The uppers and downers of the bathroom

The toilet seat. Should it be left up or down?

My boyfriend and I have had this discussion several times and it always ends in laughter without a winner. He isn't one who leaves the toilet seat up, but he feels the need to defend those who do.

I realized this past week that I've been privileged to know many men that I'm going to refer to as downers. They are the group of men who leave the seat down out of habit and courtesy. One doesn't realize how wonderful they are until you're around an upper.

My poor father was blessed with all girls. That can put a kink in any upper's regular lifestyle. I can still remember the traumatic experience of falling into the toilet bowl half asleep as a child. My mother said the blood curdling screams in the middle of the night finally persuaded him to become a downer. This means it happened more than once.

In college the majority of my guy friends were downers, but occasionally there was an upper. One of those uppers sabotaged me late one night. As I scrambled to grasp a sink counter or anything to catch myself, I knew the end was close.

This brought up the "well why didn't you turn the light on and check" argument. I'm sure this sounds familiar to many readers.

The female side of this argument always revolves around not wanting to be rudely awakened by a blazing light that leaves you momentarily blinded. Time is of the essence when it comes to going, and those are precious seconds wasted while recovering your eyesight.

Out of curiosity I recently asked, do guys turn the light on when using the facility at night? To my surprise the answer was "you just shoot until you hear sound." Also interpreted as, if anything gets in the way, use it like sonar to find the proper location of the bowl.

No wonder guys don't want to put the seat down. Can you blame us women for not wanting to touch them either?

Considering many conversations on the subject, I have come to the realization that neither side will win this debate.

That doesn't stop me from thanking and encouraging downers everywhere. You make our world a lot less damp and traumatizing.

Git-r-done. Put-r-down.

Jonda Pingetzer is the Columbia Basin Herald paginator. She's never at a miss to help correct impolite behavior when needed.