The Great Debate

The subject of men standing versus sitting while urinating seems to be a subject that comes up every few years.  Studies and polls sent out to the masses to determine whether men prefer to stand to pee or to sit.  Personally, I cannot believe that science is still debating this subject after, what I can only assume, are ions. What is to become of it?

I am only reminded of the subject as it was discussed, albeit briefly, on the radio the other day.  One half of the on-air duo, who is male, seemed almost embarrassed that he sat down to pee.  Sensing his uneasiness, I texted in to the show that I was not ashamed to admit that I also sit to urinate.  It's something that I've done for decades and although memory of my childhood is foggy, I believe I sat to pee as a kid, too.  That is, until another chap teased me for doing so.

On the radio, they cited the results of one of science's latest studies, which revealed that in America only 23% of men sit to pee, while 31% prefer to stand.  Comparatively, in Canada, 35% choose to be seated while just 21% remain standing.  While looking up these statistics, I was surprised that the statistics for Europe are even higher.  Germany leads the world in sitzpinklers at a whopping 62%, with Sweden coming in at a distant 50% and Denmark coming in third with 44%.  It's mind blowing when you're not in the least expecting those kind of numbers.

Reasons for choosing to sit over standing varies, too, and they aren't related to the same reasons as why I choose to be seated personally.  I'll explain that in a moment.  Reasons most men do it, in Europe anyway, I was surprised to discover that it was medical.  Some choose to be seated due to urinary infections and other medical conditions.  I would surmise that the choice to stand is purely out of convenience.  After all, it is much easier to duck behind a fence, whip it out real quick and piss in the corner.  Hell, when I was mowing grass in the median strips on Circle Drive, I didn't have the convenience of hiding behind a bush or anything.  When desperate enough, I had a method in which I'd open the door of my little tractor and pretend to be leaning in and searching for something when in reality, upon closer inspection, one could see a stream of urine pouring down on the ground.  You don't want to know what I did if I had to poop. 😂

It was that discussion on the radio that sparked a long lost memory of my childhood and perhaps the catalyst to why I began choosing to sit rather than stand.  As I recall, I was visiting my aunt who had a friend over.  The bathroom was just off the kitchen in the small two bedroom apartment.  I went in to pee, standing as young boys do, and upon the stream splashing down, my aunt's friend thought it would be funny to call into the bathroom.  "We can hear you!" she called with a chuckle in her voice.  The experience traumatized me and I was overwhelmed with shame and embarrassment.  I never stood again, after that.  Not if I was indoors, anyway.  The anxiety from that day, propelled me into a state of constant Shy Bladder, which meant I was unable to go to the bathroom in a public setting if their were other people around.  No matter how bad I had to go, if there were eyes about, I was unable to go.  It remained that way until just a year or so, ago.

As an adult, I had many different jobs, some of which required me to clean bathrooms.  Men's rooms, as you can imagine can be quite disgusting.  It's like travelers don't care and willfully piss all over the place.  What was most gross, though, was the toilets.  Specifically, the outside of the bowl, more so than the interior.  The piss can actually cake on the porcelain.  And ladies, if you go to your man's apartment and take a close look at his toilet, chances are, there's going to be dried piss caked on the sides of the bowl.  It comes from the splashing water as the piss hits the surface.  It was this discovery that made it abundantly clear that when I was going to live on my own, sans roommates and family, that I would continue to remain seated when urinating.

Seems that my choice to avoid standing is a major reason to do so in Germany as a landlord, back in 2015, sued a tenant for €1,900 (£1400; $2,200), the cost to repair a marble floor that had been destroyed with urine.  The case was lost, the Duesseldorf judge ruling that men are allowed to urinate from a standing position, adding that standing is still common practice.  The case sparked a national debate, with another judge, Honourable Stefan Hank, agreeing with experts that the uric acid found in urine did do the majority of the damage to the floor, but that occasional splash back is expected.  They never ruled as to why the tenant failed to clean up after himself, though.  I'm empathetic to the landlord because, yes, urine can be quite harmful and clearly the fact that the tenant couldn't be bothered to grab some toilet tissue to wipe up, is unclear.  I've never traveled to Europe, but in this report it's revealed that public washrooms all over Germany, have signs prohibiting men from standing to pee, for just this reason.

 

In my research to write this blog, I noted that Germany was not the only country to post these signs, but I saw examples from Denmark, Sweden and even Japan, where standing is discouraged.  Where I initially thought shame would be brought upon anyone, like myself, who openly admitted to sitting down to take a piss, I'm not feeling so singled out anymore.  Apparently more men, the world over, are choosing the seated method.  Plus, it's more handy to look at your phone from this position, rather than risking dropping your device into a piss filled toilet or urinal.

