Saturday, January 06, 2007
Men's Restrooms and the Downfall of the American Male
The reason -- to this careful observer -- why women will always finish ahead of men, is found at the nearest bathroom urinal. Regular readers will know that I often bemoan the fact that -- claims of "glass ceilings" or not -- women comprehensively run the culture. I attest -- and let me also point out that I'm really not trying to be funny here -- that the answer, the reason for this great chasm in ability between the sexes, has to do with a dirty little secret men encounter nearly every time we take a leak in a public urinal.
For the women who don't know what I'm talking about, I will explain. It is my wild guess that eight of ten times a man relieves himself in a public urinal, he encounters -- just inches in front of his face -- another man's snot. Yes, there is a large (I want to call it a 'subset', but it's really more like a...) faction of men who unload their nostrils right on the wall in front of them while taking a leak.
I'm not going to go into the action itself. I don't really have an issue with that. It's a restroom -- that's probably the best place for making some space in the sniffer. It's (obviously) the placement of this deposit that irks me. And one finds it everywhere.
It could be a brand new bathroom in a four-star hotel. It could be a noxious port-o-let. It doesn't matter: the age, upkeep, size, and makeup of the bathroom can neither prevent or encourage this behavior.
This leads me to the following conclusions, not to mention a deep embarrassment and shame for my own pathetic kind:
1.) It's gross. This is a given. More importantly...
2.) This is a mind-bogglingly lazy act. OK. You're gonna clean some house in the shnozz. Fine. THEN JUST FLICK THE FUCKING MUCOUS IN THE URINAL IN FRONT OF YOU, YOU SAP! Why smear it on the wall? It's like a dog pissing on every tree to mark land.
3.) Given the percentage of snot per urinal, a great number of us are utterly lazy and disgusting people.
The great assumption here is that women do not encounter such childish laziness on such a regular basis. Maybe I'm wrong -- I hope I am. But my level of instinctively built-in esteem for the other sex leads me to believe this is a fair assumption.
How can we compete, when we remain at a 9-year-old's maturity level when it comes to life's simplest function? They are getting law degrees, curing cancer, and running for congress. We're smearing snot on the tile above the urinal. It's no surprise that we're headed for what? -- careers in low-level "service" jobs. Where we'll probably have to clean the restrooms.
For the women who don't know what I'm talking about, I will explain. It is my wild guess that eight of ten times a man relieves himself in a public urinal, he encounters -- just inches in front of his face -- another man's snot. Yes, there is a large (I want to call it a 'subset', but it's really more like a...) faction of men who unload their nostrils right on the wall in front of them while taking a leak.
I'm not going to go into the action itself. I don't really have an issue with that. It's a restroom -- that's probably the best place for making some space in the sniffer. It's (obviously) the placement of this deposit that irks me. And one finds it everywhere.
It could be a brand new bathroom in a four-star hotel. It could be a noxious port-o-let. It doesn't matter: the age, upkeep, size, and makeup of the bathroom can neither prevent or encourage this behavior.
This leads me to the following conclusions, not to mention a deep embarrassment and shame for my own pathetic kind:
1.) It's gross. This is a given. More importantly...
2.) This is a mind-bogglingly lazy act. OK. You're gonna clean some house in the shnozz. Fine. THEN JUST FLICK THE FUCKING MUCOUS IN THE URINAL IN FRONT OF YOU, YOU SAP! Why smear it on the wall? It's like a dog pissing on every tree to mark land.
3.) Given the percentage of snot per urinal, a great number of us are utterly lazy and disgusting people.
The great assumption here is that women do not encounter such childish laziness on such a regular basis. Maybe I'm wrong -- I hope I am. But my level of instinctively built-in esteem for the other sex leads me to believe this is a fair assumption.
How can we compete, when we remain at a 9-year-old's maturity level when it comes to life's simplest function? They are getting law degrees, curing cancer, and running for congress. We're smearing snot on the tile above the urinal. It's no surprise that we're headed for what? -- careers in low-level "service" jobs. Where we'll probably have to clean the restrooms.
