the streets with fecal matter,
• 8:37
  gentlemen?
• 8:39
  No.
• 8:39
  OK, well, then allow me to levy my tax to do this.
• 8:44
  We got paid up.
• 8:44
  Keep these bathrooms.
• 8:45
  That's essentially the idea.
• 8:46
  So.
• 8:47
  Later in Greek Ephesus, they had what were the Scholastica baths and these were luxury bath houses in the city.
• 8:58
  But what's interesting and we've kind of talked about these back when we talked about Dave in the Wipe Wand a long time ago, but people could pay extra.
• 9:06
  They could essentially, if you will, pay for like the VIP members exclusive experience to these bath houses.
• 9:16
  and be a part of like this potty-centered social club where they could like get around and they could get in and they could talk to each other while they were all doing their
• 9:24
  business.
• 9:25
  It was this really fun thing.
• 9:27
  And I hope they got their money's worth because like, you know, I think like the closest thing to that now is like gyms.
• 9:34
  But I think most people are probably paying to like get into and work out and like use the equipment that is there because getting all of that equipment for yourself.
• 9:45
  is going to be pretty costly.
• 9:46
  Like it's not going to be cost effective to have all that equipment for yourself.
• 9:52
  So you got like, yeah, it's the same thing, you know, but there are these like there are showers at the gym and so you're paying, you might as well use them, you know what I'm
• 10:00
  saying?
• 10:00
  Unless you want to get weird feet more on showers some other time.
• 10:03
  ah But there's this obviously there's this historical precedent in both the Romans and the Greek culture.
• 10:14
  that is set about pay toilets.
• 10:18
  They've charged people to use the toilet for years and in other countries it's still a thing.
• 10:23
  You can find public toilets in other parts of the world outside of the United States where it ain't free.
• 10:32
  How do we have this idea make it into the modern era and we're gonna talk a little bit about like this idea of pay toilets and America?
• 10:43
  USA.
• 10:43
  uh
• 10:45
  There's this, yeah, how they get here.
• 10:47
  So when I first heard about pay toilets, my thought was, I have got to get into one of these.
• 10:57
  Like, that sounds excellent.
• 10:59
  A toilet where people have to pay to go in and do whatever heinous thing they're going to do in there.
• 11:04
  That sounds great.
• 11:05
  More on that in a little bit.
• 11:07
  However, the first pay toilet in the United States was set up way back in 1910.
• 11:13
  So...
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  1910 in the state of Indiana, the first pay toilet goes up and you could go to it, drop your coin in, go in, drop your plop in, come on out, hopefully wash your hands somewhere
• 11:27
  in there.
• 11:28
  But they didn't really start to become more widespread in the United States until the 1930s.
• 11:32
  So up until the 1930s, they were not very common.
• 11:36
  But then in the 1930s, the American pay toilet starts to spread.
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  And what's interesting,
• 11:44
  is American pay toilets seem to like follow the railways across the United States.
• 11:50
  So as they began to build the railroad system from one from sea to shining sea, if you will, they're beginning to build these these uh tracks for trains across the United
• 12:03
  States.
• 12:04
  Sorry about that.
• 12:05
  We we got a new puppy in January.
• 12:07
  She's a rascal.
• 12:09
  And so you probably heard.
• 12:11
  You'll hear her in the background.
• 12:12
  My editing is not that great.
• 12:14
  So you're going to enjoy some faint puppy barks and that's going to be fine.
• 12:18
  Welcome to privy.
• 12:19
  So American pay toilets.
• 12:22
  kind of began to follow the railroad system as it began to be set up moving across the United States.
• 12:30
  And these toilets were installed first of all in train stations for the employees and passengers who were traveling and using the rails.
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  So
• 12:40
  the employees who worked for the railways and the passengers who are using the trains for travel, these toilets were set up.
• 12:48
  However, many times, you know, you got a small town, you got a train station that's coming through and they set up a bathroom.
