But back when folks are fighting over this hand sanitizer, you got Cintas kicking back going, yes, very good. Yes, dance. Dance for the sanitizer. Dance for the hand alcohol. Privy is a podcast about toilets and bathrooms recorded here from my home bathroom where I'm seated. The Old Throne. ah Hope you guys are having a wonderful week. Thank you so much for joining us ah today for this episode. Couple fun things to share about the week.
In fact, think of this as kind of a little miniature Hunter's Anecdotes right at the top here. So I've shared a few of my uh gym adventures and since the last time of recording, a what I'm gonna call a muscle Dave a fellow with who who I think probably frequents the gym and and I think probably frequents the chest area of the gym maybe more than they would like um but yeah this this bloke was just he's doing this tricep like pull downs like really really just torque in the back of the arms.
And I'll tell you what, this gentleman, though by appearance I would say he was well versed in the lifting of weights, seemed to me, and based on the evidence that I will put forth here in just a moment, that he did forget the breathing portion of lifting weights. So. As with just basic existence, in lifting weights, it's important to breathe.
And this gentleman did, I think, forget to do so because as he was doing the tricep pulldowns last week at the gym, he began to get very red-faced and then promptly yartzed or vomited all over the middle of the gym. Yeah, and that was kind of my cue that it was time to leave for the evening. And yeah, you know, it just a fun thing. This nice gentleman threw up all over the middle of gym. Yep. Welcome to Privy.
So our topic this week, you know, if you didn't know, and if you're not keeping track of some toilet news and bathroom culture things, they have selected the finalists for the 2021 best restroom of America presented by Cintas. And so this week, this week on Privy, we're talking about Cintas. What is it and why are they picking the best restroom in America? and the year 2021. So without further ado, let's talk about these people. Cintas. uh Cintas, I'm probably saying it wrong.
Cintas is an American corporation that hails from Cincinnati, Ohio. And if you hear the name Cintas and you feel like I did it first, you're like, I feel like I like. When I started looking at this, it's American restroom, public restroom, best restroom in America, I started reading about it and it's talking about this Sintas company who is the sponsor and does this thing and puts this on.
if you're like me and you're reading it, you're like, dang, Sintas, I feel like I've heard that name from somewhere. you have, it's the little hand dryers that you use, better use, dang it. on your way out of the bathroom, often those are Cintas branded or little soap dispensers, that type of thing. They're Cintas. And Cintas' main goal is to provide a number of cleaning products as well as cleaning instruments and bathroom amenities to businesses.
uh These include things, you know, the classics like mops and brushes and rags and other cleaning supplies. You all know them and if you don't get acquainted with them. Yeah, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say who but there was so okay. I'm gonna hit you with some buck wild ideology at the top. No, I know later. So their main goal is to supply these things but as we're gonna discuss They have also begun to deal in safety equipment and safety items like first aid and fire extinguishers.
But Cintas is also a public entity, meaning that they trade on the United States stock market. And I gotta say, for selling stuff to clean toilets, they do pretty good for themselves. And I think a lot of that, and not all of it, but much of that is thanks to everyone's favorite little virus, uh making hand sanitizer and other cleaning amenities in high supply and high need.
But as of the year 2020, one year ago, the company boasted 40,000 employees, making it one of the largest cleaning and safety supply companies in the biz. Other services that Cintas provides are uniform rentals, and the making and servicing of AEDs. They provide training and other safety compliance courses.
They market those little eye wash stations that are just a dread to even think about what it would be like to use one of those and provide water coolers to a number of businesses across our nation. They actually emerged from COVID as, like I mentioned, as many cleaning companies did, not looking too bad. Going into overdrive and producing all that PPE, personal protective equipment, if you haven't heard enough about it, there it is.
Sanitizer, other cleaning supplies, in mass in the last couple years. But back in the early days, back when people were getting into fist fights over a bottle of Germ-X and building forts out of toilet paper just to show their... Like ability to stockpile, you know what I mean? Those days, the almost before times. But back when folks are fighting over this hand sanitizer, you got Cintas kicking back going, yes, very good. Yes, dance. Dance for the sanitizer. Dance for the hand alcohol.
