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All that glitters is not urine
By Charlie Price
In a world where either everything is going along swimmingly, or everything is going down the drain, I am becoming increasingly concerned about women’s obsession with pee stains. Pee Stains.
Certainly this is a fearsome subject, one that other male friends and I have carefully examined in a variety of men’s gatherings, e.g. breakfast meetings, fishing trips, March Madness and round table discussion groups.
There are two predominate sentiments: “I am afraid in my 70s I’ll wind up lying alone in a seedy Tenderloin hotel drooling and insensate in my pee stained underwear awaiting my next stroke.”
And, “My mate and I fought about pee stains again this morning and she’s threatening to rent one of those plastic outdoor privies.”
The subject becomes an issue in my home in relation to my wife monitoring our upstairs bathroom floor. At least twice a week when I am leaning against the wall trying to hook a sock over one of my distant feet or plundering through drawers searching for another Ibuprofen, she will remark, “Aren’t you going to do anything about those pee stains . . . the ones around the base of the toilet?”
I go into the bathroom and look.
“I cleaned the bowl,” she clarifies.
I nod. Yes. Snow white. Gleaming. I hate to think of the next time I will use it since it currently seems clean enough to eat on.
“See?” she says, patiently.
I nod. I do not see.
“Right there around the base.”
I nod.
“Will you get on that?”
I nod.
She leaves, slightly irritated. You can’t get good help these days.
I get down on my hands and knees and stick my head down below the rim of the toilet. A couple of hairs. To be expected, I believe. Some flotsam and dust bunnies back toward the wall between the shower stall and the toilet water-feed line. Assembled particles around the Comet and the toilet brush canister. And lo, there, right up against the bead of white silicone that seats and seals the toilet is a pale lemon blemish the size of a postage stamp. But I am butt in the air, head to the tile, wedged between the shower and toilet, and I can barely make it out.
How has my wife seen it in the first place and how did the smudge trigger an ongoing alarm? To me, it is akin to driving along Interstate 5 while my passenger says, “Did you see that gum wrapper between the green sign and the cattle fence? Let’s stop and pick it up.”
Yes, in an ideal world there should not be a gum wrapper on our roadways or a smudge anywhere in the bathroom. The high roof gutters should not be clogged with a viscous gradoo of spruce needles and oak sludge. The oven should not have volcanic lumps sitting in the bottom by the heating coil. The microwave should not have brightly colored christmasy specks all over the roof of its heating compartment. The vegetable bin should not have inert furry salamanders lurking under last year’s carrots. The remnants of every lunch eaten during travel should not be shriveling and fermenting under my car seats.
Does it matter that for many years, drinking one’s own urine was a health cure? Does it matter that when water supplies dwindle, one’s own urine is prized? Does it matter that urine can be a sterile treatment for wounds? Does it matter that holy men routinely drink their own urine as part of their personal purification process? Does it matter that Japanese devotees bathe in urine to enhance their skin quality? Does it matter that urine is universally respected as a treatment for everything from infertility to immune disorders? Apparently not.
Now I love my wife substantially more than I love my urine, or her urine, for that matter. But I believe her priority regarding the eradication of urine traces is misplaced. She puts it at No. 4 on life’s platform, right after eating, sleeping and exercise; in other words, in the arena of proper waste elimination. I, myself, do not include the wiping of urine spots in the category of proper waste elimination. I include it in the category of obtuse and picayune time-spenders to be postponed until after the flood/fire/earthquake. Or, put another way, I have it as the thirty-nine thousandth, seven hundred and twelfth priority for daily living.
This is clearly a difference of opinion.
However, respecting obvious gender differences, I will do the following:
- Endeavor to never miss. (I will not sit and pee at this stage of my life for the concomitant psychotherapy would be prohibitively expensive.)
- Endeavor to notice, bend, and clean the floor when I miss.
- Endeavor to cheerfully respond by slithering around and under the toilet lip when she so requests.
- Endeavor to demonstrate my cheerfully open mind and sunny disposition during the enactment of my duties.
Respectfully submitted,
Your fellow toiletician, C. Burl P.
