Of men and toilet seats

Chris Terblanche – The bathroom in the main bedroom of our house has a rather peculiarly shaped toilet.  The bowl is elongated and oval in shape, as if it was designed for two people to sit on it at the same time; like two people on a motorcycle. Unali and I have never tried that though, and I cannot imagine a set of circumstances where one would, but there it is. As luck would have it, shortly after we moved in, the plastic seat broke. I spent hours in bathroom stores and hardware stores looking for a seat that would fit, but none existed. It appears as if the idea of two people going at the same time never really caught on. Since the toilet is built into the floor and the floor is tiled, replacing it meant that we would have to retile the bathroom. There is only one thing that I hate more than home improvements and redoing bathrooms, and that is… no actually, there is nothing that I hate more. So we decided to live with the long toilet and to sit directly on the ceramic bowl. 

I was raised to be a real man. This included not showing emotion, participating in contact sports and, of course, standing up when peeing. I would never ever pee sitting down, because that is what girls did. Also I was afraid. I am pretty sure that I was told as a boy that a lizard with very sharp teeth lived in the bowl, just waiting to bite it off if a boy ever dared to sit down for anything other than a number two. The problem with this seatless bowl now is of course that, as a real man, my aim is not very specific. It never had to be. But it would be very rude and very selfish of me to leave even a tiny little drop on the bowl, because Unali is, after all, a girl. It is not too much hassle to clean the bowl of course, but there are those sessions in the middle of the night when one does not switch on the lights or even open your eyes. There was a genuine possibility that I would forget to wipe or that I would miss a spot. So I started sitting down…

Nothing happened. It has been weeks now and I have not developed a sudden interest in shopping, my beard has not stopped growing and I have not felt any desire to try on any of Unali’s clothes. And my junk is still intact. I soon realised that being a man had nothing to do with bathroom behaviour. It had everything to do with why I chose to do it. I did it for the woman I love. The true measure of a man is how he treats those he loves and, to sit down for Unali’s comfort, is a ridiculously small sacrifice to make bearing in mind what she does for those she loves. I am eternally grateful to be counted among them. She has also taught me how to show emotion and that it is okay to be too old for contact sports. She has made me a more real man than I had ever been before.

Now, every time I sit down on that cold ceramic bowl, I am reminded what she means to me; and it makes me grateful and content. But I remain nervous of that lizard…