• 12:56
  And this might be the only place in town, one, that is a public toilet and two, is a modern toilet.
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  It's very likely that a lot of the toilets that these people were using were still like,
• 13:09
  actual outhouse type privies and then you have this new fancy running water toilet set up by the train company and I mean it's like Disneyland people are coming from far and wide
• 13:21
  to get over here and use this modern toilet and it's public so it's pretty cool.
• 13:26
  And so as word got out about these bathrooms in these train stations people who were not passengers when were non-employees began to gather at the station to use these privies.
• 13:39
  And as a result, they installed locks on the doors, which could be unlocked by an employee for ticket holding customers of the railroad or employees of the railroad.
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  And here's the other thing.
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  If you are a fight the power type, your closest friends who want to drop it and stick it to the railroad companies, like you could pay for a ticket and be like, Hey, I'm going to
• 14:07
  Louisiana next weekend.
• 14:09
  Check.
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  If you want to try out the newfangled railway toilet, my train leaves at seven.
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  Meet me over there at 630.
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  I'll let you in.
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  Don't have to tell nobody.
• 14:20
  See what saying?
• 14:21
  So these things kind of break down, but this idea that you had to get an employee to let you in is not an unprecedented thing.
• 14:30
  And like a lot of restaurants are in like, especially like I think Starbucks is the one that I've seen do this.
• 14:36
  Sorry Starbucks, but
• 14:37
  I've seen them do this in some bigger towns where you have to ask the bro-ista if you can get the the boodly boop number or sometimes they have like a paging system where they can
• 14:48
  hit a button behind their magical situation of mysteries and it opens the toilet from afar.
• 14:54
  I don't know.
• 14:55
  Also, that's weird.
• 14:56
  Like I would be concerned.
• 14:57
  Super side note.
• 14:59
  If an employee
• 15:01
  has the ability to unlock the bathroom from behind their little counter, I would be deeply concerned if I was in the bathroom and they had that authority.
• 15:08
  I'm just saying.
• 15:10
  It would concern me to the point where I don't know how my bathroom situation would go.
• 15:15
  It might be weird.
• 15:17
  having to ask an employee to unlock the door, it must have proved both too embarrassing for people.
• 15:25
  Like you got the little guy who comes up like, hey,
• 15:28
  I need you to let me into the potty, mister.
• 15:30
  I've got to do a dookie.
• 15:31
  Please let me in.
• 15:32
  Like, apparently that became either too embarrassing or too time consuming for the employees to have to like drop their job.
• 15:41
  Excuse me.
• 15:41
  Drop what they're doing and now go let customer after customer into these fancy bathrooms.
• 15:47
  So what happened eventually is they installed coin operated locks.
• 15:53
  So it's essentially like one of those children's mall.
• 15:58
  weird like go around in circles on the funky little horse carousel ride.
• 16:03
  But for bathrooms, you drop your quarter in, you push the little start button, the bathroom opens up and the little donkey doesn't go around.
• 16:10
  At first, this solution seemed great.
• 16:13
  Slip a coin in, I can go poo, I don't have to get someone to let me in, and if outsiders want to come in and use the bathroom, totally fine.
• 16:22
  They're now paying for the resources that they're using.
• 16:25
  So let them do it.
• 16:27
  um The railroad company began making money off this and as such, know, whenever a company's making money off of something, you know that these things spread.
• 16:37
  So as they begin making money, these pay toilets begin to go up in airports and bus stops and rest areas all across the country.
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  And by 1970, there were estimated to be over 50,000 pay toilets across the United States.
• 16:53
  That is a thousand per state.
• 16:56
  Now,
• 16:57
  the split probably wasn't 1,000 per state because it never is.
• 17:02
  That's a lot of pay toilets, especially when I've never seen one.
• 17:05
  And so you're asking yourself, well, dang, 50,000 pay toilets.
• 17:09
  You think I would have stumbled upon one by now.
• 17:12
  Well, here's the deal.
