So you think women are being overdramatic when they demand fellas put the toilet seat down once they’re finished? Maybe you’re right. But I’ll go as far as to fault ladies for not taking this mandate the important final step.
Let’s face it ladies, you’re lucky the seat went up in the first place. It’s a matter of picking your battles—because up and down is asking a bit too much. You risk either the deep plunge during that dark, midnight bathroom venture if the seat is left up. Or there’s the hazard of a wet derriere of a lesser, but far more disgusting degree, from sitting on a urine drenched seat that was never raised to begin with.
If men are to be expected to stow the seat to the upright position before they micturate, then return it to its horizontal alignment when done, why not shoot for the trifecta and include the lowering of the toilet lid as well? A completely closed lid should be the starting and ending position of the toilet at all times when not in use. To be more precise, the lid should be completely closed prior to the initiation of the flush. And listen fellas, none of those push-the-handle-during-the-last-couple-dribbles shenanigans. Zip up, close the lid, then flush.
But why, Brad? I’m so glad you asked. You probably remember those ultra slow-motion videos making the rounds a few months into the pandemic that compared people coughing or sneezing with and without masks. Sans covering, a vast cloud is created, hanging in the air for quite some time. With a mask on, however, the volume and extent of dispersal lessened dramatically. The goal of the demonstration was to convince people to wear a facial covering by showing the extent that droplets were limited when masked.
The same video technology was used on toilets flushed with the lid up compared to the lid closed. The plume of an open toilet can reach a height of nearly 3 feet above the bowl, and cover a distance of 6 feet. The toilet is your mouth in this analogy. Put a damn mask on it. Close that lid.
But why should we bother worrying about a little bit of water aerosolizing throughout the room? Because it’s not just water. If it were, I’d recommend never closing the lid—hell get rid of it altogether. But a simple flush doesn’t magically clean your toilet, sending fresh, sanitized water from the tank into the bowl with a small portion of it floating into the ether, humidifying the air we breathe into our lungs. Nope! Microscopic particles of the urine or feces in the bowl also find their way into the cloud of invisibleness that ends up coating bathroom surfaces. That is, unless we breathe them in first.
Microscopic turd particles—what harm can those do to me? Once again, I’m so glad you asked. And with such manure mature vocabulary. The true likelihood of a disease being spread in this manner is quite small, but non-zero, nonetheless. Let’s explore just a few diseases spread by the fecal-oral route and see if we want to take even that miniscule risk.
- Hepatitis A: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, abdominal pain, liver failure
- Cholera: excessive watery diarrhea, vomiting, muscle cramps
- Typhoid fever: fever, abdominal pain, headache, rash
- Rotavirus: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever
- Polio: muscle weakness leading to flaccid paralysis
Not sure about you, but I’ll take a hard pass on all the above.
Quick question: Where’s your toothbrush right now? Is it on the bathroom counter near the sink? And is that sink within 6 feet of your toilet? Some of you may be comforted with simply running water over your toothbrush as a cleansing method prior to each use. If you’re okay with that, whatever, but it seems a little like trying to paint your canoe while it’s sinking in a wastewater-treatment plant’s holding tank. [Maybe someone can help me out with a better analogy.]
I’m reminded of a Seinfeld episode; I may be misremembering slightly, but the gist is there. Elaine was pissed at Jerry for some reason, so she dipped something from his bathroom into the toilet, put it back, and wouldn’t tell him what it was. After he replaced everything in his bathroom, she told him it was just the toilet brush. He responded by saying he could get a new one of those. Seinfeld still has the greatest writing of any sitcom ever, in my opinion. But Jerry—being the clean-freak that he was—should have realized everything in his bathroom would already be contaminated if any one of those buffoons he called friends flushed even once with an open lid.
But what if you don’t have the option of closing the lid before you flush. Two scenarios come to mind. First: the courtesy flush. It’s #2 time and you want that first round of floaters out the way for the second round that’s locked and loaded. Squeeze those legs together and let your ass create a seal that receives the barrage of misted poo. Second: public restrooms. I can’t speak for the ladies’ room, but coming across a toilet with a lid in a men’s room is as rare as encountering a criminal so heinous that no lawyer in the world would agree to represent him. That is to say, not gonna happen. You’re left with the option to just let your deposit mellow, or do the ol’ flush-with-the-foot-&-run-like-the-dickens. Add automatic flushers throwing clouds of feces into your face at random times and all hell breaks loose. Signs on the mirror should read “Employees Must Shower Before Returning to Work.”
So, you still think the lady in your life is going a bit overboard when she yells at you for not putting the toilet seat down once you’re finished? Like I said earlier, it’s unlikely any detriment to your health will result from a thin coating of microscopic poo on your toothbrush. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said:
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have poo without a toothbrush, or a toothbrush without poo, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter.”
Or something like that. Honestly, the minute levels of microbes we ingest from aerosolized urine and fecal matter likely serve more of a benefit in priming our immune systems than any possible harm. And remember, fellas, you have an equal right to argue that she should put the seat up for your convenience. So, I guess, yeah, come to think of it . . . You’re Probably Right.
[026] January 6, 2021
I’m lid and seat down. I keep my toothbrush in my bathroom closet. I can’t stand the thought of it being out and someone else leaves lid up and flushes. Yuk.
Good one again Brad. I only have to worry about a toilet seat in the up position when I have a male guest. Most are courteous enough to put the seat back where they found it. As far as the seat cover lid, one of my pet peeves. I can not stand to see the lid up when I walk into a bathroom so I am always closing them at home. Especially the bathroom near the front door. You walk into my house look right and there you see a little hallway and a toilet in the bathroom. We even have the slow close lids so you don’t hear a bang when you drop the seat. Can’t get any better than that. My vote seat down and lid down.