Unless You Plan to Lick Your Butt...

I just don't get it. What's with the female paranoia of public toilet seats? Well I don't know, maybe it's not just women, but men so rarely have to deal with sitting down in public restrooms that I don't know how things "go down" on that side of the stall. So I will restrict my comments to what I have gleaned from my years of group bathroom trips and various more-than-even-I-wanted-to-know discussions on female bathroom habits.

Prepare yourself for a ghastly confession: I don't always bother with those stupid toilet seat covers. *Gasp, choke* Now don't blame my mother. She taught me the "right" way. As a kid I was even made to execute precautions in all their "toilet paper precariously balanced on the seat" glory when those paper covers weren't available. Then I got to thinking, and I rebelled.

I mean, sometimes I laugh when I look at those frail little things telling me that they've been "Provided by the management for my protection." What protection can they really offer? You know, the ones you have to carefully finesse out of the dispenser to keep from ripping? Assuming there are actually any there? Five tries later, you finally get a mostly cohesive one and lay it down on the seat only to have it get soaked in about five places where unidentified moisture has collected on the seat. Let me tell you the secret to a happy bathroom experience. Just tell yourself it's water. It probably is. I mean, it's almost always pretty clear, right? Otherwise you would have seen it before. And really I think it's more likely that the ancient plumbing in the back leaks a little or that there was a tiny splash at the tail end of the last flush than that the last woman was actually a man with bad aim. Oh, I know what you're thinking. I forgot, I was supposed to have wiped down the whole seat with toilet paper first, right? Because toilet paper apparently has magical disinfecting properties I am not aware of. Also, do you really want to risk running out of toilet paper for something like that? Because seriously, I'll take a few water splashes over not getting to wipe when I'm done. I guess we all have our priorities...

Now for the purposes of this discussion we're just going to assume that no woman has ever had to use a public restroom with one, let alone two or more, of her children crammed in the stall with her. No, no, that would NEVER happen. We're also going to assume for a moment that, against all odds, you have managed to meet all the following criteria:

1. Didn't pee your pants waiting in line for all the other women before you to perform their own special brand of delusional sanitation rituals.

2. Managed to enter a stall that has both a lock and a hook for your purse so you can perform the rest of your own rituals with both hands.

3. Lucked out and found a stall that still has seat protectors in the dispenser AND ample toilet paper.

4. Wiped down the seat so that there are no wet spots to spoil your seat protector in all it's glory.

5. Extracted, unfolded, and successfully torn your seat protector along the perforation without tearing through the outer seat ring.

6. Laid the protector on the seat without it sliding into the water or having the water wick up the center flap, causing it to get sucked down into the bowl before you can sit down all the way. Because I'm pretty sure that a seat protectors' favorite time to fall into the bowl is once you've already checked that it's appropriately positioned and begun your blind descent...

Okay, so you've met the criteria and now you're seated. You can finally go! Oh, but watch out that the water from the bowl doesn't wick up the center flap now that you're sitting there and get you even wetter than the water on the seat to begin with would have made you. Don't even get me started about the hassle of trying to wipe off with that wet thing dangling in your way. And definitely watch out that the slightly waxy surface of the seat protector doesn't create, say for example, a water resistant channel for urine to run away from you and onto your clothes or legs. Not that I speak from a scarring life experience or anything...

So now that we've hypothetically gotten to this point, how much good do you really think that thin paper is doing? It's not exactly an impenetrable shield, nor is it "shielding" the parts of you that care if they get germy. I mean, I don't know about you, but I usually keep the "important" parts of me squarely in the middle of the seat, not touching anything. But maybe the rest of you like to drag yourself back and forth across the seat? First of all, EWWW. Second of all, how much is even alive on that toilet seat anyway? Most public toilets get cleaned at least once a day. That's more than I can say for my toilets at home. I know, I know, you argue home toilets don't get that much traffic, but you obviously don't live with Claire. Now my poor cleaning habits are a whole different discussion, but I venture a guess that bacteria cultures would reveal that you're better off at most public toilets than coming over to my house and using my toilet. (I suppose that statement combined with yesterday's urine chair comment have just ensured that we will never have guests again... Meh, saves me the trouble of tidying up for guests. But for the record, I bet you'd fail this petri dish test too.) I'd be a lot more afraid of what's on the toilet paper in public restrooms. That's actually going to touch "the goods." Alas, I'm not willing to bring my own roll with me everywhere, so I'll take my chances. But in the end, you do have some form of an immune system, right? So if by some chance these hypothetical germs leap from the seat or bowl directly into your "inner workings," you'll probably pull through.

