toilet habits

Okay, so here’s something my stateside readers might not be aware of: In Germany (and in many other European countries) it’s customary (and expected) for one to pay 30-50 Eurocents when using a public toilet. Why? I don’t know. I guess the cleaning people don’t get paid enough.

Anyway, today I paid 50 Eurocents to use the toilet at the Dresden Hauptbahnhof ( => "main train station"; approximate pronunciation: HOWPT-baahhhn-hoaf; not “hop-bon-hoff,” please). Now sometimes, there will be an unmanned “donation plate” situated outside the public restroom so that customers can give their 30 or 50 Eurocents; honor system, you see. But the restrooms at the Dresden HOWPT-baahhhn-hoaf are barred by this walk-through thingy that won’t let you in until you’ve deposited your 50 Eurocents. That’s fine with me. I’ve been paying to pee over here my whole life; I’m used to it; no big deal.

However, here’s the kicker: When I pay to use the toilet, I kind of expect it to be clean. I don’t think that’s an unrealistic expectation; it’s one of those unwritten-rule-contract things. What I do *not* expect is to have to wipe urine off the toilet seat before I do my business. Personally, I think that’s kind of ridiculous.

Actually, though, the point of my complaint is not to gripe about the uncleanliness of the toilets. That was just a lead-in to the main thing that perplexes me, namely:

How in the world does urine end up on the toilet seat in a women’s restroom?

I mean, really, girls. Does it make sense? We don’t stand up to pee; we sit. Or at least squat. With a hole as big as a toilet bowl, there’s no need for aiming when you’re in that position, so no one can claim to have aimed and missed. There’s nowhere else for it to go except down. So how do some of you manage to make it go up and all over the toilet seat? And not only on the sides, but also on the back?

This is a mystery to me. I can think of only two possible explanations:

(a) You don’t want to sit on the toilet seat because you’ve observed, as have I, that some women manage to miss the approximately 2-foot-square opening of the toilet bowl and have done their business all over the seat; hence, you solve your problem by refusing to touch flesh to the seat; and you squat over it instead. And somehow manage to miss the aforementioned 2-foot-square opening, thereby making your own addition to the general mess.

BUT! SOLUTION: Quit trying to squat. Wipe off the seat, line it with multiple layers of toilet paper, and get on about your business. For crying out loud.

(b) (We’re still on possible explanations, in case you’ve forgotten.) Some of you are rebels with a bizarre sense of humor and the antisocial desire to create more unnecessary work for other people. So you do actually stand up to pee: on the toilet lid, aiming in the general direction of that ever-popular 2-foot-square opening, missing said opening in grand fashion, and making your own addition to the general mess.

BUT! SOLUTION: Stop doing that. Get therapy.

Final thoughts:

If, by some defiant paradox of natural laws, you have ACCIDENTALLY achieved the backward and upward flow of urine instead of the outward and down, can you not look at the toilet as you’re reassembling your clothing ensemble, see that you’ve made a mess, and clean up after yourself???

Come on, ladies.

Sheesh.