They made serious coin. uh Needless to say, when you're in the cleaning biz and everyone is worried about being clean, you make bank. But Cintus didn't always and wasn't always making bank. In fact, they weren't even always Cintus. In 1929, the Acme Industrial Laundry Company, Acme, you know. The ones from the Looney Toonies was started by Richard and Amelia Farmer. Richard or Doc as he was known and his wife had figured it out. So this is what Richard, Doc and his wife Amelia did.
They went around to factories in the area and collected their old nasty rags that many of these places would just toss out and They took the rags and they laundered them. They cleaned them. Laundered means cleaning them. Like you do laundry, you know. I'm staring at a pretty sweet pile of right now. God bless my wife. back to the gym talk. One of the fun things that I'm, I failed to plan ahead sometimes and sometimes when I come back from the gym, the shirts are a little sweaty and.
I've begun this week to try to remember to hang them up to let them stop being sweaty before I throw them into the laundry bin because my wife shared that she had the astute pleasure of digging what she described as wet clothes out of the laundry bin. I filled her in that it was sweat. Yeah. But they went around to these factories and they laundered these rags and then they would turn around and sell the freshly laundered rags to other businesses.
And you hear that and it makes you wonder, do you think they ever sold it to any of the business that they originally got them from? Do you know what I'm saying? Like that is a sweet move in my opinion. But they took these rags and they laundered them because Acme from the beginning, this Acme industrial laundry company, was in the laundry business. Go figure. And they also, like, apparently were providing that dang coyote with all his wiles to fail to catch a bird.
Yeah. You know, that company, like, the Looney Tunes had the whole Acme thing, but it was a thing in real life. That's what we got to remember. And if you hear that, and if you hear this, like, they picked up these rags and then they took them and washed them and they sold those rags to these businesses. And you get some real like Fox from Zootopia popsicle front vibes. You're kind of right. And I'm not saying that Mr. And Mrs. Farmer were running a scam. I'm not saying that.
What I am saying is they were incredibly smart and learned how to turn and make a profit off of A, the laziness of others or be their desire for ease and convenience. Like to many people, it's easier to just toss the rag out instead of doing the work that the farmers did in order to figure out how to clean the rags. So they cleaned them and sold them back for profit. It's the American dream encapsulated. Good job, ah Mr. and Mrs. Farmer. You did it. Excellent work. Moving on, says 1920s.
Moving on into the 40s. uh The business became a family business as their son Herschel took over. Herschel being an excellent name. He stopped doing the used rag thing and began providing shop rags to the people and would also launder them. They became a laundry service company and changed their name from Acme Industrial Laundry to Acme Wiper and Industrial Laundry. I know there's revolutionary changes going on in the world of Acme. and adding the word wiper is one of them. That's, yeah.
Movers and shakers there. Later on, Ol Herschel had a son named Richard Farmer. And Richard, here, I know, was named after his grandfather, also Richard, that's how naming after people works. But instead of going by Doc, as his grandfather did, he went by the much more common nickname for people named Richard, Dick. So, from Doc to Dick, the company had only 12 employees at the time. And Dick, began to expand. into uniform rental. Yep. And with the expansion, of course, came another name change.
The Acme uniform and towel company. The crew worked with a number of companies uh to design what I, Hunter, now am going to call the super towel. It ain't a sham. Wow. This isn't that German like engineering. I remember when I was a kid, my dad got some of those sham. Wow. And what the commercial doesn't tell you, Is the thing has to be a little bit wet and I remember trying to dry one from like use it to dry from dry and it just did not work right.
And I'll be honest with they did not work as well as the commercial like if I'm all things honest the sham wows are cool Billy Mays rad dude. uh Yeah I wish you still here to tell me about OxiClean but yeah sham wows not yeah but this was not a sham wow a little bit different. But they designed what I'm calling the super towel. It was a 65 35 poly cotton blend and they, know, this thing, if Acme is going to do something, they're going to design a sweet towel and they sure enough did.
And in 1968, Old Dick started the satellite corporation and then Acme and the satellite corporation merged in 1970. We're just merging left and right. And in 1972, nearly almost 50 going on 40 something years after they began as a married couple gathering rags, laundering them and reselling them. In 1972, they changed their name from Acme Uniform and Towel Company. The name Cintus or how the story goes is it is a combo of the name CIN which is an homage to its beginnings in Cincinnati, Ohio.
