If you’re heading to the movies this weekend, an app could help with the one thing you might not be thinking about until it’s too late to ignore, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann.
For audiences torn between leaving a great movie and the pain of a needed bathroom break, the RunPee app comes to the rescue.
RunPee is the brainchild of Dan Florio, a former software engineer in Asheville, North Carolina. The 48-year-old was inspired to design it in 2008 after he saw “King Kong” in theaters — a three-hour epic.
Ninety minutes in, it was that time.
“By the end of the movie I couldn’t enjoy it. All I wanted was for King Kong — for his heart to stop so the movie would be over and I could run to the restroom,” Florio said. “Out of that pain came the RunPee app.”
Florio watches movies differently than most. We want the high drama, the big laugh or the memorable one-liner, while he’s looking for any three-to-four-minute stretch viewers can live without seeing.
“You don’t want to come back into the theater and someone to be like, ‘Hey Darth Vader is Luke’s father,'” Florio said.
The app gives audiences several opportunities to go every movie and a quick summary of what they missed.
When it’s time to think about going, the user’s phone vibrates with an alert. The app now has 1 million downloads, and 450,000 active users with active bladders and occasional complaints.
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Another free app tells you where to find the nearest clean bathroom:
Charmin toilet paper sponsors the Sit or Squat app which determines your current location and gives you an array of options of bathrooms near you. When you click on the location, there is the option to vote for it’s rating and view what others have to say.
During a road trip, you will know whether it would be easy to take your kid in the stall or whether you should make him hold it and find another one.
Similar to Sit or Squat, Whizzer app gives you the location of bathrooms near you. There is a rating system showing overall cleanliness scores as well as the amenities that the facility offers (such as changing tables and if there is a fee to use a particular restroom).
