In a world where either everything is going along swimmingly, or everything is going down the drain, I am becoming increasingly concerned about women’s obsession with pee stains. Pee Stains.
Certainly this is a fearsome subject, one that other male friends and I have carefully examined in a variety of men’s gatherings, e.g. breakfast meetings, fishing trips, March Madness and round table discussion groups.
There are two predominate sentiments: “I am afraid in my 70s I’ll wind up lying alone in a seedy Tenderloin hotel drooling and insensate in my pee stained underwear awaiting my next stroke.”
And, “My mate and I fought about pee stains again this morning and she’s threatening to rent one of those plastic outdoor privies.”
The subject becomes an issue in my home in relation to my wife monitoring our upstairs bathroom floor. At least twice a week when I am leaning against the wall trying to hook a sock over one of my distant feet or plundering through drawers searching for another Ibuprofen, she will remark, “Aren’t you going to do anything about those pee stains . . . the ones around the base of the toilet?”
I go into the bathroom and look.
“I cleaned the bowl,” she clarifies.
I nod. Yes. Snow white. Gleaming. I hate to think of the next time I will use it since it currently seems clean enough to eat on.
“See?” she says, patiently.
I nod. I do not see.
“Right there around the base.”
I nod.
“Will you get on that?”
I nod.
She leaves, slightly irritated. You can’t get good help these days.
I get down on my hands and knees and stick my head down below the rim of the toilet. A couple of hairs. To be expected, I believe. Some flotsam and dust bunnies back toward the wall between the shower stall and the toilet water-feed line. Assembled particles around the Comet and the toilet brush canister. And lo, there, right up against the bead of white silicone that seats and seals the toilet is a pale lemon blemish the size of a postage stamp. But I am butt in the air, head to the tile, wedged between the shower and toilet, and I can barely make it out.
How has my wife seen it in the first place and how did the smudge trigger an ongoing alarm? To me, it is akin to driving along Interstate 5 while my passenger says, “Did you see that gum wrapper between the green sign and the cattle fence? Let’s stop and pick it up.”
Yes, in an ideal world there should not be a gum wrapper on our roadways or a smudge anywhere in the bathroom. The high roof gutters should not be clogged with a viscous gradoo of spruce needles and oak sludge. The oven should not have volcanic lumps sitting in the bottom by the heating coil. The microwave should not have brightly colored christmasy specks all over the roof of its heating compartment. The vegetable bin should not have inert furry salamanders lurking under last year’s carrots. The remnants of every lunch eaten during travel should not be shriveling and fermenting under my car seats.
Does it matter that for many years, drinking one’s own urine was a health cure? Does it matter that when water supplies dwindle, one’s own urine is prized? Does it matter that urine can be a sterile treatment for wounds? Does it matter that holy men routinely drink their own urine as part of their personal purification process? Does it matter that Japanese devotees bathe in urine to enhance their skin quality? Does it matter that urine is universally respected as a treatment for everything from infertility to immune disorders? Apparently not.
Now I love my wife substantially more than I love my urine, or her urine, for that matter. But I believe her priority regarding the eradication of urine traces is misplaced. She puts it at No. 4 on life’s platform, right after eating, sleeping and exercise; in other words, in the arena of proper waste elimination. I, myself, do not include the wiping of urine spots in the category of proper waste elimination. I include it in the category of obtuse and picayune time-spenders to be postponed until after the flood/fire/earthquake. Or, put another way, I have it as the thirty-nine thousandth, seven hundred and twelfth priority for daily living.
This is clearly a difference of opinion.
However, respecting obvious gender differences, I will do the following:
- Endeavor to never miss. (I will not sit and pee at this stage of my life for the concomitant psychotherapy would be prohibitively expensive.)
- Endeavor to notice, bend, and clean the floor when I miss.
- Endeavor to cheerfully respond by slithering around and under the toilet lip when she so requests.
- Endeavor to demonstrate my cheerfully open mind and sunny disposition during the enactment of my duties.
Respectfully submitted,
Your fellow toiletician, C. Burl P.
Charlie Price lives with his wife Joanie in their Redding and Dunsmuir homes. He’s a business coach, consultant, writer and author of “Dead Connection” and “Lizard People.”
