The Lid

If you are reading this it is because you learned from my book, How to Remodel a Man, that I would be posting this to my web site. If you stumbled on it by accident and did NOT yet read my book, then stop! Quit reading! Go back!

This is a segment that I wrote about the toilet lid, which has two positions: up, which men prefer because they don't want to have to go through the really huge effort of raising the thing, and down, which women often insist upon (unless the toilet is being used, obviously.) If you have read my book, you know what happened when I turned this piece into my editor, and if you haven't read my book, stop! Quit reading! This is your last chance!

—W. Bruce Cameron

The Lid: An Issue Of Wide Ranging, Earth Shattering Implications That Men Actually Don't Care About

Of all the problems facing humanity, probably the most contentious and controversial concerns the toilet lid, which as far as I am concerned has two positions: (a) up, and (b) incorrect. (Whenever I hear a Miss America contestant state that she plans to devote her life to world peace, I wonder when one of them will have the guts to say she's going to tackle the real issue.)

An open toilet allows evaporation to naturally keep the humidity level in balance throughout the house. It saves the man the time and effort of having to raise the lid, which takes two seconds and, when multiplied by five times a day (as a conservative estimate—and this number goes up as men get older) is ten seconds a day, or 60.8 hours a year. If he makes an annual salary of $50,000, that means it costs you $1,462.34 a year to have the toilet lid down all the time.

You can buy a lot of fishing equipment for $1,462.34!

If you multiply that figure by the number of working male adults in America, and then calculate the lost tax revenue on the total annual amount, you realize pretty quickly that if every person took the time to raise and lower the lid every time they used the toilet, our nation would go bankrupt.

It's also a documented fact that while some cats have taught themselves to use a toilet, they have never taught themselves to raise a toilet lid. If you live with a man, you might be able to convince him to get a cat entirely on the basis that if he does, the new pet might wind up teaching itself to pee into the toilet, which men would agree would be worth seeing.

My own cat hasn't thus far shown any interest in learning to use the plumbing, though she has taught herself to urinate in my closet.

As a Changed Man, I can advise you on how to Remodel your Man so as to train him to lower the lid when he is finished, but I have to ask you one last time: do you really want to breathe in all that dry, non-toilet hydrated air desiccating your lungs, while simultaneously blowing nearly 1,500 bucks every year? Are you sure you don't want a cat? I'm just saying…

How to Remodel Your Man to Put The Toilet Lid Down.

This method has the added benefit of enhancing the man's accuracy, which nearly always needs improvement, because he's shooting from a fairly high position with a fairly short hose. (Don't tell him I said that.)

The first step in the program is to toss a couple of Cheerios into the toilet bowl whenever you pass by the bathroom. Cheerios provide men with an irresistible attraction: a target. The little things bob around like the enemy fleet, while the men blast away at them like bomber aircraft. Be encouraging of this little game, no matter how much it worries you that you might be living with a moron. If he starts calling out his score, respond with a "That's good, honey!" or some other supportive comment, and not what you really feel like saying, which is "I'm calling a psychiatrist!" Be wary, though, if he begins talking about "trick shots." Counter this development by chatting with him about the "high cost of wallpaper" so that he'll go back to being satisfied with merely sinking enemy battleships without causing collateral damage to the surrounding shoreline.

You'll know you're ready for the next phase when you see him go into the bathroom, then immediately exit with an impatient look on his face and head to the kitchen to fetch the Cheerios before returning to the lavatory.

The next phase is merely to show your dog what's floating in the toilet: breakfast! Before long, the dog is checking every few minutes to see if there are any more goodies in there.

If it strikes you at this point that there is a remarkable similarity between the brain of your dog and the brain of your man, please keep the observation to yourself. I'm teaching you to Remodel Your Man here and we don't have a lot of time for sarcastic wise cracks.

Finally, hide all of the Cheerios where only you can find the box. If your husband asks for them, say, "Well, I just put some in the toilet. The dog must have eaten them."

Everyone will glare at the dog, who will look guilty but has developed a serious substance abuse problem and cannot possibly stop itself from gulping down Cheerios.

If you've been irritated by your husband leaving the door open while he's urinating, this phase of the operation will cure him of the habit. The dog probably will not understand how the Cheerios come to be in the basin and will therefore feel compelled to run in there and stare whenever anyone is in the bathroom. It is very disconcerting to a man to look down while he is urinating and see a dog's head frantically peering in to see if the process will result in any breakfast cereal.

With no Cheerios, the whole exercise of going to the bathroom becomes depressing and pointless. Men will mope around, drinking less liquid, shooting resentful glances at the dog. It is important to say nothing to the man at all during this phase, because he's wrestling internally with a highly complex solution. When men feel a problem is really difficult, they don't want a woman's input, and will in fact become irritable if she offers a suggestion. The focus of his attention will be diverted from solving the problem to explaining why the woman's solution will not work, and then he'll feel compelled to come up with a different answer, which won't work either. (Though sometimes he may brighten and say, "I know!" and then proceed to tell you his idea, which turns out to sound suspiciously like your idea.)

Eventually, it will occur to the man that in order to keep the dog from eating the enemy fleet, he should try closing the toilet lid! If he mentions this idea to you, ponder it thoughtfully and say, "That just might work, honey. You're so smart, I never would have thought of that!"

Please keep the sarcasm out of your voice when you do this, okay?

Of course, for this to work, you're going to have to spend a lot of money on Cheerios, but since you've already demonstrated your willingness to destroy the American economy over this issue, a few bucks a week on breakfast cereal is a pretty insignificant expenditure.

So hot is this controversy, even those on the same side disagree with each other. To some women, the issue is the seat, and to others, it is the lid. (I think most men are hoping that the two sides will become so focused on each other they'll leave us out of it.)

I regard the seat/lid debate with the same attitude that I focus on the up/down argument-complete apathy. However, my pregnant cousin Jen (who apparently has been going to the bathroom a lot lately) put it rather succinctly, and her opinions guided me in the preparation of this chapter:

"The biggest thing I'm worried about," she told me, "is that I'm going to wind up going to the bathroom in the middle of the night and sitting down in water because my husband has left the seat up. However," she continued, "if I'm too sleepy to check if it is down before I do my business, I know darn good and well that my husband won't be alert enough to check to see if it is up before he does his. And in the middle of the night, his aim isn't exactly dead on, you know? The idea of using the seat after my husband has been in there is even less appealing than sitting on hard porcelain. So I've been trying to get him to always close the lid after each use. It's looks better that way, and when the lid is down, the seat is always down."

If you are looking down here for some sort of reference, forget it. I'm not going to do all your research for you.

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updated 04/09/2008

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