Mondo Bizarro, Number 11

Subject: Mondo Bizarro, Number 11
From: MT
Date: Jan 27 2006 4:26PM

Toilet Talk

Do you know what's wrong with this country? Americans are incapable of finding detached and scientific answers to important questions. Just the other day there was an egregious example of this on the Fray [fray.slate.com] where Montfort complained that toilet seats are not left in the "up" position.

It must be stated at the outset that for the editorial staff of Mondo Bizarro this is a non-issue. Since MT owns the house, if she decides the seat will stay down, it will stay down. The Pasha is a male but he is also a bird which means (1) his "Number 1" and "Number 2" are combined in one neat package that tumbles out of his cloaca (also known as the "bomb-bay"); (2) he leaves his calling cards anyplace and everyplace; and (3) he never pays any attention to what MT says anyway. So Mondo Bizarro is in the unique position of taking a dispassionate stance in this matter.

First of all it must be stressed that we are discussing whether the toilet seat should be up or down, not the toilet cover. That the toilet cover should always be up ought to be obvious to the vast majority of people, and as for the rest, well, they are the sorts who put pink fuzzy covers on said toilet covers and hang pictures of tarsier-eyed children in their living rooms.

Now.

Let ttot be total time, tup be the time the seat is up, and tdown be the time the seat is down. It is intuitive that:

[1] ttot = tup + tdown

Let tmale be the time men spend on the toilet doing their business, and tfemale be the time women spend on the toilet. It is also intuitive that:

[2] ttot = tmale + tfemale

The question of the ratio of the sexes must be addressed. For our purposes we will assume that the ratio is 1:1. From this we can extrapolate:

[3] (½) ttot = tmale = tfemale

I am aware that there are objections to this, but keep in mind we are discussing quality time on the pot, not time in the bathroom as a whole.

Where other commentators make a glaring error is in assuming:

tmale = tup

They forget that another ratio must be addressed, namely that of Number 1 and Number 2. For both sexes we will assume that this ratio is also 1:1 --- while there are more trips to the bathroom for Number 1, the extrication of Number 2 takes longer and this makes the ratio even. So letting tNumber 1 be the time it takes to extract Number 1, and tNumber 2 the time it takes to extract Number 2 we see that not only

[4] ttot = tNumber 1 + tNumber 2

but also that

[5] (½) ttot = tNumber 1 = tNumber 2

Now we come to the crux of the matter. For the extrication of both Number 1 and Number 2, women will sit. (If it's a case of a disgustingly dirty toilet, they will swathe the seat in miles of toilet paper.) So using Equation 3, we can see that the seat must be down 50% of the time.

For the extrication of Number 1, anectodal evidence says that men will stand. But what of the extrication of Number 2? Do they stand there and let their turds fall into the water like so many depth charges? George Orwell provides the answer to this. In his novel 1984 he writes:


"He plumped his large posteriors onto the lavatory pan.... Parsons used the lavatory loudly and abundantly."

It would appear then that while men stand for the extrication of Number 1, they sit for the extrication of Number 2 just as women do. Using both Equations 3 and 5, we can see that the seat must be up 25% of the time, and down for another 25%. Therefore

tdown = 50% + 25% = 75%

and

tup = 25%

so that

ttot = 25% + 75% = 100%

Conclusion: Since the toilet seat must be down for 75% of the time, it should be left down after use.

Special thanks to Montfort for inspirin... OH ICK, PASHA! YOU DIRTY BIRD, RIGHT BETWEEN THE KEYS!

MT

http://fray.slate.com/?id=3936&m=16751167