And then the TAS, TAS, T-A-S was rumored to be just messing. And it was written on the same bar napkin as C-I-N, abbreviation for Cincinnati. Thus, bada-bing, bada-boom, Cintas was named.
From here, Cintas, The company now named Cintas played a game of what I like to call Who are we gonna buy next as they made acquisition after acquisition it it looked like You know Cintas looked like the gosh dang Disney company buying up every sort of media conglomerate they can get their Mickey Mouse fingies on Cintas is buying up left and right you know They bought up places. They bought them out. You know they merged with them and they took on more and more services when they did.
I love my computer. You know what, a little bit of 40 chess, peek behind the emerald curtain of the old Wizard of Oz here. So I have to put my computer fully into airplane mode in order to even record this podcast because that's the only way I have any hope of my PC having the processing power to just run a microphone. That's it. And for some reason just now my computer said, hey, you know what we should do now that Hunter is 20 minutes into his recording?
We should run a full Norton antivirus backup and file scan. So it's real great. It's zero out of 10. Would not recommend the Norton antivirus full virus scan right in middle of recording. Don't do it. Thumbs down. Dealt with hopefully now. But Sintas is buying up all these places and in 1998 Dick Sunscott ah became president of the company and under his tutelage, okay wait, you get tutelage, toot?
They continued to acquire more and more companies and expanded their uh services into the safety and first aid game. They have been the source of a number of what I'm gonna call debacles, including charges of using cameras to spy on the license plates in order to obtain the home addresses and other information of its employees. Now, that's thumbs down, they have, I'm sure, corrected course since then.
In 2007, a Cintas employee out of Tulsa lost their lives on the job at sex, resulting in a call for and a press for stricter health and safety standards in their laundry facilities. The company continued with a pattern of acquisitions, buying more and more companies, pulling a full Mickey the Mouse to become the kind of power company they are kind of today.
another notable thing, earlier this month, August 2021 of the Year of our Lord Jesus, one of the founders of the Cintas Corporation passed away on August 4th. at 86 years young. One other key part of Cintas history and one of the landmarks it leaves on bathrooms in our country is the inaugural competition of the best restroom in America, which began in 2002. One of the key focuses of Cintas has been bathrooms. And say what you will about Cintas.
as a company or some of the things that have happened in their past. But we too focus maybe too much on bathrooms, if you know what I'm saying. Cintas started the search for the best public restroom in the United States. Any restroom that is open to the public is eligible to be nominated and Previous finalists of the competition are then no longer allowed to participate.
the idea is this if you're going to make a nomination, choose wisely because if you get nominated and you go to the top 10 and you don't get picked, that bathroom is forever out of the running. It's out. Here's the thing. Nominations, I will say, for the 2021 Cintas America's Best Restroom are done. In fact, they're currently down to the finals with voting closed. And so you know that we're going to be covering that noise.
This year, the 2021 America's Best Restroom Finalists include a restroom at a facility called Core 24. It's a women's restroom. It says it's influenced by music and art. It includes a selfie corner. This bathrooms in bathrooms in modernity are designed for people to take selfies in, especially gym bathrooms. And here's my beef. Stop. You go to the gym to lift big weights and get muscles and make your heart work better. You don't go to the gym to take hoodily, poodily pictures of yourself.
I sound like a 40,000 year old man right now, but like, stop it. That's not what the big mirror for. Like that's why they make these big mirrors, but you gotta quit it. Because what's gonna happen is if you got some schmo taking a waz in the background and you're sitting there trying to like, flex your nerdcept and it's just bad news. So don't do it. This bathroom. Yeah, it's all about taking a bunch of selfies at some gym.
It's a gym bathroom, which I would argue if you don't have a membership is it technically public, but whatever we're moving on. The next one is Fancy Flush at Santa Rosa, California. This is a portable toilet, which means I'm already in and it's It's actually motivated by those like tiny houses which don't get me started on tiny houses. Okay. They're trailers. They're glorified trailers. Okay. They're not they're not a house. And if it is your house I'm sorry.
Hopeless doesn't offend you like please listen show. But like it it's a trailer. That's what it is. It's a trailer that you park and you live in and you call it a tiny house because that That's what a trailer is. So, okay. But it's like this mobile home or a mobile bathroom. It's a mobile, glamorous restroom. ah And wow. You step inside, there's like different bathroom suites and all this stuff. And it's a portable restroom. Again, I'm not sure how public this is. But again. We digress.
