The Worst Sin of Them All
So I went home for a few weeks over the Christmas break - and was hanging out with my 2 sisters and my parents (I only have 2 siblings so all of us were home for Christmas) and we were genuinely enjoying each other’s company. Laughing, watching movies, playing board games, talking about life in general, and then all of a sudden the mood changed, a wave of tension came over us, and a horrified voice came from the bathroom, “Christian - how could you do this?” Do what? What did I do this time? It was something that men are accused of daily, something that brings more horror to the minds of women than seeing you burn a copy of Pride & Prejudice right in front of their faces: I had left the toilet seat up.
Now this will be getting 2 different reactions from everybody out there:
Reaction Number 1: “Oh my goodness gracious! I totally agree with those girls - no decent young or old man could ever do such a thing! It’s sick – sick I tell you! I hope to high heaven that he never marries. I must warn all my daughters/sisters/cousins/friends/acquaintances/bitter enemies to stay away from this wretch of a man!”
Reaction Number 2: “Yeesh! It only takes 2 seconds for you to put the toilet seat down! You’re acting like I took your pet hamster and threw it down the stairs….hmm, that sounds like fun….”
If you gave Reaction Number 2, you are a man. If you gave Reaction Number 1 you are either a woman or a man who has been married for a very long time and has forgotten what it is like to be a single man.
This is something that has been plaguing men since the dawn of the toilet. The second John Crapper’s wife saw the toilet, do you think she said, “Oh – how nice – no more trips out to the outhouse in the middle of winter!” Why of course she did! And right after that she said, “You best not be leavin’ that there toilet seat up John.”
This is something that all married men are scared of. If George W. Bush was trying to hammer out a peace treaty with say Osama Bin Laden, and he wanted some common ground they could talk about, all good old Dubya would have to do would is say, “You know 2 months ago I left that there toilet seat up for the first time in 10 years – and my Laura just let me have it.” And Osama would chuckle and say, “Oh yes, I know just what you mean,” and pretty soon he would understand that deep down all humans are similar to each other and all males have become the keepers of the sacred position of the toilet seat.
In some ways I can understand the women’s position – they want the seat down for various reasons:
"It’s gross! I don’t want to have to touch it to put it down!" That is a very good point! Females are very dainty and delicate and should be protected from having to ever touch the toilet seat.
"I hate it when it’s in the middle of the night and I don’t turn the light on to use the bathroom, and then the toilet seat is up so I fall in!" We men honestly wouldn’t mind if you turned the light on to use the restroom in the middle of the night. If it gives us the right to occasionally leave the toilet seat up we’d be darned ecstatic about it.
"When it’s night time and I need to pee, I’m too darn tired to realize the seat is up and sometimes I fall in!" Yes - this is true, doing complex things when you’re groggy is often very hard. May I just point out that men are often just as groggy as women are when they wake up in the night time, and men often have to wake up to pee as well. What do you think would happen if a man was too groggy to think about putting the seat up first? Would this be a desirable thing?
"But can’t men pee while sitting down?" It is much less efficient to do so. We prefer efficiency.
"But it’s so much work to put the seat down all the time!" Technically, from a physics viewpoint it’s more work to put the seat up than to put it down, because when you put it up you’re fighting gravity therefore requiring more force than when you put the seat down. May I also add that if we aren’t required to put the seat down every time we use less energy over all, and as we all know energy conservation is a good thing because the more energy we expend the more entropy we cause, and the more entropy we cause the sooner the Universe will die. Of course this will still happen quite a few billion years off or something, but the best time to plan for the future is today.
"But leaving the toilet seat up is just WRONG! I’ve been taught that my whole life by my parents who always taught the boys to keep the seats down!" When you say wrong, do you mean that is against the law? Are you saying that if a male leaves the seat up he can be thrown in jail for committing a crime? Or are you saying that it is wrong in a religious sense and any male who violates this sacred tradition is thus condemned to an millennia of suffering and punishment and forced to constantly put toilet lids down for the rest of eternity?
Ladies, we are not demanding anything that we are not entitled to! We only ask for toilet seat privileges equal to your own, and for a little understanding if we leave the seat up!
If you truly desire, in your heart of hearts, to never ever have to see the atrocity of a toilet seat left up ever again you only need to do one simple little thing: buy your males a urinal.
