>> Speaker A: It just seems a little suspect, or sus, as the kids say. You know, I felt like an old fuddy duddy man saying, sus, if I could take it back. I haven't even edited yet, and I won't edit it out. But if I could take it back, I wouldn't do it. That's what you got to know. Welcome back to privy. Privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded in my home bathroom. I'm your host, hunter hoover, and I love bathrooms. Hey, I got a
level with you. There's times where I see things in a bathroom where I'm like, what in the goddamn heck are you doing? So, first, I'm going to share. I had a close call squeaker this week. Um, I had a toot, and sometimes you toot, and it feels like maybe there's a little bit more there. Um, so I promptly rushed to the bathroom at my job. Like, I work with teenagers. If you shaz your pants with teenagers in the vicinity, you're done. So you're made. Uh, it's all over.
And it was just a close call. But what I did discover, which, uh, is my gripe and my grief here. Um, so there are these wonderful, wonderful people in the world who, um, really, I don't believe could ever be paid enough. I say that as a person who used to do this work. Um, but our janitors shout out to every janitor in the world, thank you for doing what you do. You're essential. Dang it. But I went to the bathroom at my place of work and staff bathroom. This is not shared by young people.
This is all adults in the zone. Autozone. Not autozone. I don't know if I'm allowed to say autozone. I don't know how stuff works. But underneath the rim of the bowl, um, so you have the seat, which is the thing that is the mechanical piece that goes up and down. I'm explaining the anatomy of a toilet to you now. Here we are. Welcome
to privy. Um, but underneath the edge of the bowl, which is actually, like, the physical thing that holds all the goodies, there was the most shotgun disastered poop spray I have ever seen underneath the edge of this bowl. And I'm sitting here going, this is not the janitor's job to deal with this. If you have this explosive wet situation going on, friggin wipe it up. Like, just do a quick once over with your eye holes and just say, does it look like I left an awful
disaster for everybody to look at? Oh, I did. Well, I had better wipe it up. So these are things that may be a normal human brain and then also same zone. Since I'm here guffing my heart out to you, there's this gentleman who, he takes the longest dumparoo at exact same time every day. Like, if you are looking to drop a stack between 1015 and 1045, do not go in the main staff bathroom of the building that I work in because this dude is always posted up hard in the paint. Big stink.
And how people have signature, rank, rank of the week. His rank is the same every time. That's how you know it's him. But I won't be working at the school for a few months, which means it's officially privy, summer. And you know what that means? Pretty soon, old Joey Chestnuts is going to be gobbling glizzies, and we're going to take a look at that. Uh, stay tuned for more coverage of the Nathan's famous hot dog eating contest. It's great to be in American, where that's something that
you get to interact with. Do you know what? Just a. It's just a pleasure. Uh, that, that's something. But we discussed at length last summer, pools. And we learned about everyone's favorite pool parasite, cryptosporidia. Now, cryptosporidia, or as I call, and it should be called just plain crypto. You see, it should be called crypto because it confuses all these tech gurus who are trying to crypto hack their way into a million dollars. Like, chill out, get a
job. Um, but if you get crypto in your mouth, you're going to get the crappies in your drawers. That's what I always say. Crypto in your mouth means crappies in your drawers. But this week on privy. Happy privy. Summer. We need to revisit pools in, of course, the most roundabout way possible by talking about ancient Pakistan. Now, the premise is this. What is a pool? What is a pool if it is not just a really big bath? Now, they definitely were not the chlorine and salinated treatment
pools we have today. Back then, the first modern indoor swimming pool was a public indoor pool in England. At St. George's baths, the pool was saltwater. And, uh, they also had a number of outdoor pools in the Liverpool pool area. Get it? Because, like, of the pools. And while I know there were other places that had outdoor pools at this time, I want to note the name here because I believe this was a transition piece that is crucial to understanding the nature of pools. These pools