The next is JFK's Airport Terminal 4 bathroom. It's a newly renovated bathroom. It's the latest initiative in the Port Authority's goal to make JFK a world class airport. Hey, I'm good on you. I'm glad you looked at this and said, hey, what do we need to bring JFK into world class? And you said, let's change where they poop. Let's do that. Lighting is a big thing. It has this like... bright terrazzo flooring, marbled walls.
ah It's honestly pretty like fancy looking and very well lit, I will say. So as long as you're in the airport, it's technically public. Next is the non-Thai fine dining in Atlanta, Georgia. Non-Thai fine dining has been serving up yum yum food for like 20 years and they have what is described here as zen like bathrooms. They emit a feel of Asian luxury mixed with peaceful warm glows, candles, danger, danger. Shout out to our church custodian, Mr. Michael. ah He's an avid advocate for no candles.
The next one is Planet Word in Washington, D.C. Now here's the thing. uh Planet Word is a free museum. It's dedicated to inspiring and teaching about words language and reading and so this bathroom is It has inside of it tons of different names for animal poop and And it has like witty and clever wordplay It here. Let me tell you planet word as of right now It's got it's got my vote even though I didn't get a chance to vote planet word feeling strong. I love a good poop word play as y'all know.
The next Pump House in Canapolis, North Carolina. Pump House on West Avenue is this place. It's a good place to relax. It's the middle of this tree lined street and it has this vibrant furniture. It's a great hangout spot outside looking at it here. It's kind of like one of those little block hang areas. But... And it's got these businesses. so it's got but like that apparently the restroom amenities at this place are spotless and it's well kept. Shout out real quick.
Shout out to the city staff at Canapolis, North Carolina for keeping this thing spotless as it says here. But you know shout out. The next is Steamboat Springs. Run at it again. Steamboat Springs and Steamboat Springs Colorado.
ah It's a standalone public restroom in the downtown area And it's actually been something the city's been gunning for for a long time in Steamboat Springs You know a little steamboat just wants to have public bathroom downtown doesn't seem like too much to ask for that the facility is heated year-round which You you might hear that and go but like it's a public bathroom in Colorado like it's probably gonna get pretty cool there.
So um Yeah The next is the Fed Community in Clarkston, Minnesota, Missouri. Am I? ah The fed community, it says that their bathroom is designed to be a conversation piece. Now, here's what I'd say. I respect your game, but most what I've found is many, many people are very unwilling to have conversations about the place where they spray their fecal matter. But it also includes like crazy colors and textures and pictures and things to make people feel good. So yeah, that's cool.
But it doesn't have animal poop witty sayings. So DC still got it so far. Two cities pizza in Cincinnati, Ohio back to the hometown of Sintas itself. They this this this pizza place ah again is featuring all these big places to do so skip it. Selfies, we're moving on. William S. Hey, go hit up this pizza place. There's no shade on that pizza place. I've never been there, but like, I don't know. William S. Craycraft Park in Mission Viejo, California. Probably said it wrong. Yeah. Oh well.
But this is a custom restroom and 10 toilet, whoa, 540 people use this thing an hour. That's pretty rad. Modern classy. Hey, this ain't a bad looking thing here. You know, this Craigcraft park. For me, it's the one in DC. That's just me. But the Craigcraft park thing ain't looking too shabby either. Real quick, I want to note some honor honorable mentions from times gone by. The 2003 winner was the Grand Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi.
This is very neat like new Victorian looking bathroom inside this casino and it is most known for this like Having these pictures of Victorian lady folk on the back of the stalls now. Hey Just chill out. Okay, like y'all need to chill straight out. That's what I'm gonna say Jungle Gyms 2007 winner Jungle Gyms International Market in Fairfield, Ohio.
This one has, so I'm looking at the pictures and the entrance to this public standing like permanent bathroom are these porta potty doors and you enter into a real porta potty that then goes into the bathroom. It's actually become famous in this outdoor market. But it has like, it looks like a porta potty and you open it up and then it's just got a full-size restroom on the inside. It's super cool looking, um awesome idea. Jungle Gyms 2007, definitely, definitely deserved the win.