Charlie Price divides his time betweem two homes in Redding and Dunsmuir. He’s a business coach, consultant, writer and author of “Dead Connection” and “Lizard People.”
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Funny, Charlie. Hysterical. And spot on.
Did your lovely bride consent to this revelation of a household moment? Because there are two things my cabana boy is strongly discouraged from writing about, and one is the bathroom. (The other is chicken shoes. Why do you ask?)
Everything else is fair game.
What!?! No discussion on the always important issue of the toilet seat. What position should it acutally assume? Up or down? Seat cover completely down? This is important stuff!
In my flow of life, the seat cover is always down! After all… it keeps the dogs from drinking from the fancy porcelin bowl.
Everyone have a fun day with this one!
Thanks man!
I am immediately reminded that my daughters & I need to get out and do some thorough clean-up on the road we adopted north of town. (Sans all the sky leakage, of course.) What the heck, Charlie! We’ve had people on the moon, women in space and men in Shasta County can even cry now: why not have some streaming thoughts on our busy bowl… Ahhhhhhhhh… God, you cracked me up today!! Thanx again for the day-brightener!!!!
[ROFLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
Alan
Hey, who is this crazy guy? He’s hilarious! And, oh my gosh, did he really use the “Pee” word!! Good heavens
Well, I have to tell you that I talk to young mothers all the time who are raising boys…..these smart ladies are teaching their boys to sit when they pee!!! It can be done. Very smart moms - who in the world ever figured men should stand to pee - and splatter - all over the freshly cleaned toilet and mopped floor. So disgusting.
I only wish I’d have thought of it.
Lets not get into the psychological psycobabble about this.. Fun thread, isn’t it?
“Oh my Gosh” exclaimed a maid, “what is this?”
when she slipped in some Trollaborg’s piss.
“If you stand when you pee,
try sitting and you’ll see,
how much easier it is not to miss.”
Thanks for the humor, Charlie. Here is one I always thought was more creative than cheerios in the bowl to teach little boys to aim……
Pictures of a urinal that says they are in the airport in Amsterdam.
There is what appears to be a house fly in the bowl of the urinal.
The eRumor says the fly is there on purpose and has reduced spillage by 80 percent.
Pictures of a urinal that says they are in the airport in Amsterdam.
see the picture and details at:
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/u/urinal.htm
You know, Charlie, you have relieved my mind on this topic, pun intended. I thought it was some sort of passive -aggressive and very conscious ignoring of the obvious icky and nasty and glaring puddle(s)!
You (as in all males) piddle on the floor…bad. You don’t clean it up…badder. You don’t clean it up when asked…baddest. Three days go by since you were asked to clean it………..aaahhh, he thinks it is my “place” to clean up nasties and he is above all that mundane stuff and he has no respect for me and, and……………..!?
Well, now I know, you don’t see it…………….I don’t understand why you don’t see it. I guess the male vision system doesn’t see the same way as a female’s does. That miniscule piddle puddle is a big glaring, neon yellow and very smelly lake to us. It is giving off vibrations that apparently males can’t perceive, Like those dog whistles that people can’t hear. To us it is an ooga, ooga sound with flashing red and yellow lights.
I have an idea to help with this large and important pee problem. There should be a magic marker that draws a camo line, guys love camo and we could circle the messes and it should be washable, so when the guy cleans up the puddle, the camo line disappears. The magic camo marker would be used to circle pee puddles and whiskers in the bathroom sink and toenail clippings on the sofa and greasy tools on the kitchen table and socks on the living room floor and mustard on the front of the fridge and BBQ sauce all over the inside of the microwave and sheet rock dust on the floor from the light switch repair and dog poo from the back doormat and………I could go on and on, but I won’t. I need to save my energy to clean up after two males, that can’t see. : - ]
It seems that one of the ways guys validate their masculinity is by peeing standing up. So why not take it to the next level and GO OUTSIDE. You’ll be able to mark your territory too. Be sure to hit all of the boundary lines.
Oof. Charlie, you nailed it. I too have been busted for missing. And as to Chris’s “Up/Down” query, I insist that covers are down. It is a Fung Shui thing; keeps the good spirits in the house.