Porcelain Throne
Matt Seinberg

Its three o’clock Sunday morning and you just got home from a long night of eating and drinking, mostly drinking. Somehow you manage to shed your clothes, and drop into bed without falling or tripping over anything.

It’s now 8 am Sunday morning, and your head is pounding, and your stomach is doing so many flip flops you feel like it belongs in the circus. All of a sudden, you get “that feeling” that says get into the bathroom, now.

You scurry in, fall to your knees and start praying at the porcelain throne. You try to keep your eyes closed, just so you don’t have to see what has come spewing out of your mouth from the night before. But you dare to peek, and spot part of that lobster tail you just had to have.

The gag reflex kicks in at the stench and sight of your stomach contents now contained in a pool of water in front of you. Somehow you managed not to miss the bowl and make a mess on the bathroom floor.

It’s now time to stagger up and try to take some aspirin and maybe chug down a cup of coffee to clear up that very foggy head. Short snippets from the night before start to appear, and you wonder was that really you flat on your back with a tube in your month, and all your friends pouring all sorts of liquids into it?

That thought starts your stomach rumbling again, so you rush once more to pray at the throne.

Let’s face facts; the toilet is not just for evacuating bodily waste. Sometimes it needs to be used for other things, such as when your stomach decides it’s going to do its own thing and let you know who’s boss.

Here’s a funny story; my 80 something year old father gets up every two hours or so to urinate. Most men over the age of 40 have to do that, including yours truly. Yes, getting old sucks. Anyway, instead of standing up and letting loose, he chose to sit down. Big mistake, as he fell asleep and fell off the toilet! He hit his head on the side of the sink and needed to get stitches on his forehead. Needless to say, he doesn’t sit anymore, and put some padding on the sink just in case.

For any man who suffers from Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) having to get up every two hours during the night to urinate takes its toll on your sleep patterns. Just as you’re getting comfortable, you feel that urge to urinate yet again, and stagger into the bathroom, trying not to fall or hit anything.

Then you have to decide, do you want to stand or sit? Standing up is certainly faster, but if you’re really groggy, there’s a chance you could miss the bowl and make a mess. If you sit, you’re still groggy, but at least you won’t miss. But there’s a chance you could lose your balance and fall and hit your head on something and get hurt, just like Dad did. I wouldn’t want to explain that to anyone in the ambulance or ER.

A friend at work has a fuzzy cover on the lid of the toilet seat and told me that because of the way it fits, sometimes the seat stays up, and sometimes it doesn’t. So imagine getting whacked on your wiener while urinating at 2 am. Is that a big or little ouch, and what sort of noise do you make? When that happens, you will be wide awake, hoping your little friend wasn’t hurt and is still operational.

The next time you stagger into your bathroom and need to pray at the porcelain throne, ask yourself this one important question; when was the last time you cleaned it?