• 17:13
  Most of these were made by the Nickelock company.
• 17:17
  I should say.
• 17:18
  The Nickel Lock Company did not make the entire toilet I don't believe but they like made the locks that were installed onto the bathrooms themselves.
• 17:27
  So they had made toilet tokens, which Yeah, I'll put a picture of this out on the on the privy cast situation.
• 17:36
  Yeah, they have these these special coins and Nick Nick a lock toilet tokens and if you wanted there they remind me of like the Chuck E Cheese tokens
• 17:46
  that like you go in, you put your dollar in and it gives you four Chuck E.
• 17:49
  Cheese tokens, which tells you that it equates to about a quarter.
• 17:52
  However, outside of Chuck E.
• 17:55
  Cheese's realm of dominance, those tokens do nothing.
• 18:00
  They are nothing.
• 18:02
  You cannot buy 7-Up with them.
• 18:04
  You cannot buy anything else with them except for entertainment at Chuck E.' Palace of Cheese.
• 18:10
  So these Nickelock
• 18:13
  tokens are essentially Chuck E Cheese tokens but for pooping.
• 18:16
  That's what you gotta know.
• 18:18
  And the toilet tokens only worked in a Nickel Lock toilet lock.
• 18:23
  So now we have a new problem.
• 18:26
  How mad, how furious would you be if you had dropped a five spot to get a whole bunch of these Nickel Lock toilet tokens?
• 18:34
  You got your bag full of toilet tokens.
• 18:36
  I can use the pay toilets for the next...
• 18:41
  I don't know how much it was, but probably at least a month or more if you had to rely on them, you got your bag of Nickel Lock toilet tokens.
• 18:46
  You walk up to the next thing and they're using non-Nickel Lock toilet locks.
• 18:53
  Infuriating.
• 18:54
  Your tokens are no good.
• 18:55
  You're not at Chuck E.
• 18:55
  Cheese anymore.
• 18:56
  Get those tokens out of here.
• 18:58
  Get Nickel Lock out of here because these are using Happy Dappy's fun time tokens and they don't take the Nickel Locks.
• 19:03
  So get them out.
• 19:05
  Stop it.
• 19:07
  Your tokens are no good here.
• 19:08
  How mad do you have to be?
• 19:10
  Because you know if you're going to do that, you're approaching the Nickel Lock Lock with just a bowel full of or a bladder full of residue and substance.
• 19:21
  And you know you're ready to go.
• 19:23
  And if you heard at the top of this that, man, 50,000 of these pay toilets across the United States and you're like myself and maybe you weren't alive in the 50s and 60s and
• 19:34
  70s, you might be thinking, if there were 50,000 of these things, why haven't I seen one like
• 19:39
  Where did they all go?
• 19:40
  Surely they could not have all just up and disappeared.
• 19:44
  I haven't seen one.
• 19:46
  I haven't even used one.
• 19:47
  So where did they go?
• 19:49
  And so now we got to understand what happened.
• 19:52
  And we have to understand the function of these bathrooms.
• 19:55
  So these pay toilets were pay toilets and not pay urinals.
• 20:00
  And you're thinking, well, no joke, Sherlock, like it's in the name, but here's what happened.
• 20:07
  Men and boys could do a pee without having to pay.
• 20:11
  They find a bush, they find a tree, they find a ditch.
• 20:14
  they unzip and fly and they let it go.
• 20:17
  Okay, whereas women and people needing to sit down to pee had to pay no matter what because you're paying for access to the sitting area to sit down and do your thing.
• 20:31
  So if you're pooping, all things off.
• 20:33
  But if you're peeing, it's targeting a certain group of people a little more than others.
• 20:37
  That's the idea.
• 20:38
  And as such in the 1970s, it was argued
• 20:41
  that to charge a certain demographic of people to pee and not others to pee was discriminatory and unfair.
• 20:50
  Now, real quick, it is, but does that mean that we have to get rid of it?
