Up or Down

Every now and then, some random TV show will have a fight between a man and a woman because the toilet seat was left in an inconvenient position for one of the characters. Everyone immediately recognizes the argument, because it's one of those silly little arguments that pops up all over the place. It's not all that important in the long run, but there is a surprising amount of thought that goes in to this debate (for example, look at how many hits "toilet seat up or down" returns). In my case, however, I deal with a slightly different version of the same argument.

Well, to be fair, it's not really an argument. Despite growing up with both men and women in the house, I can't remember this ever boiling over in to an argument. If a guy found the toilet seat down and he didn't need it that way, he flipped it up and did his business. If a woman found the toilet seat up, she flipped it down and did her business. No one whined, and everyone proved they were capable of operating a toilet seat effectively. So, it has never been an issue. Still, I have a bit of a dilemma on my hands.

I forget where I heard it, but someone explained the whole argument for the down seat as playing the odds. If you're a guy, there are two options, and one of them involves the seat being down; for a woman, both options involve the seat being down. Three of the four options require the seat to be down, so you should optimize for those three options to be easy. Sure, you can argue about how often you stand up versus how often you sit down, but that doesn't really change the math. Even if I only need to sit down one time out of one hundred trips to the restroom, that still means that the seat will need to be down more than 50% of the time. So, the argument goes, if there's a woman in the house, it's mathematically sound to put the seat down.

When I heard it put in those terms, it just made sense. So, I started leaving the seat down. No one forced me to, there weren't any snide remarks, I'm not sure if anyone really noticed, I just figured it made sense. It actually took a little bit of time for me to build up the habit, but eventually it became second nature. And I would have gone on happily employing this habit, had I not stayed home one day.

You see, during the day, the little kids are around. These days, "the little kids" involves more boys than girls, and the lone girl isn't of going-to-the-potty age. Essentially, that means that during the day, we have to optimize the bathroom for two year old boys. They probably could lift the seat if pressed, but it's generally better if they don't have to do any of that. So, during the day, we have to leave the seat up since that makes the most sense for everyone involved.

I think you can see my dilemma. At this point, it's a habit for me to leave the seat down. However, I have to catch myself if there are any kids around; if there are, I have to undo the down seat, and lift it back up. This is not an uncommon occurrence. Habits die hard, and any process that involves checking the time or remembering who is in the house is prone to error (trust me).

The worst part is that no one notices the mental consternation that this can cause me. After all, how could they? All of this happens in the privacy of the bathroom, in the fathoms of my head, so it's not like the world sees my pain. Still, I've resolved to get this right. I figure it'll become second nature in a few months. 

Knowing my luck, we'll have nothing but little girls running around the house by that point.