Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Toilet Issues

why is it a man's job to keep the toilet seat down?

are you saying every time i go into the bathroom, i have to first put the toilet seat upright, then pee, then put the toilet seat back down?

when a man pees in this situation, he has four (4) steps. a woman has four steps as well. if the toilet seat and lid are both down, either party has to pick the lid up, pee, flush, then put the lid back down, leaving the seat in its original location during the whole process.

if a woman is lazy, she picks the lid up, pees, flushes, then leaves with the lid still up, eliminating one step in the process, still leaving her with three steps. this, in my opinion, is just as rude as keeping the toilet seat up. however, no one complains when the lid is up but the seat is down. For some reason, the emphasis is always to put the seat down, not the lid. *

if you are being courteous in either situation, the lid and seat are BOTH down when you walk in the bathroom and when you walk out.

now let me ask you something: why are toilet lids such a universal household item? in my eyes, there is virtually no function to a lid. if you ask me, it probably stems from the days before flushing toilets when you had a deep hole full of shit with a lid over it and everyone pooped and peed in that. well you know what? most of us have indoor plumbing. it seems to me like somewhere along the history of plumbing, someone would have ditched the whole idea of a toilet lid.

when you go to most public bathrooms, toilet seats do not have lids. this in my opinion makes sense. the lid certainly isnt keeping anything unpleasant from exiting the toilet, because when you poop, all of the smelliness goes down the drain as new water replaces the bowl when you flush.

the only argument i can see for a toilet lid is if someone has a thirsty dog and likes to keep their bathroom door open. this makes sense because it prevents the dog from drinking your toilet water. however, many people have toilet seats and do not have dogs.

in my opinion, having cats would be yet another argument for not having toilet seats because cats can be trained to use the toilet just like a person.

so what is my solution to this societal problem?

in coed bathrooms where there are no large thirsty animals wandering around, the toilet lid should be eliminated. the seat should still exist, but the lid part should be removed altogether. when a man walks into the bathroom and pees standing up, he puts the lid up. when a woman walks in, they put the seat down. this way, both parties only have three (3) steps, sometimes only two (2) steps if a person of the same gender used the bathroom prior to them.

it works this way: man following man= 2 steps (peeing + flushing)
man following woman= 2 steps (putting the lid up + peeing + flushing)
woman following woman= 2 steps (peeing + flushing)
woman following man= 3 steps (putting the lid up + peeing + flushing)

there you have my solution to that one.

the other issue i have with toilets is touching the flush lever. think about it this way: after you poop and wipe, your poop is still on your hands when you use the flusher. we claim to be so technologically advanced, but we still havent found a way to avoid touching common surfaces between pooping and washing our hands.

while automatic flushers may seem convenient, the technology is not as reliable as i would like. these automatic flushers work sometimes, but not often enough to be hailed as a victory in bathroom technology.

in my opinion, there should be a flush button on the floor that you can step on with your foot. in my lifetime, i have only seen this once, which was in my elementary school. another feature they had in the boys' rooms was toilet seats that were spring loaded to automatically be in the upright position. when you walked up to the toilet, you had to push the seat down as you sat on it, which was sort of frustrating, but completely eliminated the problem of people pissing on the seat. as i recall, the toilets also had the flush mechanism built into the seat, so that when you got up after pooping, the seat would go up and the toilet would flush. while it was scary the first few times, after a while, you learned to hold the toilet seat with your hand as you got up to avoid getting poo water all over your bare ass. while this solution is clever and effective, it should only be implemented in elementary schools where little boys are still learning manners.

if you ask me, in women's bathrooms, there should be no moving seat at all. the only functions for a seat in womens' bathroom habits are so that their cute little tushies don't fall in the toilet bowl and so their adorable little behinds don't freeze. who says that the seat needs to move up or down at all? what woman is ever going to need to put the seat up before they pee/poop/puke?

if i become ruler of the world, the first thing i would do is change basic things to make our lives more efficient, starting with toilets.

since i probably wont become ruler of the world or even a state senator, i will probably just implement my ideas into the house that i will build someday. if i ever had a bathroom, i would have a toilet that had one single piece (integrated seat/bowl combo) with no lid and then a urinal right next to it. both would have buttons on the floor that acted as their flushing device. i would build some sort of poop detecting mechanism that made the buttons on the floor glow red. after you got up and the pee pee sensors detected activity, the sink would automatically start running. i would also have an extra obnoxious illuminated sign that by the door that said "WASH YOUR HANDS." if someone failed to wash their hands or flush, there would be a red police light outside the door that would spin and light up once the person opened the door to leave my bathroom.

you think i am joking, but wait until i am rich and eccentric. ill invite you all to my party, but remember to flush and wash your hands.

THE END
(flush)



* note: if either party is extremely rude, they skip the flush, but lets assume that everyone in your household holds this basic level of cleanliness. if you honestly have this problem, tell your roommate to pee outside.