Magazine racks. Every home had a small one next to the toilet
Farmers Almanac. Used to come with a pre-drilled hole for hanging on a hook in the outhouse.
Take a book with you....or start reading the backs of the cleaning products under the sink
We didn't have to poop back then. The act of pooping was invented by Larry Smartphone, who also happened to invent the smartphone. They were released together originally as a bundle but everyone has both nowadays anyways and you can mix and match.
Spanish people stopped learning greek after smartphones where invented.
Tap for spoiler
We used to read shampoo bottles that where usually shipped in Spain with labels in four languages: Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Greek. So it was always funny to try to see how things were written in greek while pooping.
We'd look through the bathroom window, there was always something funny going on. Such as packs of velociraptors fighting each other, or a mastodon causing wreck on the neighbour's garden.
Good ole Reader's Digest.
My grandparents had like a basket full of magazines, comic books, etc beside the toilet. It was pretty good. They often buy weekly reader's digest and stuff like that. So it was usually new every time we visit.
Video game instruction manuals
Well, before phones made social media conveniently available, people largely had to deposit their shit via telephone, written word, or in person.
Hopefully through their buttholes, not through their fingers and mouths.
series of mirrors displaying the tv in the living room
Teletype with an acoustic coupler. You place the handset into the rubber cups that block out the sound, so that the modem noises were clear through the phone line.
The perforations in modern toilet paper are an homage to the holes in the punched tape used to feed the teletype pre-recorded instructions.
Magazines and we read the ingredient list of bottles, like bleech.
Books.
In our pants. Toilets came out around the same time as smartphones, so it’s been a pretty revolutionary couple of decades around here.
I still have my OG gameboy w/ Tetris near the toilet
We had print media that hadn't died yet.
That's why the boomers are so mad at younger generations. Used to be you could get a newspaper delivered to your porch daily, and magazines delivered to your mailbox monthly.
Why didn't they put the newspaper in the mailbox? Because the 12 year old on a bicycle at 4am doesn't have time for your particular brand of bullshit.
And now, it's all on screens that hurt their eyes. My mom LITERALLY turns on airplane mode, and THEN turns it off. Completely off. Just so she can charge it. When I asked why she does that, she told a room of people "because thats how you charge your phone".
She then began argueing that airplane mode needs to be on, and THEN power off before you connect the cord. Otherwise you'll use radios and it doesn't charge right.
The entire room, knowing how crazy she was just nodded their head. Yes mom, that IS how you charge your phone and/or tablet. We're not just saying this because it's easier to agree with you on something that ultimately is harmless vs argueing with you, with no real benefit on either of our ends.
But yeah. This is how boomers view technology. And print media is dead. You can only read a shampoo bottle so many times before you realize the word "poo" is in the name "shampoo", which you're reading while you poo.
And thats why boomers are mad.
Archie comic books.
We were much more use to undistracted time
Presumably on a toilet.
Pooping shouldn’t be a drawn-out process. You’re better off keeping your toilet time to less than 10 to 15 minutes, says Gregory Thorkelson, M.D., a psychiatrist in the department of gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh.
In fact, you should only make your way to the bathroom when the urge hits.
If the urge to poop isn’t there, you might be tempted to push or strain to try to get the job done.
And all that straining could lead to the development of hemorrhoids—bulging blood vessels around your anus that can become swollen and painful or even bleed.
https://www.menshealth.com/health/a19521086/time-spent-pooping/
I would stare out windows a lot while I was in the bathroom. If you stare at leaves in a tree and let your eyes unfocus you can see patterns and shapes. Sort of like looking for shapes in clouds.
For bathrooms without windows I think I would just use my imagination. I've got a fairly vivid one and just think about random stuff a lot.
It's hard to remember though. I have heard about people reading the ingredients of chemicals while they go, but I've never personally done that.
I had a basket full of comics in the bathroom. I would get stuck there for hours sometimes
I was lucky enough to grow up through the gameboy-->DS era so I've always been covered
I had to poop really bad the other day. I had to make a run for it and didn't have time to grab my phone first. I was in and out in like 2 minutes!
Shampoo bottle label, obviously.
We did not.
Gameboy Advance and then later a Nintendo DS or laptop and then a PSP or laptop towards the end right before I got my first smartphone lol
I used to keep a book under the sink.
Magazines and bird photo books
Also, fiber
Learning French (Spanish in the US) by reading the back of the toothpaste bottles and whatnot. Newspapers, crosswords and magazines were very common in household washrooms.
What else were you supposed to do on the bus ride home?
maintain eye contact with yourself in the mirrored shower door.
While listening their neighbour poop.
Falcon 3.0 flight manual.
They didn't. Which is why boomers are full of shit.
Like animals.
We fell asleep on the toilet a lot.
Y'all take more than a minute to poop?
Stare at a wall, that is all
Montgomery Ward and or Sears catalogs.
We had magazines.
The family would get together and take turns, keeping each other company, telling poop stories, the usual.
they didnt. Thats why people only lived to be like, 30 at most back then.
Y’all need more fiber.