• 20:56
  So before we continue, I must say, I get it.
• 20:59
  Yeah, I'm not gonna argue with that.
• 21:02
  would be frustrating if I, as a person who needed to, if I needed to sit down to pee and I watched dudes save
• 21:12
  you know, Chuck E.
• 21:13
  Cheese token after Chuck E.
• 21:14
  Cheese token because they're going and peeing in the corner.
• 21:17
  Like that would be frustrating.
• 21:18
  I would also my personality.
• 21:21
  I would be tempted to just go roll the dice and try to do it in the corner myself, but that's just me.
• 21:26
  So I don't think that the solution they arrived at is the correct one, and we'll get to that in a second.
• 21:31
  ah So things began to change and the American Restroom Association, which that does actually exist and it is still active today.
• 21:40
  And we're going to talk about that again another time.
• 21:42
  lobbied for there to be free restrooms next to pay toilets and Personally, I think that is a fine solution Like if the problem is there is no free access to everyone put a free
• 21:59
  option next to the pay option if You want to pay for whatever experience you're getting inside of the pay toilet?
• 22:10
  That's fine
• 22:12
  have at it.
• 22:13
  If not, free zone.
• 22:15
  Hit it, quit it.
• 22:17
  See you later.
• 22:19
  But and here's the only downside.
• 22:22
  It does separate the low income from the high income and who can use which toilet and that sucks and that's not good.
• 22:28
  But McDonald's does this every day.
• 22:31
  Every business, sorry McDonald's, I'm not trying to fire you up, but like every single business does this every day.
• 22:37
  If you go into Walmart and you look at the at the shelf and they've got
• 22:42
  Kellogg's Funky Chunky Pop Tarts and then they've got Hoo Hoo Weirdo Brand Funky Chunky Pop Tarts and you can afford the Hoo Hoo Funky Chunky Pop Tarts that's what we've got
• 22:55
  going on here like so you buy the Hoo Hoo Funky Chunky Pop Tarts I guarantee you they're better than Brown Sugar Cinnamon anyway so roll with it.
• 23:04
  This happens all the time.
• 23:05
  Concerts, movies, restaurants, parking meters, plane tickets, airport parking, literally any situation
• 23:10
  where paying you gets you something better than what would otherwise be available or what others have paid for, that's the same thing.
• 23:20
  But others seem to lock on to this notion because the committee to end pay toilets in America did, and I'll give you one guess what the committee to end pay toilets in America
• 23:35
  did.
• 23:36
  I'll give you one guess.
• 23:38
  What could the committee to end pay toilets in America possibly accomplish?
• 23:43
  They did it.
• 23:44
  Cities across the country began outlawing these pay pooping stations with Chicago being the first among them.
• 23:52
  And eventually, this committee secured pay toilet bans in New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, California, Florida, and Ohio.
• 24:00
  And by the end of the decade, by the end of the 70s, many other states followed suit, getting rid of pay toilets,
• 24:07
  due to legislation or out of practice removing the pay stations.
• 24:11
  So it's very likely that you have used a pay toilet, but you didn't pay for it because they removed the Nickelock little locky things and now it's just a free toilet.
• 24:23
  It's not a pay toilet.
• 24:25
  Yay.
• 24:26
  Good for you.
• 24:27
  But is it good?
• 24:29
  Because this is what happened.
• 24:31
  The Nickelock company wasn't going to stand for it.
• 24:33
  Because you also had all these people who had the Nickel Lock Fun Quarters and they're walking around they're like, what the heck am I gonna do with all these?
• 24:40
  And Nickel Lock's like, tough luck, talk to the committee to end the fun pay toilet situation.
• 24:46
  And so they went back and forth over this struggle about whether they're going to, yeah.
• 24:52
  When your committee is as focused on one goal as that committee is, just saying, when you succeed, you cease to exist.
• 25:03
  But whatever.
