Wild Pissing

Pissing in the Netherlands is fun. No, seriously, I mean that. Maybe not as much as in Brussels, where the Mannekin Pis is a cultural icon. Still, things work a little different here.

The toilets, for example. There are many different kinds of flush mechanisms. Sometimes there's a pull handle, hanging from the tank above the bowl. Sometimes the tank is situated just above and behind the bowl, as most every toilet in the US, but the flush handle used in the States is rarely seen. Instead there may be a pin on top of the tank to pull up, or a button to push down, or a knob that works both ways.

Once I was in a water closet in an office building where the tank was hidden from view completely. It was somewhere in the walls, I guess. I looked for a handle along the wall and finally found a push button. It looked almost like a light switch, but the height was wrong. It was clearly made from someone sitting down. So just learning how to flush the toilet can seem like something out of the game Myst.

They really do mean water closet, by the way. Even the smallest of lavatories in bars and cafes usually have two doors, one separating the sink and soap dispenser from the toilet. The sole purpose of this seems to be to encourage people to squeeze by each other awkwardly while one has a bladder ready to burst and the other needs to wash their hands. Oh, the hilarity.

Aside from that, though, the pissing is an adventure. First of all, the Dutch call public urination "wild pissing." That in itself makes the act seem more like an adventure than the public nuisance it really is. Public urinoirs, metal out-coves painted green, placed throughout the old center of Amsterdam, actively encourage the process.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think anyone wants to see so many men pissing in the canals. Near the Leidseplein in Amsterdam is a colonnade with an inscription that reads roughly, "Civilized men don't piss outdoors." So they're aware of the problem.

But even indoors, the fun continues. On many of the urinals I've used in the Netherlands, a portrait of a fly adorns the ceramic bowl. Just take aim and fire! What could be more fun?

Last night I found out. I walked downstairs in an Amsterdam cafe, entered the door marked "H" for heren, and stepped up to the urinal. There, circumscribing the white air freshener at the bottom, was a yellow plastic soccer goal. Hanging from the cross post, connected by a small piece of the same yellow plastic, was a black and white soccer ball. With glee, I bent it back as far as it would go.

Now that's wild pissing.

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Last Updated:15 April 2000
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