at St. George's. What was that last word there? Oh, yeah, baths. They're called baths. And after this period, there was a shift from going to the bathhouses to going to the pools. Also, this change, the first indoor public pool opening in 1828, was really kind of like the most major shift in poolery in 1700 plus years. Like, they figured out there was bacteria and they needed to kill it. But besides that, it was pretty much, like, pretty stagnant. Another water
joke. For, like, 1700 years before this, these pools, or as I noted, baths, uh, were pretty common. Uh, the Romans. Here we go. Welcome back to the Romans, had bathing houses and ritual pools. You know, that there were perverts that went to the bathing house for non bathing reasons. That's all I'm going to say about it. But these bathing houses and ritual pools were where the people would have to go to bathe before they approached some sort of deity or offered sacrifice at the
temple. So the idea is this, you go down to the water, you get yourself soaked, you wash off a little bit to prepare yourself to go before your God or God or goddess, or, honestly, your cousin, I don't even know. And these were spread, these ritual bathing pools were spread to all the areas that Rome conquered. So, like, when Rome moved in and began to take land, they set up their systems
of worship. And part of that were ritual bathing pools that they would dig and put in in these parts of the world. One of these parts of the world that Rome conquered was Britain, likely, where later the folks at St. George got such a good idea, like, hey, we got these big, essentially, like, troughs that we can fill with water and dunk our chunky in. It's kind of fun, too. We should just turn this into a thing. What do we call this? You know
what I'm saying? But, yeah, the Romans had these really dope jumbo baths, often built into the ground. And you tell me what that is. It's a pool, but it's a bath. Some of them were even heated, for goodness sakes. Like, they had figured out how to heat these by underground, like heating and steam and stuff like that. So, yeah, they had these ritual bathing pools. Bath pools get the combo deal there all over. And some at the time were even used for recreational swimming.
However, one of Rome's baths stands out amongst the rest. Aque sulus, I believe, is how it's said. I'm not a Latinist. Was an expansive religious spa where folks would go to worship, bathe, swim, and seek healing. What a cell. Could you imagine, like a day spa today being like, hey, you, come on over here. You know what you need? You need to relax. Yeah, I do. You need to just bathe. Oh, that sounds good. Take a nice swim. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. There's going to be some
healing that happens here. Hm. Less sure about that, but I'm still listening. I've got a cut on my boo boo. Uh oh. Yeah. And worship at the spa. What are we talking about? You know what I'm saying? It just seems a little suspect, or sus, as the kids say. I felt like an old fuddy duddy man saying sus, if I could take it back. I haven't even edited it yet and I won't edit it out, but if I could take it back, I wouldn't do it. That's what you got to know. But they had this super spa
and it was heated by thermal pools underground. And now the idea of swimming and worship being comboed like that to me is kind of weird. But nowadays swimming is viewed as like a recreational activity that you do for fun with the kids in the summertime so everybody can cool off. And bathing is pretty much primarily viewed for hygiene. But back then, both were a part of their religious lives, swimming and bathing. So they had this super spa where they went to worship in Rome.
However, these were all just improvements on the recreational swimming pools the Greeks had invented about a thousand years earlier. We're really going back, like, we're 3000 plus years back now from where we are today. One of the things that happened as Greece experienced a lot of their prosperity was there was time for stuff like philosophy and thinking about stuff. Uh, yeah, like swimming. We can do that too. These pools in Greece became somewhat of like an athletic club.
Like, you go there and hang out. And if you've ever interacted with the young men's Christian association, also known as the YMCA, that is the reason most YMCAs, or like centers that are like YMCA centers that are like big, have a pool as well as a gym. They are built on this greek view of a fitness community. The pool was a place of leisure and exercise.
