Coping in the Time of Covid-19 - New and Improved!

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Comments

  • Good point, and ISWYM.

    What do they know that we don't, I wonder?
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    Yes, I've seen one or two people do much the same thing, not noticing a fairly obvious queue.

    I'm sure that those with some form of dementia are finding the whole business even more difficult than the rest of us!

    Traffic in town was OK, but there were long queues outside various newly-reopened shops. I need new Jeans, and some new Shoes, which I usually get from George at Asda (being a Scruffy Old Water Rat means that I don't like paying too much for clothes that soon get plastered with mud, oil, seawater, tar, and paint...), but I can wait a day or several till the rush dies down.

    George has a good online shop if you know the size you buy from them. :)


  • Good idea! Thanks @Boogie - yes, I do know my sizes...(but shall not reveal them here on a Public Board).
    :grimace:
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    In fairness, we tried to move out of the way to let other people pass at a (sort of) distance; but I was really quite surprised at the way some people were clustered about.

    The ice-cream shop (it was the Railbridge Bistro) had a one-way system; the indoor seating wasn't being used, and you walked through to the other door to get out, and people queued at a sensible distance with only one person at a time at the counter.

    My brother and s-i-l went to the Black Lives Matter demo at the Park last week, and said they were very impressed by how well people kept their distances. Although there was a large number there, they said there was plenty of room for keeping apart, and people did.
  • CathscatsCathscats Shipmate
    Have just had to do my first bit of home dentistry, as a crown which has been working loose finally came out - along with its metal post (it is a complete crown dating from when I have a bad bike accident and broke my jaw.) This does not qualify as a dental emergency, so I have stuck it back with some denture adhesive, but neither I nor the dentist on the phone is very hopeful that this will work well when there is no cavity in the crown to stick it in. Feels pretty OK for now, though, and actually better than when it has been wobbling around getting loose. That was annoying.
  • I had to sharply tell a man to stop. Do not come towards me going against arrows in a store. 'but, but, but... I just..." "No, back up" with louder voice. I ended up also saying that I'm looking after a 92 year old.

    That we mustn't consider evil what can be explained by stupidity came to mind. This man, unmasked, may have expressed both. His actions were evil.
  • Pangolin GuerrePangolin Guerre Shipmate
    edited June 2020
    That's the thing. People see someone healthy and think that by bending the rules around said healthy person they're not doing any harm. A very healthy woman I know at the younger end of middle aged, would seem to be exercising undue caution, but she has highly protocolled contact with her mother, who is awaiting a liver transplant. The woman is behaving with utmost responsibility.

    Even then, you can't be certain. I've been observing 2m, wearing a mask, washing my hands and face as soon as I get home, and I still got sick. I'm still feeling it slightly four weeks later.
  • I drive around with my mask on which I am sure looks silly to others, but I go to the bank, post office, and senior center to pick up a drive by meal. All this within 10 to 15 minutes of each other and I do not want to keep touching my face taking on and off my mask. When I get home I take it off place it in a can to wash with my other ones and wash my hands and face. Still I am sure people are wondering why I am driving around alone in a car with a mask on.
  • I didn’t write !

    Sorry @Doublethink - I messed up the quoting. @North East Quine deserves the credit for public urination :wink:
  • I drive around with my mask on which I am sure looks silly to others, but I go to the bank, post office, and senior center to pick up a drive by meal. All this within 10 to 15 minutes of each other and I do not want to keep touching my face taking on and off my mask. When I get home I take it off place it in a can to wash with my other ones and wash my hands and face. Still I am sure people are wondering why I am driving around alone in a car with a mask on.

    That's the right way I believe. I also put on mask before going into the first place on errands and keep it on until until done. Riding bicycle mostly. I'm well beyond caring what others think about me wearing a "face diaper".
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I trialled a homemade mask on the weekly shopping run today. But I found by the time I was toting heavy basket round the aisles, oxygen demand was exceeding supply.

    I have an idea for a design which would be less muffling I hope.
  • I put my mask up when near people, despite almost certainly having already had covid.

    Which is good because we have no idea if "having already had covid" renders you proof of getting it again.
  • https://www.shewee.com/

    The idea is to pee standing up (therefore with less surfaces to clean later.)

