This was what I found when I was visiting the Mouritz Hais Museum
in Den Haag. I was about to use a urinal at the museum restroom when
I found a little spot like a stain. I looked at it closely and saw
an illustration of a fly printed on the urinal. It was a little bigger
than a real fly and was drawn in yellow with a black outline. It
seemed very real.
I thought it was art for the museum but I was wrong.
A man often looks in the wrong direction and is lost in meditation
when he uses a urinal. At such a time, he aims at a wrong direction
and dirties the floor. The illustration of a fly was to prevent this.
If he finds something on a urinal, a man has a tendency to aim at
that object. In order to capitalize on this, an illustration was
printed on the urinal. At first, the museum tried a cartoon character
illustration but it was not effective. It was interesting to learn
that the illustration became very effective as soon as it was changed
to something that looked real. I thought this was one manufacturer’s
idea but I found that the same idea was used by some other manufacturers.
I also found a mat using the same idea placed under a urinal. I guessed
this could be a government measure in accordance with the general
will since the Dutch people like cleanliness.