Business as usual

When I first used a public toilet in Prague near Wenceslas Square, a bustling district filled with sausage stands and H&M clothing stores, I was enthralled. It's like an experience from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." You put five Czech koruna into a slot outside of a massive iron tube, and an appropriately huge door slides open, beckoning you into this mystery vortex of bodily refuse. It's hard not to feel like Captain Kirk, blasting far into space, bowels flooding into the cold sterility of zero gravity.

But then you interview Czech locals and find that there is something dark and horrible beneath the smooth varnish of cool, cool porcelain.

"Those toilets use prostitutes for their job," said Tomas Kutenic, a 22-year-old Prague native. When asked if he meant the opposite (that, in fact, prostitutes service clients in these behemoth excrement dens) he gave the simple answer: "Yes, exactly."

Oh, the wretched secrets this unassuming town hides.

Prague's public restrooms are probably less scary than New York City's. Still, I think you'll find yourself pleasantly surprised by the differences, like the embittered hags who wait outside many of them to charge you a usage fee and to distribute a pittance of toilet paper. After begrudgingly taking part in an exchange that smacks of filthy bribery, you're usually treated to your typical public toilet fare, but with an excellent twist — usually brown — because every restroom I've come upon features perilously low water levels within the bowl itself.

Prague Guide, a tourist information website from the United Kingdom, does not mince words on this topic: "I suppose the term 'squalid' is an apt description of the conditions you're likely to find inside. That doesn't mean we recommend pissing all over the paved street, although many people do anyway." They also recommend using the toilets in McDonald's because — of course! — they are cleaner.

I'm pretty sure the last McDonald's restroom I used in the U.S. featured partially digested Filet-O-Fish mosaics on the stucco walls, but who am I to disagree with Prague Guide, really?

What's funny about all of this is that, to my best estimate, we NYU students are a good deal filthier than the average Czech. (That is, if we're going by the sheer smell and fluid-blasts-on-the-floor factor.) I can wander into any number of public restrooms, read articles about how dirty they are, and still find myself surprised whenever I walk into the bathroom at Machova residence hall. We are the privileged many, letting fly with our horrid nasties — that stick for hours, remember — and leaving our thrice-weekly maid service to deal with the miserable consequences. One Machova resident contracted salmonella just days ago, likely due to unhygienic kitchen conditions, but just as likely because wandering into our facilities here is like gargling pungent dung fumes. A thin mist coats your face as you approach, trembling.

So beware, study abroad hopefuls, and remember: Fear not the grime of the Czech Republic's public restrooms. The enemy walks among you.

Damon Beres is a columnist.