• 25:05
  By 1976, the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America issued a statement saying that there were so many local and state measures to ban pay toilets that they couldn't keep track.
• 25:18
  In other words, they pushed the snowball and it was now rolling and rolling and rolling and picking up the dog poop and picking up the yellow snow as it goes down the hill and it
• 25:27
  was going all down the hill by itself.
• 25:29
  In some states or cities, it is illegal.
• 25:33
  for a business to require you to pay or buy something in order to use the bathroom in that area.
• 25:39
  For smaller businesses, especially in areas where bathrooms are fewer and farther between, this could be difficult to having a successful business that earns them money.
• 25:50
  And I should note, in most other corners of the world, again, pay toilets are still in use.
• 25:55
  Like I think there's a scene from a Harold and Kumar movie, I don't know where it takes place.
• 26:00
  Like he's got to go poop and he runs into the bathroom and he's like fiddling trying to get the coin in and he doesn't have any coins so he can't get in.
• 26:06
  So he tries to like sneak under the stall and there's somebody already in there.
• 26:09
  It's really funny.
• 26:10
  Like in other parts of the world, this is perfectly fine.
• 26:13
  And it's normal to pay to use a restroom.
• 26:17
  In the UK, pay toilets are still offered as an alternative to free restrooms, assuming the pay toilets will be better upkept and offer a more private safer setting.
• 26:29
  And if you're unsure of your city and state's laws regarding your right to make stink without paying, do a quick Google search.
• 26:37
  um In most cases, it still seems like they can require you to buy something.
• 26:43
  But if you have a medical condition, a note from your doctor will suffice in most cases and you will be able to use their restroom as per the restroom access act.
• 26:51
  check that out.
• 26:52
  So but here's my thing.
• 26:53
  So I told you it's tax season.
• 26:55
  I told you we need to talk about this because paid toilets are something near and dear to my heart.
• 26:59
  Or I wish they were.
• 27:00
  firmly believe that people should have access to a place to go poop and go to the bathroom if they are in public.
• 27:09
  That place should A, be safe, B, be clean, and C, preferably, be free.
• 27:16
  Now, and why?
• 27:19
  Otherwise, we're going back to Vespasianas and there's people duking in the street and we don't want to deal with that.
• 27:24
  That's not great.
• 27:25
  Even if it's like an outhouse or like a porta potty.
• 27:29
  Something is better than on the road.
• 27:31
  But here's the thing.
• 27:35
  Safe, clean, and preferably free.
• 27:37
  But if you've used a public restroom, you may know that they may not always be safe.
• 27:45
  And almost always, unless they're freshly clean, they're almost always not clean.
• 27:52
  But they're always free.
• 27:55
  So my proposal in this
• 27:58
  Welcome to tax season.
• 28:00
  Let's use those taxes for something.
• 28:01
  To those willing to pay to access a clean and safe bathroom, you levy a uh bathroom tax at the door to that area.
• 28:13
  You pay the tax, you get to go in.
• 28:16
  It's a service, but it's a service that one, takes the amount of butt traffic away from the regular public restroom.
• 28:26
  And so it's taking away from the number of uses that it gets, thus making it hopefully more clean, hopefully a little safer.
• 28:34
  Use the money generated from the pay bathrooms to make improvements to both the pay bathrooms and the free bathrooms.
• 28:43
  It's okay.
• 28:44
  Yes.
• 28:45
  There's a separation of the folks who use the pay bathroom, the folks who use the free bathroom.
• 28:49
  But here's the thing.
• 28:50
  My mug is too cheap.
• 28:54
  to pay for it anyway, so I'm gonna be using the free bathroom even if I could afford the pay bathroom.
• 28:59
  I'm too cheap.
• 29:01
  And you know there's gonna be people that figure out a way to get into the pay bathroom despite it being a pay bathroom.
• 29:07
  But that happens at movies all the time.
• 29:10
  And we don't shut down movies saying, you know, that guy could afford to go to the movie.
