I have been married almost 14 years now. At the beginning of our marriage, my wife
complained almost daily about falling into the toilet at night when she was
trying to pee in the dark, and I had left the toilet seat up. (Personally, I found this statement so
ludicrous that I laughed, which turned out to be a big mistake). However, I complained just as much on those
rare nights when I decided not to turn the lights on and ended up peeing on the
seat, the lid, the garbage can, the floor, the wall, the toilet paper roll, and
the doily on the back of the toilet. All
because my wife had gone to the bathroom and put the seat down…or possibly the
seat and lid…and the backsplash went everywhere. I was mad that I would have to scrub the entire
bathroom at 2 o’clock in the morning.
(So much for not turning the lights on!)
It got to be where I started to instinctively grope around in the dark,
trying to feel out the state of the toilet before proceeding. (It should be noted that my father lost his
man card when he suggested that if I just sat, then I wouldn’t have to worry
about any of these problems.)
Something had to be done.
Life could not go on like this. I
was/am a very stubborn person. If
something seems to be a social injustice, then I refuse to comply. If there is no factual evidence to suggest
why I should change my actions, then I won’t do it. And this issue with the toilet seat seemed
completely one-sided. So, I came up with
a compromise, which I suggested to my wife.
When I got done using the toilet, I would put the seat down. When she got done using it, then she would
lift it up. That way, we are both doing
the same amount of work, and we were thinking about the other person and their
needs. Surprisingly, she actually agreed
to this plan (I suspect mostly just to get me to stop complaining).
We lived in this harmonious state until that one fateful day
when we were in the bathroom, not actually using the toilet, but doing
something else around it. Back at that
time, my wife would keep an extra roll of toilet paper on the back of the
toilet, so we didn’t have to do the pants-around-the-ankle waddle across the
bathroom to the cabinet if we ran out mid-use.
So, one minute we are putting up a towel bar on the wall, and the next
minute, the extra toilet paper roll gets bumped off the back of the toilet and
“bloop” right into the water through the open lid. Now, it should be noted that the seat was, in
fact, down at that moment.
So, after fishing out the wasted, soggy roll of toilet
paper, my wife and I decided together that a new solution was needed. We agreed that the only truly fair solution
was to put both the seat and lid down after each use. Then, we both had to expend the same amount
of effort (which satisfied me), we would always know the state of the toilet in
the dark (which satisfied us both), and we wouldn’t have any additional
extra-toilet-roll-on-the-back-of-the-toilet murders (which satisfied my wife).
The long conclusion to be taken from this is not to fight
about the toilet seat being up or down.
Just agree to put the lid and seat both down every time. In additional to the other things I’ve
already mentioned, it just looks nicer.
Trust me, nobody wants to come to your house and see toilet water (or
any other things) while they’re in your bathroom. And if you’re a guest at my house, please
remember this. It will annoy me if you
leave the lid up, in any state.
