So, I will take a pee and then get to the cleaning which involves wiping the toilet seat and the exposed rim of the toilet clean, using wadded up toilet paper (you have to get the right thickness, obviously, so as not to get anybody else’s urine on your hand—although there is that molecule concept to consider again). Since the toilet seat is up, I take special care to clean its inner rim which may well have received some splashage. Sometimes it is a challenge. Pee that is left on the toilet rim too long tends to coagulate—or as Emeril would say, “it reduces.” I really have to put some elbow grease into these ones—always minding not to touch the sides (maybe I could create an invention that combines toilet technology with the technology from the game "Operation—" any time a critical area of the toilet is actually touched, it buzzes to warn you that you need to do some extensive cleaning). When I finish, I leave the toilet seat up. Yes, my dear sisters, I was always the one who did not courteously lower the toilet seat—one small, passive-aggressive attempt to get back at you for blaming the Jello eating fiasco on me.

As for times when I am plopping a burrito, spelunking, dropping the children off at the pool, floating one, encountering that rare species dumpus majoris, getting something off my chest. . . er. . .ass. . . er. . . intestines, expressing myself excrementally, insert pooping metaphor here, it is a different story. The seat must be dry before I dare sit on it. I assess the situation, wad up an appropriate amount of toilet paper, and run it over any part of the toilet that might come into contact with my skin—and clothes.

The clothes part is important—you must consider that you will be lowering your pants and drawers. I once worked at an auto parts distributing company. We had many retired people who came in to work as delivery drivers. Most of them had such enormous guts that they most likely could not see their Johnsons. Needless to say, that was a pissy bathroom. Pee was all over the place, including the floor. One day, my boss, apparently in the process of taking a dump, got his Gucci leather fanny pack saturated with a mixture of old fat dudes’ pee. I know this because at one of our staff meetings he went off on a twenty minute tirade about how basic a skill it was to hit the inside of the toilet bowl while pissing. It was one of those “God, how can people be so incompetent” speeches that he so regularly gave—only this time about peeing instead of driving, double checking invoices, swerving to avoid hitting old ladies, and so forth. I may owe my toilet tidiness skills to Jack, after all.