    That is not my experience of stand-up weeing.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Cathscats wrote: »
    Have just had to do my first bit of home dentistry, as a crown which has been working loose finally came out - along with its metal post (it is a complete crown dating from when I have a bad bike accident and broke my jaw.) This does not qualify as a dental emergency, so I have stuck it back with some denture adhesive, but neither I nor the dentist on the phone is very hopeful that this will work well when there is no cavity in the crown to stick it in. Feels pretty OK for now, though, and actually better than when it has been wobbling around getting loose. That was annoying.
    Mine came out two days after the dentists closed ... the advice I got (by email) was to leave it out (obviously, cleaning it and putting it somewhere safe until the dentists reopen) because it would be very difficult to get back in and would likely provide spaces for food stuff to collect where it's very difficult to clean. It's a back molar, so it's not visible even if I actually see anyone.
  • CathscatsCathscats Shipmate
    Yes, but mine is an upper front tooth, without which I lisp terribly, never mind what it looks like when I smile! So far the temporary fix is doing OK (and feels better than when the wretched thing was working its way loose, which was a terrible reminder of being 7 years old again). The emergency dentist did say that if I couldn't work with it, he could try to say it was an emergency as not having that tooth impedes my ability to do my work - all that public speaking, which is still on-going even though now a lot of it is recorded/online. Funerals, however, are live.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Mr F is waiting for serious dental surgery. I have a broken filling. We get by on Cuisine Squish and the anaesthetic properties of alcohol.
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    I feel for you both Firenze -having to drink alcohol. :wink:
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Huia wrote: »
    I feel for you both Firenze -having to drink alcohol. :wink:

    Oh the humanity.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    I thought you were rubbing it on your teeth @Firenze :lol:
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Boogie wrote: »
    I thought you were rubbing it on your teeth @Firenze :lol:

    Only the cooking whisky ... :mrgreen:
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    https://www.shewee.com/

    The idea is to pee standing up (therefore with less surfaces to clean later.)

    That is not my experience of stand-up weeing.

    Sign often spotted over public urinals: "We aim to please . . . so won't you aim too, please?"

    Although the best one I ever spotted read: "If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie."
  • Schooldays... High above a urinal was written, "While you read these words so true, you'll find you're pissing on your shoe".
  • In the men's room at the small-plane terminal building at Renton International Airport (where every 737 first takes flight): "Pilots with short stacks and low manifold pressure please taxi up close".
  • EigonEigon Shipmate
    Michael Caine once talked about the best advice he'd got from John Wayne, which was "Don't wear suede shoes." Because when you're a famous man, and you have to use a public lavatory, the person next to you will often not be looking where they're aiming because they're too busy gawking at you!
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Mind, I have no personal experience of this, but I've heard of men's restrooms with targets (of one kind or another) built into the facilities.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Mind, I have no personal experience of this, but I've heard of men's restrooms with targets (of one kind or another) built into the facilities.

    Also speaking from a complete absence of experience, but I understand the target may sometimes have been a little picture of a bee.
  • Not built in, in my experience, but my local has mini football nets with a 'ball' suspended off the crossbar. Men cannot resist....
  • snip/
    Cathscats wrote: »
    Funerals, however, are live.

    /snip

    I'm sure that that wasn't deliberate.

  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    I have a great deal of experience. I was the cleaner for our student’s union bar. 1976 but it’s etched on my mind - especially the smell!

    I was VERY well paid as no-one else would do it.

    1. You had to get up at 6am
    2. Men’s loos
  • CathscatsCathscats Shipmate
    snip/
    Cathscats wrote: »
    Funerals, however, are live.

    /snip

    I'm sure that that wasn't deliberate.

    No,it wasn’t. But now you point it out I’m laughing. 😄
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    edited June 2020
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Mind, I have no personal experience of this, but I've heard of men's restrooms with targets (of one kind or another) built into the facilities.
    On a related subject: Men who use unisex toilets, but don't put the seats down when they're done. In hospitals. In cancer infusion rooms. Because there aren't enough nasty things floating around for people with minimally functional immune systems to catch; we also have to put down the seats, which may be damp on the underside. (On those occasions when a nurse takes me in, s/he always dons plastic gloves before touching toilet seats, and then immediately tosses the used gloves into the trash.)

    As for social distancing: One thing about being in a wheelchair is that anyone who's even minimally conscious of Covid-19 will steer clear of me. The ones who are in a daze, or whose politics dictate that they ignore it as a "hoax" are another matter, of course.

  • Rossweisse wrote: »
    On a related subject: Men who use unisex toilets, but don't put the seats down when they're done. In hospitals. In cancer infusion rooms. Because there aren't enough nasty things floating around for people with minimally functional immune systems to catch; we also have to put down the seats, which may be damp on the underside. (On those occasions when a nurse takes me in, s/he always dons plastic gloves before touching toilet seats, and then immediately tosses the used gloves into the trash.)

