Hint: It involves a lot of P words

In what universe is it acceptable to piss all over a public toilet seat and leave the mess for the next person to clean? Or worse — for someone to sit in? *shudder*

I’m out in the world a fair amount and, like most people, I have to pee now and then. Using public facilities is unavoidable. At work, the library, a movie theatre, a bar, a restaurant, or (gawd forbid) the mall — doesn’t matter. My bladder is undiscerning about when and where it needs relief.

And I’m obviously not alone in that. It’s a human, bodily function. But I seem to notice an increasing lack of consideration regarding the drips and dribbles and even full-on puddles that some people like to leave behind.

When I was a kid, a friend of mine used to refuse to wash her hands after using the bathroom. Her excuse? “I don’t dribble.” Yeah, well, apparently other people do. Some of them a lot. Personally, I try not to dribble but I’ll admit that it does happen once in a while. But when it does happen — and this is the important bit — I wipe it up before I leave the stall.

Others, not so much.

A little sprinkle that maybe you didn’t notice, okay, I get it. But an entire toilet seat that’s soaking wet all the way around, its entire circumference sopping? To the point where clearly more piss landed outside the bowl than inside? That’s a problem. Especially when I’m preoccupied with something, pull down my pants without checking, and sit in your mess. Fuck. You.

I mean, if you’re a male with careless aim and you don’t lift the seat, I get that drips and splatters and even a puddle or two are probably inevitable. I grew up with brothers. But that is no excuse for leaving your filth behind.

But if you’re female, how in the bloody hell does that even happen?

Are you hovering? Squatting over the seat, trying not to touch it? Maybe you’re stripping from the waist down and standing astride the toilet? I’m guessing here but that last one might help explain the puddles I sometimes find on the floor in the Ladies’. I mean, except for those rare and exceptional women who have mastered the art, for the rest of us, standing to pee inevitably results in streams of urine running down one or both legs, pooling at our feet. (A lesson well-learned from failed attempts in the great outdoors.)

Okay, granted, at least some of you standers, whether male or female, must be drying the seat when you’re done. How else can I explain those disconcerting instances where I find a yellow puddle (or puddles) next to a clean and dry toilet? (The alternative — that someone just peed on the floor without even trying to hit the bowl — is just too disturbing to consider.)

And make no mistake — this happens everywhere, from the shiniest chrome-and-glass, touchless-everything Women’s Room at an upscale restaurant to the grottiest, gender-neutral, single-staller at an older-than-dirt dive bar. But no matter where it is, and regardless of whether on the seat or on the floor, leaving behind puddles of piss is repulsive.

Even though it’s irrelevant, I can’t help wondering why you do it. Maybe you’re simply an inconsiderate asshole who doesn’t give a shit about leaving your crap for others to deal with. Or perhaps your gymnastic contortions to avoid touching anything are a symptom of some kind of germophobia. Maybe it’s some combination of both. Who knows?

If it’s the former, I got nothing. Except maybe to wish you a long and healthy life caring for your incontinent elders.

If it’s the latter, get over it. Seriously. Do some research. Study after study has proven that your chances of catching anything from a public toilet are pretty much slim to none. And when you piss all over the place, you’re leaving behind a whole shit-ton more germs than you ever might pick up.

So show some basic human decency and consideration for the person who needs to use that toilet next.

If you like to stand to pee, lift the seat and put it down when you’re done. If you forget, wipe up your drips and splatters.

If you don’t pee standing up, sit down, plant your posterior firmly on that seat and pee like a normal person. If you dribble, wipe it up.

Now flush and go do the only thing ever scientifically proven to protect you from my germs — and me from yours: wash your fucking hands. Use soap. Rub and lather front and back, between your fingers, under your nails, the backs of your thumbs. Continue for at least thirty seconds. If you don’t know how long 30 seconds is, time it by singing Happy Birthday to yourself.

Or you could sing Happy Birthday to me. Because the best present you could ever give me would be never letting me plop my bare ass in a puddle of your putrid piss again.