"Also, You Might Want to Have That Looked At."

Radley Balko | February 12, 2007

Remember those anti-drug urinal splatter guards? Yesterday's news. New Mexico has taken the assult on taking a piss in peace to the next level :

The state has ordered 500 talking urinal cakes that will deliver a recorded anti-DWI message to bar and restaurant patrons who make one last pit stop before getting behind the wheel.

"Hey there, big guy. Having a few drinks?" a female voice says a few seconds after an approaching male sets off a motion sensor in the device. "It's time to call a cab or ask a sober friend for a ride home."

Just wait until urinals start actually testing urine for alcohol content. Then the real fun begins!

Comments

|2.12.07 @ 2:29PM|#

I suppose the proper free-market response to this would be to sell earplugs in bathroom vending machines next to the condoms and Tylenol.

|2.12.07 @ 2:32PM|#

Hey, if a female voice wants to call me "big guy" right after I unzip, I'm not going to complain.

Warren|2.12.07 @ 2:34PM|#

Remember when we thought stuff like this could only exist in dystopian comedies?

|2.12.07 @ 2:37PM|#

Just wait until urinals start actually testing urine for alcohol content. Then the real fun begins!

Cleary, such a measure would be fully supported by the Big Diaper industry.

|2.12.07 @ 2:38PM|#

"Just wait until urinals start actually testing urine for alcohol content."

That occured to me as well but then I thought, if the alcohol is in my piss then it ain't in my bloodstream (or brain) right? Or, at least that is what I'd tell the arresting officer.

|2.12.07 @ 2:43PM|#

And if the urine tests "positive" we might as well install the tazer/ capture net feature. Because you *might* get in a car.

|2.12.07 @ 2:47PM|#

Just wait until urinals start actually testing urine for alcohol content. Then the real fun begins!

At least that might serve some purpose, as a warning to wait a little longer for my BAC to come down.

|2.12.07 @ 2:48PM|#

Wasn't it France that not long ago had forced to be removed a bunch of urinals shaped like women's mouths?

Just sayin'.

methodman|2.12.07 @ 2:49PM|#

Just wait until urinals start actually testing urine for alcohol content.

Until this gets widespread, there's going to be lines around the corner at the first bar to adopt it.

I snagged a breathalyzer keychain last year for just such antics and the damn thing doesn't really work at all (bloody blackout fall down probably-shoud-be-detained drunk comes up around 0.04 on the damned thing).

smallguy|2.12.07 @ 2:49PM|#

I'm going to drink, drive anyway and sue, because this message discriminates against and demeans small men, while only encouraging big guys to listen.

|2.12.07 @ 2:50PM|#

And if the urine tests "positive" we might as well install the tazer/ capture net feature. Because you *might* get in a car.

Or you might choose to walk home! That's public drunkenness, y'know.

I wish I were kidding about that. All that's left is a law against backseat driving under the influence and it'll be illegal to leave a bar after drinking.

|2.12.07 @ 3:07PM|#

Urinal cakes? Delicious!

|2.12.07 @ 3:09PM|#

As someone whose brother was hit by a drunk driver and suffered injuries that cause him pain to this day, I don't find these jokes very funny.

lunchstealer|2.12.07 @ 3:18PM|#

This sounds like yet another case of the state using a machine to usurp real people's jobs. When will we think of the skilled urinal-spokesperson who can personally tailor their message to each bar patron who urinates on them.

|2.12.07 @ 3:23PM|#

As someone who is, this very day, writing a news article on the friend of a co-worker who died last Friday when he had far too much to drink and drove his truck around a sharp curve at 70 MPH, I still think this is retarded. The government's ongoing crusade to stop anyone who has ever looked intently at a can of beer from driving, instead of worrying about excessive drinking, is absurd.

Plus the laws against walking while drunk, but that's different (and, I hope, more specific to Pennsylvania).

VM|2.12.07 @ 3:24PM|#

Lunchstealer gets full points. Well challenged, Sir!

|2.12.07 @ 3:28PM|#

Someone mentioned a breathalyzer.
Good enough reason to link to
The Famous Sushi Pants Story

|2.12.07 @ 3:30PM|#

Well, Randy, perhaps you should read another thread.

Ok, snark complete. Here's what I'm getting at: while what happened to your brother sucks, and while I'm personally in favor of trying drunk drivers for reckless endangerment of human life, your comment has nothing to do with the current discussion. The fact is that talking urinal cakes are inherently funny, and your brother's injuries have no bearing on whether this is a sensible measure or just silliness.

|2.12.07 @ 3:30PM|#

As someone whose brother was hit by a drunk driver ... I don't find these jokes very funny

Hmmm, let's parse this.

Would you find them funny if your brother hadn't been hit by a drunk driver?

Do you have another brother who hasn't been hit? Could you find these funny on his behalf instead? (a sister would work, too)

And not least: should anyone really care whether you find them funny or not? Or are you saying that no one should find them funny? Cause see, that's not going to happen.

|2.12.07 @ 3:31PM|#

As someone whose brother was hit by a drunk driver and suffered injuries that cause him pain to this day, I don't find these jokes very funny.