In the United States, 23% of men sit, 31% stand.  In Canada, 35% choose to be seated, while 21% remain standing.  So that leaves 46% in the US and 44% in Canada left undecided?  The math does not add up.  What do the other percentage of people do?  Get creative?

It's a mystery for the ages, I guess.  

Prank'd

 

In television and movies, the go to prank for the autumn season, venturing closer to Old Hallows Eve, is toilet papering or TPing a house, or more grotesquely, egging someone's house.  Their both terrible pranks, the latter being the worse of the two, and something that I've never partook in.  Frankly, I doubt I possess the dexterity to accurately throw a full roll of toilet paper over a tree or someone's roof.  The opportunity for such delinquency has never arose, nor would I partake in it, given I don't exactly understand the whole point of the prank.

So..., we spend our own money on expensive toilet paper to throw onto someone else's house and/or into their trees?  No thanks.  There's no logic in that.  I failed to see the logic back then, when I was a kid, just witnessing this stupid shit on TV or hearing wild tales from friends.  Very illogical, to quote Mr. Spock, until today.

Today, August 27th, 2923, I drove past a house that already had Christmas decorations set out on their front lawn.  Nothing subtle, either, but rather, giant blown up figures donning scarves, toques and mittens.  Yesterday, I drove by a house that was in the process of filling their front yard with Halloween decorations.  It was both of these times that I realized: These people need to have their houses egged.

A couple of weeks before the holiday is one thing.  A couple of months ahead, is ridiculous.  If a home owner wishes to take advantage of the amazing weather we will be experiencing over the coming couple of weeks, to climb a ladder and hook up their Christmas lights, that's acceptable.  Doing that shit in the winter..., ya may as well sign your own death warrant, but doing that now, is okay.  Just don't keep the lights on past the testing phase or, you too, will be added to the list of those who deserve to get pranked by idiotic kids.

Buy all the holiday decorations that you want now, if the price is right, but wait until the appropriate times, people.  Don't be an asshole.  Nobody likes an asshole.  And if you choose not to abide by these words, don't be calling the authorities when you get your house egged.  Don't call because you deserve the punishment you get.

Cow Bell

This past weekend was the 42nd annual Cruise Weekend, hosted by local radio station, Rock 102FM, which brought in just over a thousand custom cars, trucks, bikes and hot rods, which in turn, attracted approximately 40,000 spectators to the event.  The show stretched over fourteen square blocks of the downtown district, which caused a lot of congestion, both with pedestrians and traffic.  Every type of numb skull you can imagine, were traipsing across the remaining downtown streets.  As a person who, personally, drives for a living, the weekend was quite distressing.  I will try to avoid working this weekend, next year.

In addition to all the festivities that the radio station hosted, all weekend long, the station only played music of the era.  Songs made popular during the eras that these automobiles were created and roaming the streets and bi-ways of this great land.  The music that my parents listened to and danced the night away at their own small town halls and high school gymnasiums.  Though I was only conceived amid this time era, I can appreciate the songs from yesteryear and I loved every moment, even the annoying Beatles tracks. 😉 

Though I was working all weekend long, I had my speaker blasting these rock classics and was singing along to every tune, even the Beatles ones, bobbing my head happily from side-to-side with every yeah-yeah-yeah or nay-nay or whatever the words commanded.  I reveled in the fun of it all, citing to myself that today's music needs more nah-nah-nahs and what not, and more cow bell, too. 

I believe several years ago, when Will Ferrell was still one of the main attractions on NBC's Saturday Night Live, where they did a comedic skit where he played a band member who played the cow bell.  I've never seen the skit, myself.  I'm not a fan of the show, but I agree with the premise.  More cow bell is needed.

I only know of a select hand full of songs that include the incessant monotone clanging sound of the cow bell.  I'm unable to name them all, but the one that stands out the most, in my mind is Motley Crue drummer, Tommy Lee, clanging the cow bell during "Shout At The Devil".  Classic.

More cow bell should make more appearances in music, just as the nah-nah-nahs, should also.  In fact, I surmise that there should be an actual band that calls themselves, Cow Bell.  The intrusive clanging shouldn't necessarily appear in every song.  As a music artist, you don't wish to drive people crazy, unless you're one of those artists like Eiffel 65 or whoever put out that stupid Macarena bullshit, but if the cow bell were to make an appearance in a couple of songs per album, I think that would be a nice treat.

I've always thought it'd be cool to be in a band.  I don't know if there's a teenager alive who hasn't dreamed of strapping on a guitar and crooning to a large audience.  It's a better dream than digging ditches and breaking our backs.  So this is the goal.  Our society needs more cow bell.  It could bring about world peace.  Everyone singing nah-nah-nah and hey-hey-hey in unison, all while banging on a cow bell.  It could be the vision that the Bill and Ted movies had all along. 🤔

"Be good to one another and PARTY ON, DUDES!!"