And while they were not primarily used for bathing, if it's a recreational swimming pool, could you imagine some bloke rolls up to the local swimming pool with just like a big bottle of shampoo and body wash and just like, yoink. Just plops right into the water and starts sudsing up, like, could you imagine that? That would be so wild. I would actually love to have that experience. That'd be so funny to
watch. But the pool was a place of leisure and exercise, not primarily used for bathing, but the Romans took the idea and the concept and they ran with it. But here's the thing. The Greeks themselves can't even be credited with this stuff. Turns out there were folks who were swimming, probably in natural bodies of water during the egyptian
times, but not necessarily. It didn't have to have been natural bodies of water, because what we need to talk about today is the key to unraveling if a pool is a pool or a bath. And as I said, we are going to Pakistan. In the 1920s, there was an archaeological excavation being done of Mohenjo daro. I hope I didn't goof that. Too bad. Mohenjodaro, Pakistan. Mahenjodaro means
mound of the dead men. And if we've learned anything from the Indiana Jones and Jurassic parks of the world, we need to dig where dead things are at. This area is believed to have been the location of one of the largest Indus river valley civilizations. This Mahenjodaro. It's a weird name, like mound of the dead men. Why are they in a mound? Who mounded them up from this dig? They found that the area, this Mahenjo daro area,
actually had street grids laid out. Like the city was laid out with streets on a grid, kind of like modern cities. They had covered sewers. Now, it wasn't flowing water, but they weren't dumping their skeet in the street like we talked about last time and previously on the show. And all of this is because of what we're going to talk about. This place was something else five to 600 years later, like, after it was built, they guessed that Mahenjo Daro was abandoned and the area was just
buried with time. And then it's not until 1920 when an archaeologist from India discovered what he believed to be a 1500 year old buddhist artifact, but it actually turned out to be a nearly 5000 year old flint scraper. Flint scraper. This led to the large scale excavation at Mahenjo daro. And what they discovered was a city. And in that city was a structure that they called the Great Bath. The great bath is a large brick and bittermin pitch pool measuring about 40ft by
20ft. At, uh, the deepest part, it was 8ft. It's a big, big pool. Like if you walked out into somebody's backyard and they had a pit that was 40ft by 20ft and 8ft deep at one point and it was filled with water. My friend, that's not a bath, that's a pool. Like, if you looked at that, you would say, are we going to use the pool? You wouldn't say, are we going to take a bath? Unless you're one of those funny dad joke guys. To which case, uh, I approve. It's
a big pool, and it's called the Great Bath. So it's a little confusing. But the water for the bath was supplied from a well in an adjacent room. So this well would pull water up, and it would actually fill the pool. The pool seems to also have been drained at times. There was a drain on one end, like, they built rudimentary plumbing into this
bath pool. And while they're, um, unsure of the intended use of the structure of the great bath, there is a guess, and I would argue it's a very educated guess, that it was for ritual bathing, which we have discussed earlier. Now, one of the reasons that is primarily argued against this is people asking, well, why in the goddang do they have an eight foot deep section for a bathing pool? You can't touch the bottom in an eight foot deep section in a bathing
pool. There's a couple options here. Either they got some tall fellas in Mahenja Daro, Pakistan, or you only go to the deep end for not bathing or just to tread water while you bathe, which seems like an altogether awful experience. Also supporting the idea of religious use is that across from the bath space, there was what was called the College of priests. Now, this was like a building, and it seemed to have some housing and some things from a learned class in it.
These were probably those who learned and facilitated the religious function of Mahenjadaro. And as we have said in the past on privy, when it comes to ancient times and worship, cleanliness was equated with godliness. The belief that we must make ourselves clean before we can worship, can be seen across most cultures. And the large ritual bathing pools, however you want to think of them. But keep these things in mind this summer, as you dunk your chunk into the local
swimming pool. One time, years and years ago, people went swimming as a means to bathe themselves, to prepare themselves for a worship experience or to offer sacrifice. And now we just kind of do it to cool off. And as I've said, public pools give me anxiety, and they give me the heebity jeebbities. To quote King Julian, yeah, pools kind of freak me out. But this great bath would have been wild to have been there when they discovered
this. You think you're just going to find a little bit, and then all of a sudden, you've uncovered a full city, one of which is like a giant swimming pool looking structure made out of brick in it. It would be kind of crazy, um, to have that happen, but I digress. I want to end the show with, um, what I like to call a particularly special poo in the news. This poo in the news is brought to us by, uh,
insidethemagic. Net. From what I can tell, inside the magic is kind of like one of these variety pages where they write about all sorts of crazy stuff. And I'm also going to tell you here, if you all find good news articles about bathrooms and bathroom related things, send them to me. Because when you search for bathroom news, I'm going to tell you right now, bathrooms are the places where people go to do bad crimes and heinous things.