I'll say it:
Randy, Would you feel better if the that hit your brother was sober as a judge?

|2.12.07 @ 3:32PM|#

Make that "...feel better if the guy that hit ..."

|2.12.07 @ 3:51PM|#

Wait until the talking urinal cake says "Hey big guy..." to some kid that is learning how to handle his equipment and he freaks out and pee's on himself thus destroying his self esteem forever. I feel a warm and wet law suit in the making.

|2.12.07 @ 3:56PM|#

One can only wonder what the cakes in the ladies room would have to say.

|2.12.07 @ 4:02PM|#

One can only wonder what the cakes in the ladies room would have to say.

"Damn it got dark in here all the sudden"?

|2.12.07 @ 4:05PM|#

DADIODADDY,

There are no cakes in the ladies' room. Women are toilet-trained. Unlike some other, unspecified gender that I won't mention here.

Guy Montag|2.12.07 @ 4:08PM|#

This sounds like yet another case of the state using a machine to usurp real people's jobs. When will we think of the skilled urinal-spokesperson who can personally tailor their message to each bar patron who urinates on them.

I thought people in Manhattan and [insert other large city here] did that free and already had clubs that cater to that activity?

Guy Montag|2.12.07 @ 4:18PM|#

I thought *some* people in

|2.12.07 @ 4:45PM|#

Smacky...cakes are not a function of training...unless you're saying you've trained your P not to stink...traing is a function of aim, as in "we aim to please, you aim too, please"

|2.12.07 @ 4:54PM|#

Anyone care to guess how many minutes these
"talking urinal cakes" will remain functional?

lunchstealer|2.12.07 @ 5:03PM|#

sober as a judge?

Not always a particularly high standard...

|2.12.07 @ 5:35PM|#

Not That David | February 12, 2007, 2:50pm | #
I wish I were kidding about that. All that's left is a law against backseat driving under the influence and it'll be illegal to leave a bar after drinking.

In Texas, it's apparently illegal to drink in the bar.

lunchstealer|2.12.07 @ 6:08PM|#

Kwix, They're so serious about stopping drunk driving that they even cited people drinking at the bar of the hotel where they were staying. And thank god they did! Imagine if they had gotten all hopped up on the hooch and gone out and gotten their cars and tried to drive them up to their rooms. Just think of the skid marks they might leave on the sheets!

Jobriath|2.12.07 @ 8:13PM|#

If it saves just ONE child!!!

JD|2.12.07 @ 8:26PM|#

Wasn't it France that not long ago had forced to be removed a bunch of urinals shaped like women's mouths?

Not sure about that one, but I did find a case of NOW complaining about a mouth-shaped urinal in the Virgin Atlantic clubhouse at JFK. What I want to know is, how is it that they're so sure it's a woman's mouth, huh? Maybe it's a man wearing lipstick! So much for NOW's fight against ingrained sexist attitudes!

JD|2.12.07 @ 8:41PM|#

Here's a different (and, IMO, better) one: a Sofitel in NZ has urinals equipped with pictures of women - ah...examining your equipment.

|2.12.07 @ 9:13PM|#

Clearly, some people on this thread are the type who want their cake and eat it too.

Do you know what I'd say if some urinal cake started talking to me while I was relieving myself? I'd say, "Can this wait a minute? I'm playing German U-Boat with that cigarette butt down there and you're ruining my concentration . . ."

Jobriath|2.12.07 @ 9:21PM|#

If it were women urinating into an a urinal cake in the shape of a male face, they would call it empowerment.

|2.12.07 @ 9:36PM|#

"And if the urine tests "positive" we might as well install the tazer"

Actually, just hotwire the cake and put a metal plate on the floor.

Poor SOB would get a ride in an ambulance.

|2.12.07 @ 9:44PM|#

Plus the laws against walking while drunk, but that's different (and, I hope, more specific to Pennsylvania).

It's certainly illegal in California. A few months ago I was out for some drinks with some co-workers. One guy had had a little too much and we insisted that he go home in a cab. Apparently he was embarrassed to arrive home in a cab so he had the cabbie let him out 2 blocks from his house, and he started walking. He tripped and sprained his ankle, so he sat on the curb and rubbed it for a few minutes before staggering on. Some very helpful passers-by checked to make sure he was OK and then called the cops. Just as he was arriving at the front door of his place the cops appeared and arrested him for public intoxication. So much for being too embarrassed to take a cab.

Todd Frye|2.13.07 @ 8:39AM|#

'Walking while intoxicated' is illegal in Tennessee too. Just ask my nephew.


It's funny, but as I was peeing earlier I was thinking about just this sort of thing - when every appliance in every home will have 'smart' technology, and be hooked into the local wifi so that any slightest legal infraction can be instantly transmitted to the local law enforcement. Toilets that detect alcohol, TVs that detect porn; possibly even floors that can detect filth. "Better clean this place up, Master, or I'll be forced to call the local Health Department."

Brrr. I'm going back to bed.