Stewart: Urinal etique needs a little tightening
Just because you’re a man doesn’t mean you have to distance yourself from others in the john.
By Ross Stewart (Contact)
Thursday, October 18th, 2007
Everyone, I have an announcement to make. I, Ross Stewart, have a penis. I’ve had it for 20 years. It’s a lot like carrying around a calculator, except it doesn’t do math, other than the number one.
I’ve been noticing something as of late though. No, nothing striking a resemblance to testicular cancer, but that men at this college are unnerved by urinating next to one another. Why can’t guys use urinals right next to each other? There is an unspoken rule of sorts, a man law if you will, about skipping over one urinal to make things more comfortable for everyone, but honestly, we’re all adults here. We should be able to handle this by now.
Why am I upset about this? It’s not because I feel some sort of insecurity, I don’t pee like boys of a young age often do—pants to the ankles, shirt to the chin. I’m not concerned about the awkward conversation. “Hey, nice penis. How’s that working for you?”
The reason it bothers me is that every time a man feels uncomfortable urinating next to another man, he inadvertently skips over using a urinal and uses a stall instead. Men pee standing up, so he usually urinates all over the seat. My bringing up how long I’ve had a penis in the beginning of this column has a point; I can aim. All of us by this age should be able to do the same.
So you can understand why I’m so bent out of shape about men being timid to use a urinal. When I enter a bathroom to use a stall for what it was designed for and have to wait for a guy who’s just peeing standing up, I get a little irritated. But when I go to use that stall after him and he has urinated all over the seat, I usually exit the stall and say, “Hey man, thanks!”
To men who pee all over the seat, imagine this happening. I follow you back to your car in an air of mirth.
Me: “Oh, nice car.”
You: “Thanks.”
Me: (Peeing on your car seat) “Go ahead sit down, sit please; I’m just, you know, ‘being me.’”
It’s going to happen one of these days.
The best solution I can come up with to avoid fines and jail time for both urinating in public and assault with urine is that the University take some of what we each pay in student fees and install some dividers between the urinals. Or you know, we could all just grow up a little bit.
Oh I forgot, if I haven’t said penis enough in this column yet: penis, penis, penis and penis.
Stewart is a Wichita junior in journalism.
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someone from wichita fantasizes about peeing on the seat of a stranger's car; how unsuprising
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