Uh, and every other article is like, well, some guy's been arrested because he's a clowning around and sticking cameras in a bathroom like a freak. But then every now and then, you get a gem. And this is a gem. Uh, so this is brought to us by insidethemagic. Net author Jess Kalope. Don't know who that is. It says, desperate Disney guest, been there, devours food on bathroom floor. The article starts out by reminding us that Disney's a busy place and that it can be difficult to find a place to
sit down and enjoy a meal. And, uh, while it's technically, like, I never really had that problem, if you just snipe one out, uh, you can get one. But they said it's a common hack in the Disney Parks fan community, which I don't know if this is a hack to use Disney trash cans as dining tables because apparently they're kept extremely clean by the cast members, which is consistent with the Disney experience. It is generally pretty clean. Now, it might be
od to eat off the top of a trash can. Not the weirdest thing I would have done. I'm going to tell you that right now. Inside the magic. Not the weirdest thing I've done, but one hungry Disneyland resort guest took it a step further. This was posted, uh, on a TikTok video where this girl witnesses that she goes in the bathroom at Disneyland park and saw someone crouched on the floor like Gollum going to town on a piece of corn on the cob. Now, here's what I
want to say. This is to TikTok maker, uh, what's her name? Lauren. Um, here's what you got to know. When you say a person is in the bathroom, quote, going to town on a corn cob, I need you to paint a better picture because I believe they're eating the corn cob. And I trust that that is what they're doing based on the title of this article. But our show has detailed one other act a person can do that would be categorized as going to
town on the corn cob. And I also think that there's other things that maybe we haven't talked about on this show that it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to say, yeah, that person was, quote, going to town on a corn cob. But I digress. Lauren, the TikTok user who needs to be more descriptive, was disgusted due to the smell and general cleanliness of the bathroom, but didn't say anything to the guests, which. Why would you. Oh, uh, wait. She did say something.
Oh, no, this is just her. After she gets out of the bathroom, she says, why are you eating in the bathrooms at Disney? What's happening in this world? Well, here's an idea. Maybe say it to them while they're in there, because if you go out and then just rant to the Internet about the guy you saw eating in the bathroom, you're not helping anybody. And so the rest of this is essentially just like, oh, where's the weirdest place you've had to sit in? Disney lady Da. But here's the thing. Here's the
real question. Would y'all, like, um. I don't think I'd sit on the ground in the bathroom, I'll give her that. But would you all not just stand outside? Just stand up? Just sit on the ground outside? Why would you go into the bathroom and sit on the floor to eat? I don't understand the draw to this, and I understand why she didn't film it, because she's in the bathroom. But this kind of seems like the type of thing somebody makes up
to try to get TikTok famous. But according to her, she saw somebody eating a thing on the bathroom floor and inside the magic, felt it worthwhile to talk about it. And so here we are on a podcast about bathrooms, where I got sick of finding a bunch of articles about people doing heinous, awful things in a bathroom, and I broke down and read it. So there. You pooped. I didn't poop, but I put my butt on every toilet seat in the magic
kingdom in Disney world. So I guess I should have eaten a corn cob off the floor while I was there. I guess I'll have to go back. This is another segment of poo in the news, and that brings us to another close of another episode of Privy. Thank you so much for joining us. We, uh, love that you've been here. We've loved having you, as always. Um, please leave, uh, the show a rating and review. It
helps folks find the show. Five star options are preferred, and we'll try to read some of those Apple podcast ratings and reviews on the show. So, uh, yeah, type us out a review, leave it there, and we'll read it on the show. Follow us on social media. We're at privycast and you can email us at privycast@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you. Episode suggestions, comments? Leave, uh, your review there and we'll read it or something. But seriously, go throw it over on Apple Podcasts. It helps
people find the show. As always, we'd love to thank Kevin McLeod for the use of bar room ballet as our intro and outro music. You can find Kevin's music at, uh, incompetent.com, and his music is licensed under Creative Commons license Attribution 40. Thanks, Kevin. We'd also like to thank Pottington Bear for the use of camp as the poo in the news intro and outro music. You can find Pottington Bear's Music@pottingtonbear.com. Thanks, Pottington. This has been another
episode of privy. Thank you so much for joining, uh, us. And, um, now, as always, don't forget to flush.