Friday, December 10, 2004

the three people you meet in the bathroom

Let's be honest. There are three kinds of women in this world: Sitters, Squatters, and Seat Cover Nazi's. Most women fall pretty clearly into one of these categories along the germaphobe spectrum when it comes to using public restrooms. (Surely there is a similar breakdown for men but as I am not privy to the goings on in the men's bathroom, urinal and male toilet stall etiquette are beyond my realm of expertise.)

Well, I feel compelled to confess that, for the most part, I am...(gasp)...a Sitter. A straight up, bare-flesh-to-public-toilet sitter. I know, I know...not the most popular option of the three but I assure you, I choose my toilets wisely. For example, at my office the bathrooms are extremely clean and as I work at a church, I feel pretty confident that I run a low risk of contracting a horrible disease from my fellow church staff by sitting directly on the office toilets a couple times a day. If I use the bathroom at a reputable place of business whose facilities appear up to code and my own cleanliness standards, I'm inclined to do the same. Maybe I'm naive, but I'm completely fine with this.

But I promise I'm not completely disgusting. Clearly if I have no choice but to use the restroom in a questionable facility, I take the necessary precautions. And clearly, the "necessary precautions" I am referring to are scooching down the germaphobe spectrum to the Squatter designation and not in the direction of my nemesis, the Seat Cover Nazi.

I don't know what you Seat Cover Nazi's think that thinner-than-air piece of porous tissue is actually protecting you from but let me be the first to shout it from the blogging rooftops...you morons are kidding yourselves. Not to mention completely wasting your time unfurling those "perforated" buggers and getting them to balance on the seat just right so that the center strip doesn't drown and pull the whole thing under with it in a Titanic-like disaster. You might as well be sitting on pantyhose so I say, SUCK IT UP, PRINCESS! and take a good, old fashioned skin-to-plastic seat on the throne. If you're so concerned about being hygienic, then you should eliminate contact all together. Save a tree, give your thighs a work out, and squat.

Now I'll admit that I've used a seat cover a time or two. I'm not proud of this but I've walked into a bathroom with someone I didn't know very well and heard them wrestling with one of those paper demons and didn't want them to think I was a disgusting person so I played along. But I will not fall prey to that trickery again. No, no. I will stand by my word...

Sit, squat, or go home.

Posted by Poka Bean at 3:26 PM

1 Comments

  1. Blogger Emily posted at 8:21 AM  
    Um.... issues much?

    I'll admit to sitting. But I also thing that you are ridiculously misguided in your seat cover judgementalism.

    Said tissue is coated in wax. Wax, people. Liquid cannot pentrate it.

    But let's all just get on board with the real purpose of the toilet seat cover -- it's a mini white flag, of sorts. It's a signal. If you go into, say, your office bathroom dying because you've just drank the largest cup of coffee known to Starbuck-kind, you need some privacy. But lo, there is someone else in there. So you need to buy yourself some time. The gentle rustling of the toilet seat cover is an audible message of -- hurry up and get out of here, I need the place to myself.

    As women we need to get on board with the subtelty of bathroom communication.

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