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You can't fight in here. This is the war room. Dr. Strangelove |
D Vautier
8/22
Who left the seat up? Who left the door open? Who left the TV on? Who left the car lights on? Don’t slam the door! All Unanswerable Questions!
I grew up with a family of boys. I was a father to a family of boys. So obviously the most irritating Question in the world is “Who left the seat up?” as if there would be an immediate response to the question or that the question itself is unanswerable and instead brings up some irrefutable, undeniable aspects of bathroom etiquette. No there isn’t any answer and no there doesn’t seem to be.
We have four bathrooms.
They are “owned” by the different kids in our family along with their
friends so they can set whatever rules they want about bathroom etiquette but
the common bathroom is used by any and all, and therefore is subject to the
seat-down rule by common agreement (or rather by the “mom rule” which is the
final arbiter in any such case and always the decisive vote. A family is
not a democracy and it took me years to develop a strong habit of naturally putting the
toilet seat down after I peed. It's a matter of what my wife preferred and I’m ok with that. I have three kids, two boys and a girl.
The kids were never blamed for a seat-up condition and somehow I was
always accused of the crime. After
all, I’m older and more forgetful and more willing to accept blame. Right?
But the crime sometimes continued unabated. So one of my desperate defensive strategies was to try to prove that I was not the
culprit. I thought of installing a
whiteboard and be able to mark the last time I peed, or install a video in the
bathroom to show the family my innocence. But
as our family grew up I finally got accustomed to the accusation “Who left the
seat up”. I just let it pass because the question really has no answer
anyway, like the existence of flying saucers or ghosts or zombies. Still to this day the expression conjures up an immediate and strong
defensive response from.
I, as a man, think that any woman who sees an up-seat condition would simply put the seat down and at the next family meeting mention “Say, guys, I know this may be difficult, but we, as a family all agreed to try to keep the toilet lid down just to keep the dogs from drinking toilet water, and cleanliness, and .. er, you know,.. all that”.
Before I go any further let’s look at the problem a little more objectively.
Dads like it. Some dads have this “macho” thing and see no reason why they have to cater to the whims if the feminists. Dads need to be strong and uphold a long standing tradition, etc., etc. bla, bla, bla.
Boys
can pee without getting the seat all messed up. They never can shoot straight anyway. Boys don’t have time to raise the seat, let alone put
it back down. There’s other more important things to do, baseball, hide-and-seek, tag, biking, a
whole world of fun and you “worry” about a toilet seat? What is that about?
It’s much more efficient. Boys don’t have time to perform all these niceties that really don’t do anything useful like raising a toilet seat to pee and then putting it back down.
Little boys can get their penis clobbered by a falling toilet seat or cover. This is rather serious and has happened. I know first hand. The seat stays down but the cover can go up. The cover has a much better safety record.
Most important is poo-splatter. When boys do a good poo-splater it is a thing of beauty and needs to be beholden by others. Far be it to cover the artwork with a toilet seat down.
Girls can pee without having to clean up the toilet seat which may have their brothers pee all over it.
Dogs and cats can’t drink out of the toilet bowl.
A very important point is when one of the girls (or boys) happens in the middle of the night to sit on the toilet and lands all the way in the toilet without the protection of the seat. This can be a truly traumatic experience. Boys take note!
It looks better with the seat down.
You don't have to have a perfectly clean bowl with no ring.
It doesn't smell as bad.
Number of Kids
The number of kids in the family may determine seat status but more often it becomes a dictatorship of mom anyway since it is her purview.
Sex of kids
If the kids are mostly girls, mom wins. If the kids are mostly boys, mom still wins. It’s an unfair world. Deal with it.
Number of pets
If you have thirsty large dogs it is a good idea to keep the seat down, although I never heard of a dog dying from toilet bowl water. Dogs are indestructible and can drink anything.
Mom’s veto power
The bathroom is a “mom” zone. She does the cleaning and so she makes the rules. Sorry.
Condition of dad
If dad needs to sit down to pee for medical reasons this is a consideration which favors the "mom rule".
Who uses Bathroom
As I stated, if there are several bathrooms, different rules may apply depending on who owns the bathroom.
