Huff Post Pee Break: Stuart Smalley Can't Save His Family From the Tragedy of the Commons
At the Huffington Post, Thomasin "Bint-Al" Franken explores the next frontier of sisterhood:
When I go into a public restroom, and the seat is clean, I'm just going to sit on it. I have never heard of anyone contracting a disease from sitting on a toilet seat. And if I squat, not only am I uncomfortable, but I also become guilty of the very infraction I'm rallying against. I end up peeing all over the seat. Because I am polite, if I sprinkle when I tinkle, I am neat and wipe the seat. This is totally gross, though, because I only squat if there's already someone else's pee on the seat, and now I have to clean up not only my pee, but strangers' pee, too. Ew!
So, if all females just got into this together, agree to sit on a clean seat rather than squat, we'd all be able to pee comfortably. And just think how short the bathroom lines would get without waiting for each woman to stabilize herself in her squat before using the toilet, or getting the gigantic handful of toilet paper together to clean the seat afterwards. This could even save trees!
Godspeed, Thomasin! (Hey, I've got daughters; I know the score!) But in this vale of tears where we can't even prevent lesbian cheerleader romps without a strict restroom-key policy, you're up against an intractable problem: Sure you can always put up an old "If you sprinkle" plaque (and that's a quatrain that should never have died out, damnit!) Or use the innovative technology of that great feminist Kimberly Clark. But those can only persuade the woman who comes after you. You can't sit down because the woman before you didn't sit down. And it's a good bet she couldn't sit because the woman before her didn't sit, and so on. There's just no way to find the Patient Zero of clean-seat-defiling cooties paranoia. Don't you see, Thomasin: It's turtles all the way down!