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Cow-abunga!

Sometimes I Just Wanna Dance

Today presented itself with a situation where I found myself wishing I had a girlfriend.  These occasions happen frequently and often in situations that don't necessarily garner feelings of loneliness or anything like that.  Instead, I often find myself wishing for a sweetheart for reasons other than romance.  It's usually a situation where I find myself at a disadvantage and wish for a significant other to step up and help a guy out.  Today presented a situation very much like that.  I required some assistance, even though, in the end it turned out that I faired alright all on my own.

My sister is a hair stylist.  She used to cut my hair regularly, but in recent years, she's been dialing back how often she works and therefore her time is much more precious and dedicated to her long list of cliental, leaving me with a mop-top, so to speak.  It was during one of those hiatus' where I let my hair grow out, quite lengthy.  I felt alright with the longer lochs, but when my hair began to thin, it looked like I had a skullet (that's a mullet that bald guys grow ~ not sexy at all).  After getting fit in for an "emergency" cut, I had my sister shave my head bald.  Following that impromptu appointment, I purchased my own set of clippers and set to shaving my own cranium every few months.  Today happened to be that day.

I always find it difficult to shave the back of my head.  I duck my head in close to the bathroom mirror, opening the medicine cabinet on the side, as much as I can to view as much of my head as I can.  There are some blind spots where I rely on my sense of touch to feel whether I need to run the area over again with the clippers.  "Man, I wish I had a girlfriend to help me with this." I muttered aloud.

Granted, there are other benefits to having a girlfriend.  There's the bouts of loneliness where another person would be a blessing.  Having the ability to venture out on the town for a nice meal or take in a show or play.  Do a lot of the unique couples experiences that I hear about from my friends.  It'd be nice to make memories with another soul that feels about me the same way I do about them.  That's all fine and good, so then my brain, the way it works, then places these fictitious females in different roles that would benefit me beyond just an emotional crutch.

When I'm hurt or injured, it would be a glorious blessing to have a partner who was a physiotherapist.  Help me heal up some of these nagging injuries in a way where I needn't attend inconvenient appointments.  My last physiotherapist, Elissa, would have filled that vacancy nicely.  She's a free spirit and smart as a whip.  Always laughing at my goofiness, but alas, she's in a relationship.  With a chubby little dude, so my weight would not have been a roadblock. 😄  

A girl with mechanical skills would have been very beneficial, recently, when I was struggling to get my Mustang running and put back on the streets after a nine year absence.  It would have been a true blessing to have my girl push me aside and say, "No worries, baby.  I got this."  To be honest, that's probably why I like Megan Fox.  She probably, in reality, doesn't know dick-all about cars, but that one scene in Transformers, was all the convincing I needed.  Even if she, my fictitious girlfriend, if she had a father or a brother who could do mechanical shit, that would have been really cool, too, although in my mind, the conversation went a lot different.

"Thank you, sir, for helping me out with this.  I wish I knew something about fixing cars, but..."

"Hey. No problem.  You make my little girl very happy, so I don't mind helping you out with this kind of stuff." My faux girlfriend's dad would say to me, "But..., if you ever hurt my little girl, no one will ever find the body."

😨 Gulp.  That fantasy took a sharp turn for the worst. 

I always thought having a girlfriend who was a cop would be really hot, too.  Someone rough and tough on the street, but soft and warm the moment she comes home and slips into a pair of baggy sweats or whatever.  Plus, she'd have handcuffs.  I'll stop there. No need to elaborate on that. 😂

The girlfriend sitch is pretty f*cking bleak.  I have no idea where people meet anymore and even if I did, I lack the self-confidence to approach anyone, anyway.  Even the girlfriends and hook-ups I've had, I don't have a clue how I managed to succeed in those situations.  I know alcohol was a factor in a couple, but I really don't know how I charmed the others. 🤔  Even if I were to recall how to attract a lovely PYT (Pretty Young Thing), I don't have much to offer, anyway.  My body is broken.  My personality, from what I've learned as of late, leaves people hating me.  I know of two friends, right this minute, who's significant others dislike me greatly.  I'm told it's my personality.  That hurts, mostly because I don't act like the real me around anyone, because, if we're being honest, I don't even like me.  I guess that's another red flag.  How can I love someone else, when I hate myself?  No use bringing anyone into this shit situation until I get my own bullshit figured out.

I guess I'm just destined to be alone.  At least until I figure out why I'm such a piece of shit.  I don't want to bring a lovely young miss into my life, only to break her heart and have some angry father or brother come brutalize me then hide the body so no one would ever find it. 😬

I don't know when or why my life got so messed up, but the girlfriend sitch is currently nil and that's how it has to be, I guess, but man...  Sometimes...  Sometimes, I just wanna go out and dance.