    You know I've heard a lot of nonsense about leaving the toilet seat up but this is the first time anybody has ever given an actual reason (rather than just vacuous shaming) for putting the seat down. (I always do, but resent it being some kind of unspecified and inexplicable good vs evil thing.)
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    It should be down when you flush, so why not leave it down anyway?
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited June 2020
    Also this: https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-flushing-the-loo-can-create-a-cloud-of-virus-particles-which-the-next-user-might-inhale-warns-study-12007909 you can’t flush with the lid down, whilst leaving the seat up.

    This has always been the case, ie that you should flush with the lid down where possible to minimise the spread of disease.

    Also, there is a penis crush risk for small boys https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3928812/
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited June 2020
    Rossweisse wrote: »
    On a related subject: Men who use unisex toilets, but don't put the seats down when they're done. In hospitals. In cancer infusion rooms. Because there aren't enough nasty things floating around for people with minimally functional immune systems to catch; we also have to put down the seats, which may be damp on the underside.

    Are the men not also people with minimally functional immune systems?

    On the subject of seat positioning, (and accepting that most public-style toilets don't come with lids, so nobody is putting the lid down), the action that results in the minimum number of seat-touches is to leave the seat in whichever position you used it.

    If it's a bathroom at home, the optimization shifts. Put the seat down, because someone's going to stumble in to the bathroom at 3am half-asleep and sit in the toilet otherwise, and that's really unpleasant. But really, you should be flushing with the lid down, and so each user should find the toilet in seat-and-lid down configuration, and raise one or both depending on their preference (the seat makes no difference - it's the lid that matters for the virus-and-other-stuff-plume).

    And if you piss on the seat (in whatever configuration), have the courtesy to clean it.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    Or sit down to pee, thereby not soiling the seat.
  • This has always been the case, ie that you should flush with the lid down where possible to minimise the spread of disease.

    Quite true. However public facilities rarely have lids.
  • Or sit down to pee, thereby not soiling the seat.

    That works great when your prostate is young and lithe. Ah, those were the days my friend. We thought they'd never end.
  • You put the seat (not lid) down because otherwise some poor soul running on autopilot is going to butt-plant in the water. Very unpleasant, and only truly avoidable by someone with an unusually wide kiester.

    As for the lid, I'm not convinced that it does much of anything to avoid plumes when you consider the various large gaps in the assembly (some of them up to half an inch wide). But it certainly is more pleasant to look upon than a commode with (say) hard water stains which look remarkably like shit, and which recreate themselves daily. (why yes, I live in a hard water area, why do you ask?)

    As for men sitting down to pee--this is what the fingers were invented for (keeping it pointed in the right direction, I mean). Standard practice in Vietnam I understand, at least in homes. Thank God.
  • PuzzlerPuzzler Shipmate
    DH was one of two brothers so I can understand why his mother, as the lone family versus three males, failed to toilet train him properly. So it is a battle I cannot win.
    However one compromise is that at night the lid is left open, the seat down and in the night we each sit. Otherwise disasters would occur.
    I just hate the sight of the open loo in the bathroom. That is what you have to put up with in prison cells, not in a private home. Why can’t he see that.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Puzzler--

    IME, people in US private homes generally keep the lid up. For me, the worst thing about a prison toilet (beside being in prison! :anguished: ) would be the lack of privacy. No bathroom door; and AIUI sometimes not even a half-wall in front of it.

    But, of course, people have different preferences. :)

    FWIW.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Piglet wrote: »
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Mind, I have no personal experience of this, but I've heard of men's restrooms with targets (of one kind or another) built into the facilities.

    Also speaking from a complete absence of experience, but I understand the target may sometimes have been a little picture of a bee.

    I think all the ones I've heard of were in restaurant restrooms. The target made a game of it, and possibly drew some men to the restaurant for meals so they could try it out.

  • Good heavens - that doesn't say much for the standard of the food!
    :open_mouth:
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    IME, people in US private homes generally keep the lid up.

    Speak for yourself.
  • Or sit down to pee, thereby not soiling the seat.

    You know sitting down doesn't actually preclude this, right?
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    One can live in hope.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    IME, people in US private homes generally keep the lid up.

    Speak for yourself.

    "Generally" being the key word here. Not "universally".
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    And "IME".
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I confess I thought leaving the seat/lid up or not was a gender-based thing (women tending to close the lid, men not so much), until my sister and niece came to stay with me after David* died, and suddenly the lids were left up - I was quite shocked!

    * who, bless his heart, always closed it - he must have been well-brung-up! When we were house-hunting, he'd have been as likely as I was to say, "wouldn't you have closed the lid when your house is being looked at by total strangers?"
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    edited June 2020
    For an open house, people here might well close the lid.

    The gender difference often mentioned in the US (and on this thread) is seat up or down.
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