Now this will be getting 2 different reactions from everybody out there:
Reaction Number 1: “Oh my goodness gracious! I totally agree with those girls - no decent young or old man could ever do such a thing! It’s sick – sick I tell you! I hope to high heaven that he never marries. I must warn all my daughters/sisters/cousins/friends/acquaintances/bitter enemies to stay away from this wretch of a man!”
Reaction Number 2: “Yeesh! It only takes 2 seconds for you to put the toilet seat down! You’re acting like I took your pet hamster and threw it down the stairs….hmm, that sounds like fun….”
If you gave Reaction Number 2, you are a man. If you gave Reaction Number 1 you are either a woman or a man who has been married for a very long time and has forgotten what it is like to be a single man.
This is something that has been plaguing men since the dawn of the toilet. The second John Crapper’s wife saw the toilet, do you think she said, “Oh – how nice – no more trips out to the outhouse in the middle of winter!” Why of course she did! And right after that she said, “You best not be leavin’ that there toilet seat up John.”
This is something that all married men are scared of. If George W. Bush was trying to hammer out a peace treaty with say Osama Bin Laden, and he wanted some common ground they could talk about, all good old Dubya would have to do would is say, “You know 2 months ago I left that there toilet seat up for the first time in 10 years – and my Laura just let me have it.” And Osama would chuckle and say, “Oh yes, I know just what you mean,” and pretty soon he would understand that deep down all humans are similar to each other and all males have become the keepers of the sacred position of the toilet seat.
In some ways I can understand the women’s position – they want the seat down for various reasons:
"It’s gross! I don’t want to have to touch it to put it down!" That is a very good point! Females are very dainty and delicate and should be protected from having to ever touch the toilet seat.
"I hate it when it’s in the middle of the night and I don’t turn the light on to use the bathroom, and then the toilet seat is up so I fall in!" We men honestly wouldn’t mind if you turned the light on to use the restroom in the middle of the night. If it gives us the right to occasionally leave the toilet seat up we’d be darned ecstatic about it.
"When it’s night time and I need to pee, I’m too darn tired to realize the seat is up and sometimes I fall in!" Yes - this is true, doing complex things when you’re groggy is often very hard. May I just point out that men are often just as groggy as women are when they wake up in the night time, and men often have to wake up to pee as well. What do you think would happen if a man was too groggy to think about putting the seat up first? Would this be a desirable thing?
"But can’t men pee while sitting down?" It is much less efficient to do so. We prefer efficiency.
"But it’s so much work to put the seat down all the time!" Technically, from a physics viewpoint it’s more work to put the seat up than to put it down, because when you put it up you’re fighting gravity therefore requiring more force than when you put the seat down. May I also add that if we aren’t required to put the seat down every time we use less energy over all, and as we all know energy conservation is a good thing because the more energy we expend the more entropy we cause, and the more entropy we cause the sooner the Universe will die. Of course this will still happen quite a few billion years off or something, but the best time to plan for the future is today.
"But leaving the toilet seat up is just WRONG! I’ve been taught that my whole life by my parents who always taught the boys to keep the seats down!" When you say wrong, do you mean that is against the law? Are you saying that if a male leaves the seat up he can be thrown in jail for committing a crime? Or are you saying that it is wrong in a religious sense and any male who violates this sacred tradition is thus condemned to an millennia of suffering and punishment and forced to constantly put toilet lids down for the rest of eternity?
Ladies, we are not demanding anything that we are not entitled to! We only ask for toilet seat privileges equal to your own, and for a little understanding if we leave the seat up!
If you truly desire, in your heart of hearts, to never ever have to see the atrocity of a toilet seat left up ever again you only need to do one simple little thing: buy your males a urinal.
posted by CT at 12:20 AM
16 Comments:
A very significant issue, I daresay. Of course, when women bring this up, they forget that we also have to alter the seat position, lest we sprinkle the seat and befoul their dainty bottoms; in addition, if men and women both take responsibility for setting their preferred seat altitude, men STILL have more work to do - we fight gravity, they do not! Women need to back off the backside support issue.
