12/22/2012   English German
  Edition # 99  
San Francisco, 12-22-2012

Protective Toilet Seat Covers
Figure [1]: Above almost every public toilet, there's a dispenser with disposable toilet seat covers.

Michael Americans are generally more afraid of germs than the average German. You can easily see that here in the U.S., because no one would show up for an event with a cold. Spreading germs is considered to be extremely impolite. Or check out the dispensers with the desinfectant "Purell" in the bathrooms of companies and museums: They clearly spell out "Germophobe" to visiting Germans, who'd rather stay clear of the heavy artillery of products like Lysol or Chlorox.

Another manifestation of this phobia is the disposable toilet seat cover, to be found in almost every public toilet. These are razor-thin paper products in toilet cover shape which are to be draped onto the toilet seat before sitting down.

Extracting disposable covers from of the wall dispenser requires some practice, usually people do this by pulling the front-most cover slightly upwards first to loosen it, followed by a forceful down movement to get it out. Not following these instructions will result in torn covers, rendering them unusable. This requires some practice, but after a few tries, you'll get the hang of it.

Then the folded cover needs to be carefully unfolded and draped over the toilet seat, followed by quickly sitting down in less than three seconds, or the automatic flush will trigger and tear the cover down the drain. You can always try again.

For reasons of packaging efficiency, however, the paper covers aren't shaped like toilet seats when they're extracted from the dispenser. Instead, they're rectangle-shaped with rounded edges, and feature a partially punched-out inner oval core. Removing this core at the predetermined breaking points without tearing the entire cover apart often is a race against time.

Figure [2]: A thin paper cover draped onto the toilet seat prevents the skin from touching the plastic.

For what it's worth, I was stuck at the shabby Charles-De-Gaulle airport in Paris once for a few hours, and noticed that not only they don't have toilet seat covers there, but no toilet seats at all! France: What an absurd country, I imagine people are hovering in acrobatic poses over the public toilet bowls. But I digress.

Another noteworthy point about American toilets is that they're all so-called deep-flushers, meaning there's about five liters of water in the bowl at all times, receiving each dropped chunk with a loud plunge. German toilets, on the other hand, feature a receiving plateau or shelf with no water, which Americans find hilarious and often write home about when they're visiting Germany.

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