Ooh, 2007 team, Audacy, huh, nice, good wordplay. Aquarium in Scottsdale has a bathroom. I'm staring at what appears to be... A picture of a shark swimming above where you wash your hands. I don't like that. It would freak me out in a real Scooby Doo way. yeah, know, rad. You get to stare at a killer animal. I understand not all sharks. Like sharks ain't bad. But whatever. like while you wash your hands. So there that is.
And then also jumping on to that like kind of train is the Nashville Zoo. 2019 winner. And it says that through the floor or through a floor to ceiling glass window or the family of six, like inside the bathroom is just an exhibit of the zoo which has some tamarins inside. Now You know those Tamrons have seen something that nobody ever wants to have seen. Like if they live there inside that glass box, in the place where people do their thing, you know they've seen something.
You know they've seen some shady business go down. That's all I'm gonna say about it. It also has a glass window with a view of a ball python. I don't want to view a ball python while I poop or pee or wash my hands. That's not what I want. Last year's winner was Bancroft Park in Colorado Springs. It's like this huge self-cleaning toilet, pretty rad. And so we'll see, we'll be on the watch for the 2021 winner of the Best Restroom of America Award presented by Cintus.
And now, a very brief segment and installment of Hunter's Anecdotes. to keep you afloat. In this hunter's anecdotes to keep you afloat. It's gonna be brief because I'm this is just a brief conversation. I want to just share like some of the depravity of Nat and I won't get it. So I'm sitting young adults. I'm a couple weeks ago and a couple of the guys, you know, we give each other some grief every now and then.
And I'm talking about, I don't know how we got on it, but I'm pretty sure I was talking about some janitorial duties and One of the guys in the group, he says to another guy, dude, you go over to his house and take a dump and his bathroom is always just disgusting. And I'm sitting here going like, guy, you got to clean your toilet. it just clean the thing. It doesn't take long. It's not hard. And he goes, I do. I do clean it. And I'm like, OK, well, that's good.
Well, then why is this guy saying that your toilet is just full Randy right now? And. He goes, well, I don't know. And the guy's like, dude, you don't clean the bowl. And then there's just this record scratch. Hunter doesn't know how to interact with this. Because I go, do you clean the bowl, my guy? Do you get down in the bowl? He's like, well, no. That's where the poop goes. You don't have to clean it. And then there was what I hope was a learning experience.
mixed with just enough guilt to get somebody to take action, but it was like, no, you gotta get down in there. Wild things will grow. And if, as your friend is saying, you haven't been cleaning your bowl, clean your bowl. scrub your bowl. You know I'm saying? Like you gotta clean the bowl. That's all there is to it. And he reports that he was gonna go home and clean his bowl. But it's just like, I don't know man. Hey, and I think this, homie listen, I'm not tossing shade.
I'm just mostly baffled and somewhat impressed. And good for you, know? Clean your bowl, chase your whatever. What a world we live in. And if this Hunter's Anecdotes serves as a miniature PSA to anybody out there, don't forget, clean your bowl. This has been another short but sweet Hunter's Anecdotes. he could have used some Cintas supplies, you know what saying? Hunter's Anecdotes to keep you afloat. And this brings us to the end of another episode of privy. Thank you so much for listening.
As always, if you would like to hit us up on social media, connect with us. We're at privycast on all the social media things. Send us an email privycast at gmail dot com. We'd love to hear from you. Hear your stories. Shout out the bathroom. I nominate a bathroom, nominate a bathroom for for the twenty twenty two competition. You can do that. by going to bestrestroom.com slash nominate. ah So you gotta have an appropriate photo. But yeah, go nominate a bathroom. And if you do, tag us.
We'd love to get hyped with that, about that with you. As always, we wanna thank Kevin McLeod for the use of Bar Room Ballet as our intro and outro music. You can find Kevin's music at incompetech.org. and he's licensed under Creative Commons license attribution 4.0. Thanks, Kevin. We'd also like to thank Pottington Bear for the use of all the colors in the world as the Hunter's Anecdotes intro and outro music. You can find Pottington Bear's music at pottingtombear.com. Thanks, Pottington.
This has been another episode of Privy. Thank you so much for joining us. And now, as always, Don't forget to flash.