Stilts may work. Only the bottom touches the sludge, so she can just cut off a quarter inch of wood a day. May only need to replace them every few months.
‘Ey! Making local references only other New Englanders recognize is my schtick!
At this rate Joyce is just going to end up taking sponge baths in their sink. Is there a Dollar Tree near campus where she can load up on disposable flip-flops? Maybe she can make shower shoes out of gallon-size food storage bags.
Aren’t there en-suite options Joyce could have picked while applying for accommodation? Sure they’re more expensive but if she really couldn’t stand it…
Look, Joyce, here’s what you do. Bring a small gardening shovel and two plastic baggies. Shovel the hair into one of the baggies and toss it in the garbage, never touching it. Rinse shovel in shower water. Store shovel in the other baggie with the handle sticking out. Tomorrow that baggie becomes your new discard baggie and a fresh baggie becomes your shovel-quarantine-baggie.
Buy shower sandals. Attach a small plastic basket to the outside of your door with some temporary mechanism like Command strips. Keep the sandals in the basket so that they don’t come into your room ever.
Gotta agree, although my most disgusting experience did involve the men’s room. I was working at a convenience store one night when a customer helpfully informed me, “Someone shit in your urinal.”
When I made it out to the restroom to check, he was right: there was, indeed, a truly massive turd in the urinal. Seriously, WTF? This is why I hate the public.
…but…. presumably there were toilets in the same bathroom… that didn’t require you to put your butt close to a urinal…
WHYYYYYYYYYYY?
ischemgeek
Mine was in the women’s bathroom back when I worked fast foos. Suffice to say somebody decided to paint the wall with a used tampon an then stick said used tampon to the wall with shit.
Definitely a case of “OH GOD WHY AND HOW AND WHY?!?!”
Men’s bathrooms need to be constantly cleaned for a certain level of oops-missed-the-bowl.
Women’s bathrooms have a lower baseline of disgusting, but are for some reason more likely to be the scene of the “OH MY GOD WHY AND HOW AND WHY” sort of clean-up.
Women miss the bowl too sometimes though, because some crazy women (like my mum) do this thing called “hovering.” Womens’ bathrooms are equally as gross and so I avoid public bathrooms as much as possible. (Mum will even do this bullshit when the bathroom in question has those seat liner things for some reason. I don’t understand my own gender ^=__=^;; )
I lived at home during college instead of in the dorms (SO much cheaper), so I have to ask: is it really as bad as depicted here, or is this just a) exaggeration for comedic effect, or b) Joyce being neurotic?
Honestly, the ones at my college were never particularly bad. I mean, there would obviously be a bit of hair around the drain, but that was about it. Nothing I’d ever qualify as “sludge”
My dorm showers weren’t that bad, honestly. Still wasn’t going in there without shower shoes, but it was cleaned regularly and was usually fine. I’m sure it varies.
It was a long time ago, but I don’t remember any trauma about it. Either mine or anyone else’s. Some people wore some kind of shower sandals, IIRC, but most didn’t.
I’ve also used gym showers and showers at various campgrounds over the years – with varying levels of cleanliness, but never anything as nasty as some people seem to be talking about.
This all seems very odd to me.
I mean, on the one hand this is Joyce’s neurosis – no one else seems to be reacting on the same level she it.
OTOH, especially in earlier strips, while it’s been played for laughs, every one else seems to agree that it really is that gross. And a good chunk of the commentariat seems to be with them, to the level of worrying about the health hazard.
I would say it is a bit of both. Shared showers will never be SPOTLESS, but unless you are living with MONKEYS, it shouldn’t be as bad as Joyce makes it out to be unless cleaners don’t exist.
Are girls’ showers that much worse? I mean, I never saw significant hair or anything other than tile in any of the public dude-showers I’ve been in. I wore shower sandals as a safety measure, but if I couldn’t for some reason, it wouldn’t have bothered me to any real degree.
In the four years I used the showers in college, I never had that much trouble with shower hair gunk. I wore sandals, but even then it wasn’t that bad.
123 thoughts on “Sludgy”
Ana Chronistic
http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=460
Ana Chronistic
oh this is a different version
Ana Chronistic
weird, cleared the cache and it’s the ceiling version again
Reltzik
I got the no-ceiling-mention version first and then the ceiling version. What the hell?
wheelpath
Not the mental image I needed on Boxing Day/ still Christmas for me. :/
inqntrol
I was chewing my sandvich while reading that. Now I’m not hungry anymore.
