Toilet Etiquette: It’s time for an overhaul

It’s about time we had (this) talk. Almost everything of importance has been discussed right? Isn’t it true that anything that’s reasonably consequential has been hashed over, debated, studied, dissected. ad nauseum? I think not!

I’m going to introduce a significant topic that I have never heard discussed. I’ve never heard it evaluated or contemplated. How could that be? It’s time we talked about toilet etiquette, now! The germ laden insanity has gone on long enough. If you are a woman, you can completely ignore this blog unless you are looking for something hopeful or something to make your dreams come true, and hopefully something worth reading for the pure whimsy. As with everything, I’ll try to make it readable but, rest assured women and girls, there’s nothing being asked of you, here. Everything you’ve done up until now is fine. I’m talking to the other half (men and boys).

Let me break this down. Let’s say there are three types of bathrooms/toilets: one is a personal bathroom or toilet that you would have in your home or your friend would have in his home, etc.. Another is a public toilet that is shared by women and men (one at a time). Another still is a public bathroom that is restricted to men, and the other is a public bathroom that is restricted to women. We all know by now that public bathrooms restricted to men have urinals. Men!, use the urinal as you see fit if you must. Personally, I almost never use a urinal. I only use it when I have no other option, but I’ll get into that later. What I’m talking about here is toilets. Yes, what I’m addressing here is errant urine generated by men who do not raise the toilet seat before urinating in a toilet and who invariably coat the seat with urine. Even for ones who do raise the seat, urinating standing up is a crude, unsanitary, and caveman-esque behavior. It’s probably too late, but I wanna live in a world where men want to restrict all of their urine to the inside of the toilet. What I mean by that is I want 100% of self generated urine to never go anywhere but in the water inside the toilet bowl. What we have all too often is men who, lazily, leave the seat down and urinate carelessly all over the seat. This creates an obvious challenge for anybody who will follow up this careless act. No one wants to be cleaning someone else’s urine off of a toilet seat; it’s uncivilized, it’s third world and furthermore, why ever stand when you can sit?

Let me address the absolute absurdity of standing up while urinating when you have another option. If you can sit, why would you stand?

Here is why you need to sit down, always sit down. Sitting down is preferable in almost every area of life. How many people go to a concert or a sporting event and elect to stand up versus sitting in a seat? How many people eat a meal standing up versus sitting in a seat. We have chairs for a reason. People don’t watch TV standing up. Here are just a few reasons that men should never stand up in any bathroom if they have an option:

The likelihood of generating urine on the seat is the most obvious, but even if you raise the seat, gentlemen and boys, you are going to generate a discernible amount of urine splash onto your shoes or clothing if you are urinating from a couple of feet above the water source, For demonstration you might try going to the bathroom barefoot sometime soon; you will notice that you will probably experience droplets of urine that reach your feet, that hit your feet. If, however, you sit down you will confine all this urine because it’s only falling a few inches into the water. Do the physics on this and you will see what I’m saying. Have you ever watched a horse urinate? The amount of splash is unbelievable. Anything within 6 feet is going to be doused with horse pee. Also….. If you can hear some man urinating we have we have a problem. It’s very common to hear urine penetrating water from 2 feet away. You don’t hear any urination when you’re sitting down. We can end this problem once and for all for women and men. Neither will ever have to clean someone else’s urine off of a surface. Even worse, what if you assume that there’s no urine on the seat and then you sit down and notice there’s urine in the seat. That’s pretty darn disgusting.

Who wants to hear urine? Who wants to see urine on a seat? Who wants to clean urine? Who wants urine splashing on their clothes/body?

We ended cigarette smoking in public places in California. The odds of doing that were incredible yet we did it; we can do this too. We will never again have to touch a toilet seat or clean a toilet seat, yeah put down that paper tissue thing if you wanna have a barrier. I’m ok! We can even fix the toilet seat to the toilet bowl. There is no reason to have a toilet seat that raises and lowers; make it one piece.

What about a person in the dark who goes into a bathroom and sits down, expecting a seat to be there, but the seat has been left up, and they sit on the cold porcelain (which likely has urine on it; yet another problem solved. Let’s end unwanted urine, our own or, God forbid, a strangers urine from ever getting on our person or our clothing. This problem should’ve been solved long before we went to the moon. This problem should’ve been solved within months of inventing the indoor toilet as we know it.

We have so much antibacterial gel all over the place. We’re obsessed with germs yet we have overlooked germ central: the toilette. A better and more sanitary life awaits all of us if we can heed these simple tenets. I don’t think I’ve stood up to urinate into a toilet for over a decade or more; it never made sense to me to stand.

We’ve been getting this all wrong. it’s time to wake up to a new paradigm; one free of unnecessary urine and unnecessary standing.

Food for thought ….