 

Tap Dancing

Listening to the radio the other day, when a solo, Clayton spoke up about the person at his local Tim Horton's laughed at him when he produced his debit card to pay for his morning coffee, then proceeded to insert the chip and punch in his password and so on.  "You don't have tap?" she scoffed.  The situation caused nothing more than an uncomfortable situation and subject matter for the morning show.  Normally, Clayton has an announce partner, Stacie, who was absent this day, so Clayton had the listening audience weigh in. 

Clayton described that he did not have the TAP feature on his debit card, adding that he felt it wasn't a necessary feature. Plus, he mentioned, it's way too easy for someone to steal your wallet and go on a spending spree.  I can't say that I don't agree, as that last part never even entered my mind.  Thank you Clayton for adding to my list of presently existing paranoia's. 😄 

Like Clayton, I resisted the TAP feature on my debit card for a very long time, finally succumbing to peer pressure when I began getting stuck behind slowpokes in checkout lines, who'd leisurely punch buttons searching for the right bank account and yada yada yada.  It was impatience that finally tipped the scales for me, a decision that I've come to regret, although I continue to use the TAP feature on my card.

I recall being a young boy, in seventh or eighth grade when another classmate, Jimmy, presented a news article in class.  The short article described how in the future, cash money would no longer be required, going on to explain that we'd all have plastic cards that would access our money.  The article also mentioned that the Devil was behind the science to bring about easier access to our monies, a factor that had our young minds oohing and aahing, at the time, but in retrospect, seems far-fetched.  The news article being little more than the rantings of some bible-loving crackpot.  The whole thing sounded like fantasy, as if a practice featured on an episode of Star Trek.  

Not to date myself, I do remember that at that time, if you hadn't visited the bank by Friday afternoon, you didn't have money for the weekend.  However, Jimmy's news article eventually did come to fruition and the article he shared during that show and tell from my youth always played out in the back of my mind.

In the beginning, I remember having my card in hand and making frequent visits to my bank machine, which at the time would administer money in $5 increments.  We, as a society, no longer had to race to the bank by 5pm on a Friday if we wanted to do shit on a Saturday.  Plus, for a lazy guy like me, having to stop at any bank or bank machine to grab cash of any amount, was enough of a deterrent to prevent me from spending money, until...

Using our debit cards to access our bank accounts at stores, became a game changer.  No longer having to make an effort to stop, get out of the car, punch in my info a bank machine, getting charged a whopping $2.50 to access my own money,  just to grab a few bucks...  I began spending a little more money, as I imagine happened with a lot of people.

If anyone recalls this progressive step forward, there were a number of setbacks.  We'd swipe our card and often, nothing would happen, as the magnetic strip on the back of our cards would wear out, forcing clerks to improvise.  One method was cladding the card with a plastic bag.  The practice worked sometimes, but other times the clerk would then add a strip of scotch tape to the card, swipe it through the machine then tear away the tape like a band-aid on a scraped knee, taking the magnetic strip along with the tape, rendering the bank card virtually useless.  Society, already past the visiting the bank stage, would often meander through life, now with a shitty card that didn't work and aggravating people in checkout lines forever thereafter.

For every step forward that science and creativity provides us, usually we're pushed two steps backward.  Banking's effort to push us forward, was not working, so the chip was added to our cards.  No longer did we have to rely on crossing our fingers in hopes of the strip working, now we just had to insert the chip and punch in our shit.  This progressed crowds a little quicker, but we were still stuck behind grandma who just didn't quite "understand how these new-fangled things work" and lineups continued to grow.

Ever notice how when things change in an effort to make one's experience easier, tends to be plagued with negatives.  Everyone fails to see the big picture in favour of the benefits they believe with come of the changes.

I resisted getting the TAP feature on my card for the longest time, not because I was afraid of some dastardly dick stealing my wallet and accessing my vast (un) fortune, but more afraid that I'd be that very dastardly dick, TAP dancing all over town buying shit without really thinking about the consequences.  You may notice that the money flows much easier when you remove the arduous task of punching in security codes 'n' shit.  Sometimes I won't even realize how much money has drained from my account, due to this ease.

In recent weeks, my attempts to get my car up and running, had me traipsing all about town buying this and that and tapping my card every time.  I'm afraid to look at my account balance.  Spending money is way too easy, nowadays, and the rising prices aren't helping matters any.  Government and all these banking institutions bombard us with the necessity to save money, yet they make it so difficult to do so with the cost of living rising on a daily, dare I say, hourly basis.  Shit's gotten so bad, I think back to that Show & Tell with Jimmy and his crazy news article and I can't help but think, maybe the Devil is responsible.  The financial anguish definitely feels like torture.