Personally, I think that the entire issue can be related back to women’s sufferage. What has happened to our value system in this country? Where did the tradition go that kept women where they should be? In the 1820s times were good and men were in power in their homes, in the workplace, and most importantly everywhere else. First, it was accepted that women are possessions of their husbands, and therefore they must agree with everything they say. Second, it was believed that most women were uneducated, or stupid, so women were automatically assumed to be incapable of voting for president. Also, because women were unschooled and ignorant, their say was unimportant. “Put down the toilet seat!” I don’t think so. What needs to be said is: “grab a brush and clean that toilet woman!” A woman’s place is at home, raising children, helping with the family farm, and cleaning.
For the benefit of those who read my commentary - this entry was, unbeknownst to be, not complete when it was written. Hence my comments about gravity - however, since the gravity of the issue is dealt with, perhaps the argument should be considered that much more a compelling force. Down with estrogenic tyranny!
I just wish to state that I do not agree with the views of Gary Coleman. I don't wish for women to not be able to vote. All I want is a little understanding when we accidentally leave the toilet seat up.
The worst thing in the world is when you need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you get up and don't want to turn on the light because then you won't be able to find your way around after it is off. Then you go to sit on the toilet, and suddenly you have fallen down into the epitome of filth, THE TOILET!!! I cannot tell you a worse feeling. No sirree bob!!! Gentlemen, please please this is not a cry of condemnation, this a desperate cry of sanitation! Let it be known that through out the world women are falling into this cruel trap, and you my fellow men are the only ones who can stop this unjustice!
um - hello - did you NOT read my blog? Turn on the dang light and LEAVE it on! Whoever taught you that you should be using the bathroom with the lights off anyway? What's the point? Is it to save you a nickel on your electricity bill? Why not just get a candle then? Tell you what - we can have it be government funded - bathroom candles for girls that don't wish to have the light on.
candid byu: this is your best one yet!! hilarious. i laughed so hard at the pride and prejudice part. love, your sibling
Hey Anonymous! I have a website that will solve your problems: http://www.travelmateinfo.com/page002.html. You can buy that, nail it on the wall next to your toilet paper roll, and have all of your petty problems solved!
Perhaps some wisdom from the original Half-Life can be of service settling this potty dispute. In the beginning of said game, one must follow a colored line on the wall to find the correct destination. If finding the return path to one's bed in the dark is the issue, perhaps a lighted path, as of Christmas lights, is in order. Besides, turning a light on or off in the bathroom makes no difference in a house, where lack of light renders one's night vision useless anyway. If you are using an outhouse, on the other hand...
the issue with peeing in the dark is not to save electricity, but to save us from going blind from the sudden change from pitch black to the blinding flourescent potty lights. and also, i had the 2nd reaction, and i'm not a boy.
The picture which comes to mind at the thought of a girl attempting a blacked-out bathroom run amuses me. I can just picture her running in (hitting her foot on the door, naturally, since she wouldn't want to be blinded by that nuisance neon retina-killer), and rushing to sit on the john, only to find that her toilet coordinates were off, and ending up at a 45 degree list to peeward. Now THAT is unsanitary.
See - I don't know about the rest of you males - but I tend to turn the light on when I pee in the middle of the night. That sudden change in light is bright yes, but necessary. I still stand by my statement that if it is oh so necessary that a girl not fall in the toilet she would most definitely check first. I would think the fear of falling in would be enough to motivate me to put my hand out to check. Or if this fails - why not just get a nightlight in the bathroom for a lesser glow which will not blind you yet leave the toilet seat in clear view? Or if you don't want to bother with that - why not just drink less water within a couple of hours of going to bed? Then no more night bathroom runs at all!
I have to agree with all you men out there. That is why I only date men. I can rest assured at night that my boyfriend (Carrot Top)will not yell at me the next morning if I fail to put the toilet seat down after using the restroom.
Another interesting point is that most women (and I can say this because I am one) complain about all the work they have to go to when putting the toilet seat down, but don't the men have to do just as much work putting it up? We're inconvienced when it's up, they are when it's down. Ok, so we're even!
I have a hard time believing that all girls make such a big deal about the toilet seat. I'm a girl, and I can honestly say that it doesn't bother me one bit. One, I rarely go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and two, if you can't touch your own toilet seat you obviously aren't cleaning it thoroughly enough.
yeah, Mary Sue, unfortunately these were all very true circumstances. Maybe not many of them percentage wise are making a big deal, but enough of them were affecting my life that this seemed valid.
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