Althouse: "This reminds me of the time I got thrown out of my local swimming pool for urinating in the water. 'But everybody does it!,' said I."

June 21, 2022

"This reminds me of the time I got thrown out of my local swimming pool for urinating in the water. 'But everybody does it!,' said I."

"'That's as maybe,' said they, 'But you're the only one to do it standing on the high board!'"

Comments somebody who calls himself Stoobs, at "Spanish city of Vigo introduces £645 fine for urinating in the sea" (London Times).

25 comments:

zipity said...: Well, clearly they have solved all of Spain's problems if this is what they are spending their time and effort on. Seems like pissing in the ocean to me.....; 6/21/22, 9:20 AM
Wince said...: But feel free to take a crap on the sidewalk.; 6/21/22, 9:21 AM
tcrosse said...: In my retirement community, the pool is occasionally closed due to a Code Brown. The "Code" locution is usually intended to conceal the problem, but not in this case.; 6/21/22, 9:26 AM
Temujin said...: Yeah, my first thought went to the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles. This guy would not have even gotten a glance from anyone for just pissing in the street in those cities. Or in the ocean, or someone's pool, or someone's car. Time and place makes all the difference in life.; 6/21/22, 9:36 AM
Robert Cook said...: Are they going to fine or otherwise sanction all the sea life who void their waste in the sea?; 6/21/22, 9:39 AM
Ice Nine said...: How exactly is the offense of urinating in the sea detected by those who are to enforce this law?; 6/21/22, 10:00 AM
JAORE said...: OK, buddy. I see that pee-pleasure face. Put your hands in the air!; 6/21/22, 10:09 AM
Joe Smith said...: OK...that's funny.; 6/21/22, 10:15 AM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: I had a really rough time finding open restrooms during the lockdowns (Rideshare driving).

Several times, I had to resort to behind the big dumpsters at gas stations, after making sure no cameras pointed in my direction.; 6/21/22, 10:28 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "How exactly is the offense of urinating in the sea detected by those who are to enforce this law?"

I remember going to Ocean City, New Jersey every year when I was a child. The water was cold, so we used to be delighted when we discovered what we called "a warm spot." We called out "I found a warm spot!" I remember being so young that I had no clue what was causing these warm spots. Still, it would be too hard to figure out who did it, and to make a legal accusation you need some due process.

Since it won't be detected, the key is to make the punishment so great that people won't violate it even when they're almost sure they won't be caught. Is £645 enough? Not enough to stop everyone, but enough to convey strong disapproval, which will stop some people. To stop everyone, maybe the death penalty would work. Maybe!; 6/21/22, 10:35 AM
Iman said...: Baby Ruth!; 6/21/22, 10:38 AM
Narr said...: But it's still OK to take a dump, right? I may get to Spain someday.; 6/21/22, 10:42 AM
tcrosse said...: Geh kaken oifn yam.; 6/21/22, 10:46 AM
JK Brown said...: Proper etiquette for peeing in the sea at a crowded beach is to slip into the riptide, release your bladder then swim over to return in the surf. If you panic, then, well, maybe you shouldn't have peed in the ocean.; 6/21/22, 10:50 AM
Jamie said...: So whipping it out and peeing on the beach is better somehow?; 6/21/22, 10:51 AM
n.n said...: The precautionary principle advises the use of mandatory urethra masks.; 6/21/22, 10:54 AM
Ice Nine said...: >We called out "I found a warm spot!" I remember being so young that I had no clue what was causing these warm spots.<

I've felt warm spots in the surf, too. Often when no one was near me. We'd have to ask an oceanographer, I guess, but I highly doubt that the warm spots were concentrations of urine. In that massive volume of moving, agitating, cooler water the thermal, as well as the physical, dilution factor is immense. And, I would suggest, almost immediate in rendering the warmth as well as the very physical presence of a cup of urine negligible.

Hell, though I'm not recommending it, peeing in the water doesn't much matter in big public pools either. Fresh urine is sterile and there is a noxious level of chlorine in the water anyway. Disclaimer: That doesn't go for those weird, huge, shoulder-to-shoulder-packed Chinese swimming pools!; 6/21/22, 11:15 AM
PM said...: I'll piss in ocean but not in the wind.; 6/21/22, 11:23 AM
Narayanan said...: Blogger Lem said...
=========
why not use traditional hack ? jug/bottle and empty/discard to dispose of evidence [not so blatant]; 6/21/22, 12:35 PM
rcocean said...: Imagine being on a crowded beach, with 100 people peeing in Ocean with 10 yards of the shore.; 6/21/22, 12:39 PM
Tom T. said...: In the shopping mall one time, I got trapped for a couple of hours when the escalator stopped between floors. I kept calling out for help, but people ignored me. Wouldn't you know it: when I finally gave up and started urinating, that's when a security guard came to rescue me.; 6/21/22, 12:50 PM
typingtalker said...: Acesulfame potassium is widely used in the human diet and excreted by the kidneys. It has been used by researchers as a marker to estimate the degree to which swimming pools are contaminated by urine. It was estimated that a commercial-size swimming pool of 220,000 gallons would contain about 20 gallons of urine, equivalent to about 2 gallons of urine in a typical residential pool.

Wikipedia

Clearly the Spanish City of Vigo doesn't have enough to do.; 6/21/22, 2:52 PM
Bilwick said...: When Dementia Joe was skinny dipping in the White House pool, do you think he occasionally took a whiz in it? I'm guessing Yes.; 6/21/22, 5:20 PM
Narayanan said...: calorifically elevated discharge require warm-blood-[sea]-critters to provide >>> check around you; 6/21/22, 7:24 PM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: Robert Cook said...

Are they going to fine or otherwise sanction all the sea life who void their waste in the sea?

I doubt it. A common expression in Spain is "Me cago en el mar", which translates to "I shit in the sea" (alternately "Me cago en la leche", I shit in the milk) is a rough approximation of the the English "Holy shit!".; 6/21/22, 8:23 PM