Speaking of 30 Rock, just yesterday I discovered that Hulu works just fine on my work computer. Whee.

Stop if you've heard this one:

A Harvard alum and a Yale alum are in the men's room using neighboring urinals. The Harvard alum finishes first and begins to exit the bathroom, bypassing the sink and soap dispenser, quickly heading straight for the door.

The omission doesn't get pass the Yale alum, who interrupts "You know, at Yale, they teach us to wash our hands after using the bathroom."

Without missing a beat, the Harvard alum responds "Yes, but in Harvard, they teach us not to piss all over ourselves."

Frankly, I can't understand what would inspire someone to pass on the marginal effort needed to lift a public toilet seat, if forced to use the stall instead of the urinal.

I also can't understand why someone would spit gum into the urinal when there's likely a garbage can within spitting distance, if you'd just turn around!

What kind of a lowlife steals coffee mugs from a colleague? And where do I get one of the Dunder Mifflin travel mugs???

Protaonist -- Is that an MBA level course at Harvard, and how many credit hours did you get for completing the class?

"Frankly, I can't understand what would inspire someone to pass on the marginal effort needed to lift a public toilet seat, if forced to use the stall instead of the urinal."

Ummm... just taking a wild guess here... other people's body fluids?

Persoanlly, I can't fathom why the various designs for foot-actuated flushing never came into wide use.

re: the Harvard / Yale joke: funny...but funnier in the version I heard where the "they teach us to wash out hands" was said by a naval officer, of Annapolis, and the "they teach us not to pee on ourselves" was said by a Marine grunt, of Basic Training.

Actually, I think this is the basest slander -- against wolves. A wolf, unlike some of these ill-bred humans, won't foul its own nest.

There was a guy in my company (perfectly normal and well mannered in every other way) who used to go in the womens bathroom and pee on the seat. I didn't understand until I got a male dog.

Protagonist,

That joke's so old I heard nearly 45 years ago except then it was about West Pointers and ROTC grads. It wasn't new then.

I object to that final characterization. I have seen wolves who are neater, cleaner and, I suspect, smarter than some MBA types at my gym who seem incapable of dropping their dirty towels on the floor within 5 feet of a towel bin.

I think the OP was speaking of the phenomenon in women's bathrooms. Many years ago I used to clean them for a living, and was astonished how many people succeeded in spraying the front of the seat from point-blank range. It soon became clear that a lot of women will do anything in a public bathroom rather than sit on the seat, leaving the inevitable consequences of "hovering" for other users, and ultimately me, to deal with.

But why not, when you know there is someone else to clean it all up anyway?

The true indicator of character is what a person does when no one else is looking.

Welcome Instapundit readers and thanks for the comments (I'm approving them as quickly as I can.)

First, it seems I owe an apology to wolves. I'm sorry, wolves, for denigrating you.

glenn - Hilarious and, also, ewww.

Ted, etc - I guess that means some things about human behavior never change?

female of the species - Yep. Every time I go into the women's room, I wonder how many stalls I will need to peek into before I find a dry and/or flushed one. Why do you do that, ladies?

Moody - Great point.

Ideal - The mugs are found via the NBC store at Rockefeller Center or online here

"...along with the pee-on-the-seat phenomenon that unfailingly occurs..."
I assume this is a shot at males. The male liberation movement teaches today that, in uni-sex toilets (except one that the wife might use) spritz freely.
Your, "...I can't understand what would inspire someone to pass on the marginal effort needed to lift a public toilet seat," is exactly on point. When you are finished, young lady, lift the seat to get it out of harm's way.

I imagine that any decent Economics major can explain the toilet problem -- something about commons and tragedies and the rest of it.

As far as mugs... I've never had one stolen (and as a temp I worked in enough places that it should have happened at least once or twice; pens and candy were clearly fair game even amongst highly-compensated adults.) My current workplace (my first full-time regular after-graduation job) solved the mug problem by having a communal mug supply, complete with the facilities necessary to wash the mugs and return them to their cupboard. Of course, this sort of thing is easier to pull off when you have ten people in an office sharing one break area instead of 300 on a floor sharing a break area the same size... and we're back to the Economics majors again.

Explain this: a long time ago at the beginning of my career as an attorney I worked for a 1200+ attorney firm. I was unfortunate enough to be sent to help out in the NYC office for several weeks: the women's bathroom was a pit. Finding a stall with a dry seat was impossible; frequently you were out of luck if you wanted one with a dry floor. Strangely enough, the Houston and Dallas offices of the same firm didn't have this problem - our ladies' rooms were apparently only visited by ladies, not she-wolves.

I discussed this topic on my blog:http://miriamsideas.blogspot.com/2005/10/joy-of-public-toilets.html but in a different context.

Jezebel is on it, too.