For a while, I was living with my girlfriend and her daughter. I was the only man in the house. Even the dog was female. Now, If I dared to leave the toilet seat up even once, I was told in no uncertain terms that this is unacceptable behaviour. Being the meek and mild guy that I am, I take the admonishment move on.
I feel I can trust you guys, so I ask you: Is leaving the toilet seat up really a big deal? Why can’t you ladies just put it down before you do your business? Come on, it’s 2003, equal rights for man and woman alike! You don’t ever hear us men complaining that you leave the toilet seat down, do you? No, we wouldn’t dare!
Toilet seat AND lid should both be lowered before flushing so that no nasty bugs escape in the spray.
And speaking as a lady who has been the victim of toilet seats left up - Yes it is a big deal. Image its 3am you are barely awake and stagger out of bed to pee only to almost fall into the bowl because some git left the seat up.
Well, I never leave the seat up, I just got into the habit of putting it down years ago. I gotta say though that leechbabe’s complaint about falling in the toilet has got to be the dumbest excuse I’ve ever heard. The really funny part is that it’s the same excure that every woman I’ve ever talked to about this uses. I’ve gone to the bathroom many, many times in my life late at night and not once have I not checked before I sat down. I mean, come on, how dumb is it to sit down without looking first? You do it everywhere else, why not on the one place where you might get wet? Just curious, don’t hurt me.
Sorry, leechbabe, no offence meant. You just happened to be the first to use the excuse. One of my pet peves, I guess. For the record, I agree with you, seat and lid should both be down, for the reason you stated. No other reason is necessary.
It is a dumb thing to do Nurobath but it only ever happens to me when I use the toilet in the middle of the night. My brain just isn’t switch to the ON position at that time. As I am now 6 months pregnant I’m getting up to pee a whole lot more than I’d like to in the middle of the night and the bowl is just that little bit wider than my rear.
From The Master “Does flushing the toilet cause dirty water to be spewed around the bathroom?”
It’s just not right Nurobath. Have you ever closely looked at a toilet with the seat left up? By design it’s simply not supposed to be left in the up position. Both the seat and lid should be down unless you’re using it.
And leechbabe’s comment about sitting on the cold porcelain is a valid one. The OP indicated the entire household was female. With no men in the house, I’m sure they never had to check before they sat down before Nurobath moved in.
Granted they maybe should check but it’s a nasty revelation when you don’t. Sitting on cold man-dribbles is just gross.
If you have cats-we finally got my dad to start closing the lid-he hasn’t left the seat up since the time I fell in when I was three-when we got Buffy and Gypsy. We found out Buffy liked to play in the toilet.
Re: “cold man-dribbles” (what a charming expression!)… I do take care not to sprinkle the rim when I pee, so she can’t use that as an excuse. Also, when I go in the middle of the night, I always check what I’m doing before I let rip. If I can’t see clearly then I turn the light on. Can’t the ladies apply the same logical reasoning?
Um, I stated very clearly in my previous post that I always put the seat down (it’s the first sentence) and that I agreed with leechbabe that the seat and lid should be in the closed position when someone was not actually doing their business.
My question is, why wouldn’t you check? Why would you sit anywhere without looking first? That’s just asking for trouble IMO.
hehe, cold man-dribbles…I like that.
There’s another good reason to keep it closed, little kids and animals. You don’t wan’t little Billy drinking outta the toilet with Rover do ya?
Until I read Cecil’s column on fecal aerosol, it didn’t matter what was up or down in our house. Now the lid (and hence the seat) is always down.
I’ve never understood why it’s such a big deal to some women. Just doesn’t bother me. I’ve never sat on a toilet without looking first, either. I can’t understand (apart from the aerosol issue) why down should trump up either. It’s just as much hassle to put it up as it is to put it down… none. JMHO
In fact, you can argue that it is easier to put it down, because you can use your foot to tip it and let if fall by itself. For us men, however, we have to reach down and pick it up with our hand, before we can syphon the python.
Our household is one female parent and one male child…cold male-child dribbles on the FEET in the middle of the night is something I can live without…FOREVER! If he could aim straight I would never whinge about the toilet seat again!
One more thing to consider - if the seat is up, then I have to touch it to get it down again. Yuck. Whether it’s a conductor of germs or not, that’s my main beef with the toilet seat being left up.
My pristine foot tip?!
That still counts as ‘touching’ as far as I’m concerned. If you’re ok with it, you can use your own foot tip to put the seat up or down too.
I’d like to presume that your bum hasn’t been freshly autoclaved, which means the next male person in your household will have to touch the seat to put it up. If touching a toilet seat is that big of a deal, methinks some serious hygiene issues are happening. :eek:
My roommate’s a guy. He leaves the toilet seat up all the time, and I leave it down all the time. I could bitch at him for leaving it up, just as he could bitch at me about leaving it down. But it’s never been a problem, and we’ve never had to talk about it. It was simply an unspoken agreement that when you go to the bathroom, you put the toilet seat however way you need it. Leave it however you want it.
Now, I have fallen into the toilet before, and while I can’t say it was fun, or that it didn’t make me annoyed with the person who left it up, I can say that it taught me to look before I peed. I can also say that I didn’t blame it on someone else. This wasn’t my roommate’s fault, after all; I was the one who stumbled in and sat down without looking.
Whenever I go out and use a bathroom that’s not my own, I look at the seat and make sure it’s fit for sitting upon. In my experience most women do, too. Why does this stop simply because you’re in your own home? If you live with someone else, things like the toilet seat being left how you don’t want it will happen. You’re just going to have to learn to adjust.
Women who do this (and men too, for that matter) just strike me as lazy and selfish when they complain about this. The attitude seems to be: I want you to leave it the way I need it to be. I don’t want to have to touch it myself. Come on. It isn’t hard to get into the habit of putting the seat down before you sit down. It doesn’t take much effort, either. You can grab a wad of toilet paper or Kleenex if you don’t want to touch the seat. Not making an issue out of it preserves domestic tranquility. What’s the problem?
There are two salient facts in our household, and they decided the issue for us: 1) the dog likes to lick us, and 2) he will drink out of the toilet if given the chance.
It’s equal-opportunity here, though. If you want to use the toilet, you’ll have to lift (and lower) either the lid or the seat and the lid.
