Toilets | The Professor's Convatorium

A meeting of brilliant minds – Lil Rascals

Being raised by a former U.S. Marine has its advantages and disadvantages. My father was an incredibly disciplined man. It always seemed my daily and weekly chores enslaved my time; time away from friends, the phone, my drum set, or the TV. I was quite certain he ruthlessly schemed to make my life miserable. And if it were not enough that I did almost all the yard work outside slaving away in the fire-pit of Texas summers, I had one more chore indoor! For many years lying in bed at night exhausted, I could not understand why my sister or Mom couldn’t do this horrible indoor chore. Damn, didn’t I already have enough to do outside! It wasn’t fair, I’d scream in my head. But voicing my opinion of Dad’s commands or his demand for unparalleled quality of work would have been like asking Gunnery Sgt. Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) for ice cream in the movie Full Metal Jacket. No, I’m kidding; but as a the-world-is-against-me adolescent, it sure felt like USMC boot camp!

My #1 chore inside the house was cleaning all three bathrooms to USMC standards. No one item in those three full-baths demanded any less meticulous attention than any other item or bathroom. And having two girls in the house, this was never truer than with our toilets. In the first several years of this duty I think I heard my Dad or Mom yell my name and say “get in here and do it again” about a million times. I’m sure my sister used a magnifying glass to find any shoddy cleaning just to raise it another million.

Out of all my many house chores, cleaning the toilets I hated the most.

The Oh Moment of Humility

Being the brilliant thinker I was by age thirteen, my bitterness for weekly dirty toilets had reached its pinnacle. For perhaps 60 long months and over 3,120 toilet cleanings (times 3 toilets = 9,360 minimum!), I was ready to go lavatory-postal! “Why can’t everybody” I screamed, “use the toilet more cleanly!?” What was everyone’s malfunction?

Happier times at home

After my plea for mercy to whatever porcelain gods were listening, they struck me with an odd realization. Mom and Dad used their own master bathroom. Theirs was hardly ever as filthy as the one my sister and I shared or the one downstairs next to the game room. Why was this? Introspection led to more introspection then another realization: my Mom and sister ALWAYS sat down. Hence, all the “messy splattering” was coming from a totally unrealized culprit! My incredible moment of deduction had landed me in front of the mirror. There he was…. the only one with the plumbing to do the dirty deeds. I glared at myself, “You penile-dummy.” Couldn’t this moment of truth have arrived many years earlier and save me the years of embittered cussing scrubbing!? Couldn’t have just one of my guy friends have said something? Why did I make my most hated chore so much harder for so long!?

The Ah-ha Moment of Brilliance

The strangeness of my predicament could not have been measured and help came from the most unlikely place: my sister. Noticing my weird expression in the mirror and overhearing my groans and why, “Don’t you wish” she explained, “you had a vagina like me?” I wanted to fire back with my deluded pride in having an above-average you-know-what along with an equally potent stream, but she had a point. And then I carried her remark a step-further. No, not that; I was (and still am) happy with my current sex. Holy Russian race horses, why didn’t I ever think of that! What is so damn hard about sitting down!?

I began realizing all the benefits of sitting: A) a hell of a lot less cleaning for me; easy! B) Sitting down for #2 is already one of the simplest pleasures in a man’s life, duh! Why not double the pleasure? C) Sitting down there is no way the lid can fall, slamming-down or clamping down like Jaws, permanently traumatizing a boys vital junk! And D) I really don’t give a fart what high-T alpha-males think about pee-sitting when I have to clean all the damn toilets! They can kiss my sitting-down ass! I am going to be MY OWN Reliever how-EVA I wanna be! United We Sit!

Disclaimer – if there are wall urinals, I will stand because otherwise that’s too damn awkward.

Come one, come all urinaters; big, small, tall, Moms, or Dads…tell me what you prefer and why. Am I a “weenie” for being un-masculine or am I just smarter?

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