Many moons ago, Jeff and I were caravaning on the way to Pittsburgh to visit family with my parents, when we all stopped at a rest stop to take care of nature. As my mom and I went to the ladies, I had the random thought that it might be strange for Jeff to go pee with my dad. Seeing as how they all stand up next to each other and such. I mean, I wouldn't want to squat along the side of the road with my mother in law, as much as I love her. So when we got back into the car, I asked him if it was strange. Jeff looked at me like I had asked him if it was strange that birds fly and fish swim. Patiently, Jeff explained to me that, no it isn't strange, and then launched into describing the rules that define male bathroom etiquitte. There are tacit rules that boys learn at some age - personally I think they must teach it when they separate the boys and girls in health class, or maybe it's just part of the DNA in the Y chromosome. All men know it implicitly. There's even a game on the internet - The Urinal Game - where men can test their knowledge.
From that day on, it was as if a whole world had been opened that I never knew existed. There are two kinds of houses - open bathroom doors and closed bathroom doors and my family is firmly in the closed bathroom door camp. As I child, I believed my father slept completely clothed. He would emerge, fully dressed as if from Zeus's forehead. And as a teenager, I mostly tried to not think about my older brother's bathroom habits. From then on out, I lived with women. So when Jeff opened up this door to the secret life of men, I had to find out more: What are urinal cakes? Do men really pee in troughs at ball games? Why didn't the guy that sat next to me at my old job at least try to hide the newspaper he carried out with him every day at 3:30?
Jeff still tries to maintain some of the secrecy... for instance, he won't give me a straight answer about why it takes 45minutes for men to poop. I have several theories, depending on how annoyed I am that day. One is that the mother ship "uploads" her commands via the toilet. My mom and I spend much time debating this concept, but in the end, I've decided that women have missed a huge opportunity here and have ceded the bathroom majority to the men. For a while I considered slipping Jeff an iron pill every day to see if his productivity went up in direct proportion to the decrease in bathroom visitations.
I'm not sure why I'm sharing this on my blog, other than I'm tired of bitching about being pregnant, but Jeff wants me to add this final thought - Ladies talk proudly to each from stall to stall, because men are not allowed to speak.
