I'm about to tell you about what I do in public bathrooms. Don't worry, though: its not gross or weird. I use my foot to open doors and to pop up toilet seats. And I never wash my hands in public restrooms – I just figure that everything in there is too dirty to touch.

As you can imagine, this makes things tricky, and gets me some weird looks. And sometimes, with heavy doors that need to be pulled, it's impossible. And so I welcome the Toepener, a foot-friendly door handle which is mounted down near the floor so you never have to touch a wet, slimy, germ-infested handle ever again. You just hook it with your toe, pull, and then walk through the door. Simple.

Simple and amazingly obvious. Everywhere I see the Toepener mentioned, the writer remarks that this should be in every bathroom in the world. I agree – almost. It should be in every public bathroom in the world except those in Britain, where it would be wholly undeserved. The Brits, when they get drunk (which is every day) like nothing more than smashing up public bathrooms (I'm English, so bear with me here).

Come Saturday night, you can enjoy the sight of rolls of toilet paper stuffed into toilet bowls, floors slick with urine and water from faucets left running deliberately, cigarette butts everywhere* and all manner of hardware yanked from the walls. And that's just in the Ladies'. Installing a Toepener in a pub toilet in Britain would be a great idea – right up until the first hooligan sees it, stamps on it, splits the door and spoils it for everyone else.

The Toepener is $50 (or £31, should you wish to flush your money down the toilet by buying one in the UK).

Toepener product page [Toepener via Oh Gizmo!]

*Perhaps, thanks to the ban on smoking in public places, the cigarettes are no longer a problem, but I doubt it.

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