Now if every one behaves normally (no cavalier butt swipes), in the ideal case you should essentially only have the equivalent of skin-to-skin contact, right? Not that I love the idea of skin-to-skin contact with strangers, but I'd feel a little OCD if I started refusing to shake people's hands. I mean, what if they didn't wash their hands? What if they have bad cough and sneeze habits AND they pick their nose??? Guess what? Get over it. All of those are probably true AND they probably just left a public bathroom without washing their hands. Their hand might actually be WORSE than a toilet seat!

Now let's assume for sake of argument that, undoubtedly by some evil terrorist plot (darn you, Osama bin Ladies Room!), there are catastrophic germs just waiting to cause an epidemic lingering on the toilet seat.
And. You. Sit. On. Them.

Okay, I'm sorry to have stopped your heart beating like that. Take a moment. Just breathe. In fact, take all the time you need to pull yourself together after the shock and horror. I'll be right here waiting...

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You good now? Great, let's pick up where we left off. So the unthinkable has happened. Now what? Were you planning to rub your hands across your bare buttocks after you get up from the seat? Oh, you need to pull up your underwear, tuck in your shirt, etc etc and that might lead to cross contamination. Okay, go ahead. You were still planning to wash you hands before you leave the bathroom, right? See where I'm coming from here? If all I have is some germs on my "cheeks," under my underwear and under my pants, I don't really see the problem. I'm not usually in the habit of the following:

Other person: Here, I brought you some food.
G: Thanks, it looks delicious.
OP: Let's eat!
G: Wait, just a minute.
[G quickly undoes her belt and jams both hands down the back of her pants and rubs vigorously while OP indulges in a little Purell]
G: [buckling back up] Okay, let's dig in.
[OP, face contorted in disgust, leaps up and runs away screaming, leaving G all by herself to consume the delicious food with her E. coli-ridden hands]
G: [evil laugh] Just as I planned...

So I know another alternative to toilet seat protectors is the ever popular "hover." Don't you realize that this is another probable reason your seat was wet to begin with? The last paranoid nut-job tried to hover over the seat to avoid a "horrible germ-ridden fate" and in the process, probably found her quads or triceps not up to the task and wavered, thus contaminating the seat and probably her clothes. If you do this, I hope your rogue pee washes someone else's germs off the seat onto your pants. And then I hope you fall into the bowl when your arms give out. Can't you see it? We've set up a vicious cycle here. Let's put our foot (and our butt) down and stop it. Let's put the "rest" back in restroom.

Unless you have open sores on your bottom or you have an immune disorder:

JUST SIT DOWN!

Ah, the blissful simplicity of it all, or at least as simple as possible while still being a female in our society. Enter. Lock. Unbutton. Sit. Wipe. Button. Unlock. Flush. Leave. Don't do a little dance (because you really gotta go), make a little noise (ditto), and get down on the floor to scour the whole stall with some nappy toilet paper and half of a baby wipe. Instead, make it quick and dirty then spend twice as long washing your hands, where it will actually do some good! I will concede that. Though I'm not protective of my glutes, I AM protective of my hands. I flush with my foot and count while I lather up with soap, etc. So I am not totally devoid of sanitation, I promise. Unless I'm missing something. Is there some horror of toilets seats I don't know about? Did I not get the memo from the Women's Estrogen Association for National and International Etiquette (WEANIE) that public toilet seats must not be touched on threat of being disqualified as a member of the female kind? Feel free to enlighten me, but until then, I bet I can beat you out of the bathroom. A couple of times I have even beat M out!!!