• 29:15
  And I know, movie is not a bowel movement.
• 29:17
  But again, if you can bowel movement in a different place that is nearby,
• 29:22
  I don't think that's as discriminatory as maybe we think.
• 29:25
  Maybe I'm wrong.
• 29:26
  Shout at me if you think I'm just crazy.
• 29:28
  But I would rather drop a deuce in a toilet I paid for that doesn't have underwear with feces laying in the corner, blood on the handle next to the toilet, or some sort of weird
• 29:40
  syringe in the corner, sink plug with cigarette buds, or needle from Lord knows what in the corner.
• 29:46
  That's not good.
• 29:47
  No one needs to be using the bathroom where that stuff is happening.
• 29:51
  And if you're doing that stuff in the bathroom, make sure you're tidying it up before you leave.
• 29:54
  It's public.
• 29:55
  It's not your home.
• 29:57
  Don't leave that stuff there.
• 29:58
  Clean up what you did.
• 30:01
  But if we pay toilets, hopefully if you care about this stuff, like maybe people just don't care and that's fine.
• 30:07
  They can continue to it.
• 30:08
  But if you do care, you can put up the change and say, no, no, no, I'm going to pay for a cleaner, more butt friendly experience that I don't have to worry about getting cigarette
• 30:19
  butts.
• 30:19
  on my hands when I'm washing my hands, whatever.
• 30:22
  It's fine.
• 30:24
  It's a tax.
• 30:24
  We pay lots of taxes.
• 30:26
  We're paying lots of taxes right now.
• 30:28
  So it's a toilet tax.
• 30:30
  And use that toilet tax to better pay toilets and public free toilets at the same time.
• 30:36
  I'm not against pay privies.
• 30:38
  I'm against discrimination and nickel and diming and this idea that we can make money.
• 30:44
  So we're going to jack up everything and just try to make money.
• 30:47
  That should not be how it goes.
• 30:48
  So.
• 30:49
  That's toilet tax.
• 30:51
  I hope you guys have learned something.
• 30:54
  And if I have convinced you that a toilet tax might not be so bad, ah leave us a comment or send us an email.
• 31:01
  I would love to hear from you guys.
• 31:03
  And the other thing I thought about this, you know, if you're like, man, I like toilets, I like hearing about toilets.
• 31:13
  I haven't maybe like talking about toilets, but you want to be anonymous.
• 31:16
  If you shoot me an email and put it in there.
• 31:19
  I would like to stay anonymous.
• 31:21
  I will make up a stupid name, a silly name for you and share your feedback here on the cast.
• 31:29
  It would be my pleasure.
• 31:31
  But shoot us an email privycast at gmail.com or we're on social media at privycast.
• 31:38
  Thank you guys for sharing the show.
• 31:40
  Sharing the show helps a lot.
• 31:42
  It helps people find the show who maybe haven't heard of it before and brings the important information of toilet taxes to
• 31:50
  those who may not have already access to it.
• 31:52
  you know, if you want people to have access to stuff equally share the show and leave us a rating and review.
• 31:59
  We like the five star option on podcasts that allow you to leave ratings and reviews.
• 32:05
  And again, we'll try to read those on the show.
• 32:08
  And if you're hesitant, we might even give you a silly name so that way we can read some of those and people, you know, if you don't want people knowing you're listening, that's
• 32:16
  fine.
• 32:16
  I get it.
• 32:16
  It's about bathrooms.
• 32:18
  But you shouldn't have to worry about it.
• 32:19
  Everybody poops.
• 32:20
  So it's cool.
• 32:21
  As always, we want to thank Kevin McLeod for Barroom Ballet for intro and outro music.
• 32:28
  You can discover more of Kevin's music at incompetech.org.
• 32:32
  And his music is licensed under Creative Commons 4.0.
• 32:35
  Thanks for listening to Privy.
• 32:37
  Hope you had a very good tax season.
• 32:41
  Happy flushing, everybody.