Raen
Hmm… stilts? Get a dowel at Aubuchon, it’ll be wicked cheap…
John
Not all that cheap, because the nearest Aubuchon is 653 miles away.
Raen
…dammit. I actually Googled to make sure that Aubuchon was actually a chain. Apparently I should have zoomed out more.
Doctor_Who
Stilts may work. Only the bottom touches the sludge, so she can just cut off a quarter inch of wood a day. May only need to replace them every few months.
Needfuldoer
‘Ey! Making local references only other New Englanders recognize is my schtick!
At this rate Joyce is just going to end up taking sponge baths in their sink. Is there a Dollar Tree near campus where she can load up on disposable flip-flops? Maybe she can make shower shoes out of gallon-size food storage bags.
Sporky
I can’t believe Joyce is dead.
RIP – gone too soon
Jay Eff
*reads Alt Text*
Damn you Willis.
Nono
Aren’t there en-suite options Joyce could have picked while applying for accommodation? Sure they’re more expensive but if she really couldn’t stand it…
BBCC
Nope. Not on this floor anyways – the only ones here have half baths (i.e. a toilet and sink), even for singles.
Ana Chronistic
tbh even private showers in dorms were gross
well, I guess ours were semi-private–we only shared with the adjoining room (like their shared bathroom but we had showers in there)
MatthewTheLucky
It’s spreading…
Reltzik
Not one of their better-advertised varieties.
Look, Joyce, here’s what you do. Bring a small gardening shovel and two plastic baggies. Shovel the hair into one of the baggies and toss it in the garbage, never touching it. Rinse shovel in shower water. Store shovel in the other baggie with the handle sticking out. Tomorrow that baggie becomes your new discard baggie and a fresh baggie becomes your shovel-quarantine-baggie.
Dandi_Andi
Alternate solution:
Buy shower sandals. Attach a small plastic basket to the outside of your door with some temporary mechanism like Command strips. Keep the sandals in the basket so that they don’t come into your room ever.
heliumsquid
Alternate Solution:
Don’t shower in college.
Needfuldoer
She’ll need some place to keep the pallet of moist towelettes…
HeySo
…or just bring a step stool in, and avoid the floor entirely? o.O;
Reltzik
It’s bad enough that there’s hair in there. Please don’t raise the thought of there being stool in there as well.
Bagge
*EXTREMELY reluctant slow clap*
Bagge
What, getting CLOSER to the ceiling???!!!
Deanatay
Exactly – Joyce confirms, ceiling just as bad. Stool no workie.
Plasma Mongoose
Hairy Christmas to one and all.
Stephen R. Bierce
I thought Harry was a Krishna.
Plasma Mongoose
They don’t bathe so they never have to worry about pubic plugholes.
Hopeful Sarcastic
she’s speaking in black text bubbles this is joyce’s start of darkness isn’t it
Fart Captor
That, or she’s just picked up an alien symbiote and is going to end up fighting Spider-Man
inqntrol
Pfff,easy, Spider-Man just needs an intense sound to beat her. So anyone got a giant bell? Or at least lots of jingle bells?
Fart Captor
Or it seems he could just team up with Medusa
Bagge
AlienSymbiote!Joyce: “I TOLD YOU THE SHOWER WAS GROSS”
John
It’s not the first time.
HeySo
Okay, so we know hair triggers it.. the context apparently doesn’t matter past that.. 😛
John
Nor the second time.
Reltzik
That’s… still on a hair-trigger?
John
Nor the third time.
achallenger
glad to know college girls are just as gross as the boys, i nnever got to use thier showers as much
Plasma Mongoose
As someone who has cleaned the bathrooms of both genders over the years, I can tell you they both can have their own flavours of foulness.
Wizard
Gotta agree, although my most disgusting experience did involve the men’s room. I was working at a convenience store one night when a customer helpfully informed me, “Someone shit in your urinal.”
When I made it out to the restroom to check, he was right: there was, indeed, a truly massive turd in the urinal. Seriously, WTF? This is why I hate the public.
Bagge
…but…. presumably there were toilets in the same bathroom… that didn’t require you to put your butt close to a urinal…
WHYYYYYYYYYYY?
ischemgeek
Mine was in the women’s bathroom back when I worked fast foos. Suffice to say somebody decided to paint the wall with a used tampon an then stick said used tampon to the wall with shit.
