My wife is not a vindictive
woman. Well, not usually. But a recent purchase of a toilet-seat allowed Mrs
Jones to take retribution for 30 years of frustration.
Throughout our time together she
has asked me to put the toilet seat down after I've had a pee. Although I
suspect that millions of women across the planet urge their men to perform this
simple act, I’ve never been able to understand why. After all, I’m thoughtful
enough to always lift the seat before peeing so as to avoid splashes that would
condemn Mrs Jones to a wet butt when she uses the loo. So why am I expected to
put it down again when I’ve finished? Is it something to do with aesthetics,
the bathroom being more pleasing on the eye for future visitors? Or is it
because they feel contaminated if they have to touch the toilet seat prior to
squatting? The underlying motivation behind her insistence on this piece of
lavatory etiquette remains a mystery to me, like multiple other aspects of the
female psyche.
After my three decades of
non-compliance Mrs Jones has hit back. Last month she bought a new, black-and-white
cowhide patterned toilet-seat for our downstairs loo. As I am to D.I.Y. what North
Korea is to nuclear disarmament, my wife does all the practical jobs around the
house. So, true to form, Mrs Jones fitted the toilet-seat. But an additional tweak
of the screwdriver or a calculating twist of the pliers rendered the seat
incapable of remaining upright; lift the seat into the vertical position and it
totters, like a neurotic on the edge of a high-diving board, before crashing
down with a dull thud.
A toilet seat that refuses to
stay up presents a conundrum to the peeing male. What approach can be used to
channel the stream of urine into the bowl? When faced with this frustration my
initial intention was to just piss all over the seat to punish Mrs Jones for
her sloppy joinery. But then my self-preservation instinct kicked-in and I
quashed that idea.
So what options remained in my
attempt to pee through the contracted hole of a seat-down toilet? Well, I could
have sat down to urinate like a girlie, the equivalent of Mrs Jones having castrated
me, but that would have been conceding defeat. So I tried holding the seat up
with my right hand while directing the hose-pipe with my left only to discover
that the complex maneuvres of finding, releasing and aiming were too much to execute
single-handed, particular when wearing tight underpants devoid of a fly-hole and
requiring one to hold down the elasticated waist-band – males will understand
the considerable dexterity required to achieve this mission without pissing
down your trouser leg.
Creativity was required to overcome
this challenge. Next I straddled the toilet bowl, one foot at either side, bent
my knees and pushed my willy downwards into a perpendicular position as if
operating a pneumatic drill on roadside concrete. Although not the most
edifying sight for casual onlookers, this macho straddle-pose seemed to have
solved the problem; that is until my knee-ligaments began to give way.
But then success! Seven days of
practice at leaning forward without putting my hands on the toilet-cistern,
thereby freeing them up for todger-management, enabled me to consistently hit
the target while maintaining my masculinity. Picture the Winter Olympics 2010
in Vancouver, and the poise of the ski-jumper in mid-flight, tilting at
an angle of 45 degrees, and you will replicate the image of me doing what comes naturally in our
downstairs toilet in Lancashire, England.
I am participating in
the Dude Write Starting Lineup this week
where you can find some excellent posts by bloggers who happen to be
dudes: http://dudewrite.blogspot.com)
