Have you ever been tempted to drink out of a toilet?

I once read about man who might have been tempted; a prospector named Pablo Valencia, who survived almost seven days in the Arizona desert with barely a drop to drink. When he was finally found, this is how his rescuers described him:

‘His lips had disappeared as if amputated…his teeth and gums projected like those of a skinned animal, but the flesh was black and dry…his nose was withered and shrunken to half its length….his eyes were set in a winkless stare.’

Now that’s thirsty.

I’ve never been that dehydrated, so when considering whether I’d ever drink out of a toilet, I tried to imagine myself in Pablo’s shoes.

After some heavy-duty pondering (and listening to Marty Robbins’ thirst-inducing song Cool Water) I concluded the following: if it had been me crawling alone in the burning desert, my eyes bugging out, my tongue swelling into a leathery balloon, and my nose shrunken to a nub, I would still not drink out of a urinal.

Since most of us never find ourselves in such extremes, why the need for a do-not-drink-from-the-toilet sign? The question ate at me so much that I finally called a co-worker, a man in the know about All Things Water, and picked his brains.

‘There are two water systems feeding the restroom,’ he said. One is drinkable, one is not.’

Apparently, the non-drinkable, non-potable type is considered a hazardous substance, and out of an abundance of caution (don’t you hate that phrase?) our organization’s legal eagles decided to play it safe. Placing signage above toilets, they reasoned, could prevent potential lawsuits. After all, if people eat Tide Pods, maybe they’d drink hazardous toilet water too.

I’m not sure I buy that story. It’s too complicated. The problem-solving principle called ‘Occam’s Razor’ tells us that ‘the simplest explanation is usually the best one.’ And to me, the simplest explanation is this: our leadership believes that employees are basically dogs. And since dogs drink from toilets…

Well, you can fill in the blanks.

Dear employer, if you want to think of me as a dog, that’s fine. But just remember, as Shylock said in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice:

Thou callest me a dog before thou hast cause. But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.

And if I decide to bite you right after I’ve drunk a bellyful of hazardous toilet water, then you’d better double-dog beware.