Definitely a case of “OH GOD WHY AND HOW AND WHY?!?!”
Reltzik
…….
…. FLAVOR?
….
I don’t want to know how you were comparing the flavors of their foulness. Never speak of this again.
insomniac
To wildly generalize:
Men’s bathrooms need to be constantly cleaned for a certain level of oops-missed-the-bowl.
Women’s bathrooms have a lower baseline of disgusting, but are for some reason more likely to be the scene of the “OH MY GOD WHY AND HOW AND WHY” sort of clean-up.
Dragon_Nataku
Women miss the bowl too sometimes though, because some crazy women (like my mum) do this thing called “hovering.” Womens’ bathrooms are equally as gross and so I avoid public bathrooms as much as possible. (Mum will even do this bullshit when the bathroom in question has those seat liner things for some reason. I don’t understand my own gender ^=__=^;; )
magicallady
rip joyce youll be remembered
UltraKyrie
That last panel is amazing
Nono
Incidentally, couldn’t Joyce have done the ‘wear those plastic bags’ option? They’re not nearly as expensive.
Plasma Mongoose
Supermarket plastic bags cost practically nothing.
Deanatay
Unless you’re from an area that bans them (like mine).
Kris
The only option is to invest in a foot spa Joyce.
Kraazivaan
I lived at home during college instead of in the dorms (SO much cheaper), so I have to ask: is it really as bad as depicted here, or is this just a) exaggeration for comedic effect, or b) Joyce being neurotic?
timemonkey
Bathrooms can always be nasty, it all depends on how gross the people using it are and how well and how often it’s cleaned.
Deanatay
I assume you’ve used a public bathroom? Fix that in your mind. The graffiti, the weird smells, the lack of privacy.
Now, imagine having to shower in one.
You can get used to it, but for freshmen, it takes a bit of mental adjustment.
blargy blargsson
Honestly, the ones at my college were never particularly bad. I mean, there would obviously be a bit of hair around the drain, but that was about it. Nothing I’d ever qualify as “sludge”
Elisto
My dorm showers weren’t that bad, honestly. Still wasn’t going in there without shower shoes, but it was cleaned regularly and was usually fine. I’m sure it varies.
Quinctia
Mine never seemed that bad, but I generally showered late at night and not during what was probably a more crowded situation in the mornings.
thejeff
It was a long time ago, but I don’t remember any trauma about it. Either mine or anyone else’s. Some people wore some kind of shower sandals, IIRC, but most didn’t.
I’ve also used gym showers and showers at various campgrounds over the years – with varying levels of cleanliness, but never anything as nasty as some people seem to be talking about.
This all seems very odd to me.
I mean, on the one hand this is Joyce’s neurosis – no one else seems to be reacting on the same level she it.
OTOH, especially in earlier strips, while it’s been played for laughs, every one else seems to agree that it really is that gross. And a good chunk of the commentariat seems to be with them, to the level of worrying about the health hazard.
Sam
I would say it is a bit of both. Shared showers will never be SPOTLESS, but unless you are living with MONKEYS, it shouldn’t be as bad as Joyce makes it out to be unless cleaners don’t exist.
Kernanator
Maybe the true shower gunk is the friends you’ve made along the way.
Kris
The shower gunk was inside you all along….probably literally…..ew
John
Don’t look at me, it’s not my chunky cream-of-human-hair soup!
(This is funnier if you happen to remember my full name.)
Prunebane
You don’t happen to be a Campbell, do you?
(I now possess the mental image of canned creamy hair. Yaaaaaay)
Viktoria
Are girls’ showers that much worse? I mean, I never saw significant hair or anything other than tile in any of the public dude-showers I’ve been in. I wore shower sandals as a safety measure, but if I couldn’t for some reason, it wouldn’t have bothered me to any real degree.
insomniac
On average, if dudes and dudettes lose the same number of hairs per shower, women’s showers wind up with a whole lot more hair on the floor.
Kryss LaBryn
Yeah; my hair is slightly longer than my arm, so even one lost hair is gonna cause some issues, heh.
Keulan
In the four years I used the showers in college, I never had that much trouble with shower hair gunk. I wore sandals, but even then it wasn’t that bad.
Bluewind