51: Man

Someone has pissed on the seat. I almost sat on it in the dim light of the stall, lucky to have avoided it, but a voice in my head (a women’s) asks—Why do men urinate where others need to sit; is it, for example, a territorial marking instinct? I share whatever instincts and pleasures our gender may dispose us toward, such as a tendency to pee in the compost and a pleasure in directing the yellow stream at will—but, as for this, I can only speculate. One man has no respect for the corporation that owns the toilet—another has no respect for other men; one man states his superiority and another his insufficiency; one man is lazy, or distracted, or in a hurry; another confident that he can pee in the pot without hitting the sides, wants to try, but fails, utterly, and then, perhaps annoyed, doesn’t want to wipe it up. I try to understand, without approving. There may be as many explanations as men. Such things happen, and, in such places, the perpetrators leave signs but not reasons behind.