Dear Cistern Sisters,
Today, not for the first time, when I went to the bathroom,
I sat in someone else’s pee had an unpleasant experience.
So I have a bone to pick with some of you.
(Gentlemen, feel free to look away now. If you choose to
proceed, don’t bitch complain to me. You have. Been. Warned.)
My Cubicle Colleagues, it’s time you and I had a frank chat.
I need to talk to you about the way you use that most hideous of common structures;
the Public Toilet.
You know the ones. The ones with undefinably nauseating
smells, noxiously mystery stains and frightening tragic hilarious bemusing
graffiti. The Laydeez Lavs. The bog. The loo.
I’m not going to talk about men’s public toilets. I neither
know NOR WANT TO KNOW what those are like. The last time I was in one was thirty-two
years a long time ago. Our family was on one of its frequent interstate
road trips. At 2am we stopped and a bleary 12 year old me stumbled, half awake,
into the (thankfully empty) wrong toilets at the petrol station.
Therapy has done wonders, although I still flinch when
someone says urinal.
Which, as it happens, is surprisingly often.
I try to avoid using the public loo.
Sometimes, though, the need outweighs the fear and you just have to go.
I know many of my fellow Porcelain Princesses share this
abject horror of the Public Lav. If you work in an office, you also have to
share a Corporate Loo. There’s no avoiding the fact that sometimes you’re going
to have to use amenities that have also been used by revolting filthy alien horrid
unknown humans.
Recently, some of you have told me of your techniques for
avoiding contact with any surfaces in these offending amenities. Some of you
have told me that you don’t sit on the seat.
Excuse me?
That’s right. You hover above the bowl in a feat of super
human gymnastic strength, and don’t sit down. I get it – you’re trying to avoid
sitting in someone else’s urine. Or maybe you’re just trying to develop the
upper-thigh strength of a horse.
This has solved a mystery for me. See, I’m a Butt Planter. When I sit down on
said bog, I sit on the seat. And no matter how hard I try,
no matter what creative angles I use, I cannot get pee on the seat. It’s
physically impossible.
Yes, I’ve tried. Why do you ask?
So exactly whose pee is it that we’re all sitting in
avoiding? Who’s responsible for all these porcelain puddles?
It’s you. It’s all you Toilet Hoverers.
You’re trying to avoid the pee created by all the other
women trying to avoid the pee of all the other women trying to avoid the pee… in a weird,
self-perpetuating Obsessive Compulsive cycle of puddle creation that would make Howard Hughes
proud (and revolted).
So here’s the deal, on behalf of myself and all other Butt
Planters. If you Bowl Hoverers and Lavatory Levitators promise to plant your
butt cheeks firmly down on the seat as it was designed, there will be no more
pee puddles.
If you need to develop your upper thigh strength, go to the
gym.
(And use the Public Toilets there. I guarantee I’ll never sit
in your pee there).
If you don’t honour your part of this deal, I promise I will
blog about my theories around why I often find the seat on the toilets in the
Ladies Lav up, rather than down.
Think about it.
Don’t make me go there.
Are you a Lavatory Levitator, or Butt Planter?
