In Europe there is an ‘anti-sprinkle’ movement, which aims to encourage men to sit down when they urinate, and thus avoid the spray effect. Toilets in every country on the continent have signs urging men to be considerate gentlemen and sit down when they relieve themselves. My brother-in-law, a German lawyer, like many European men, now sits when he conducts his business. Because he has always been a considerate gentleman.
Ladies, don’t get your hopes up because that’s never going to happen in America. The men in the states are going to keep standing up, and they’re going to keep spraying, and you guys, I’m sorry to say, are going to keep cleaning up these sprays. Because they won’t do it themselves.
It is certainly a cultural thing as we see in the above example of my brother-in-law and all those other European men. Part of being a man here in America is that you stand up when you urinate, since you’re not a woman and women, we know, urinate sitting down. In fact, there is something inherently powerful about peeing standing up, and the higher you are, the more powerful you feel. In fact, nothing feels more powerful than pissing off a roof… um, I’m told.
In the toilet seat lid war, I have finally decided that toilet lids should be closed when the toilet is not in use. Wait, out here, guys. I’m not betraying my gender too much. There are very good reasons to close your eyelids, and none of them have to do with being scolded to death if you don’t.
Number one: you don’t want the dog to drink from the toilet bowl. Don’t you have a dog? You can get one and it’s good practice for you in the meantime so you get into the habit. Or maybe a friend with a dog visits you unannounced and you want to be prepared for that. By the way, if you have a very large dog, it should have both eyelids down and a brick on top of it. They find cold water, perfectly positioned for them to drink, irresistible, especially when their lazy master has forgotten to refill his water bowl.
Number two: you can accidentally drop things into an open toilet. Do you like to get your toothbrush out of the toilet? Or, for that matter, do you like to fish for something?
I thought not.
Number Three: It’s Bad Feng Shui. Good. I’m a little out of my element on this one, but from what I understand, Chi energy or life force naturally flows into water and you just don’t want all of your Chi energy going down the toilet. It’s bad, believe me. To counteract this, you need to have a plant growing in the back of your toilet (it draws life force), or you need a bowl of rice. My choice was the plant, because if you have a bowl of rice in your poop, people think you’ve been eating rice in your bathroom, and that’s kind of hard to explain.
Number Four: Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always found an open container of toilet water to be a little scary. Alligators or Norwegian sewer rats could jump out of it at any moment. And the water itself leads right into the dark depths of the underworld and I’d rather see it covered and not have to think about it.
Number five: It’s actually a polite thing for a woman, like holding a door for her, pulling up a chair for her in a restaurant, helping her put on her coat, or other polite things like that. Don’t you want to be polite? Penalty fee. I’ve just given you four other perfectly solid reasons why you should do this, anyway.
If you happen to be a man who lives alone and has no friends or dogs or visitors and never plans on having any of those… well, I feel sorry for you. None of the above applies to you. But in that case, you really should get a dog because, man, you really need some company. Just make sure you have a small dog that can’t stick his head in that open toilet of yours.
