If I Were King

I’m a guy. I’m not going to apologize for that, it’s just the way it turned out. For various reasons, guys and gals have different opinions about the normal state of toilet seats. This came as a surprise to me when I reached adulthood, because my mother and sister held an opinion that seems to be contrary to every other woman I’ve ever met.

Guys want to leave the seat up. Since most of the time we use the toilet we’re standing, and may approach the throne in a hurry, why not have the seat in the proper position for the most typical situation? Gals want the seat down, since they always use the throne sitting. Growing up, the house rules were that the seat must always be up, because the gals lacked confidence in the guys, suspecting we wouldn’t always take the time to lift the seat and not confident that we could aim through the seat. (They were probably right.)

In the home it isn’t possible to segregate bathrooms by sex in most cases. If I were king I could address the problem that way, but that doesn’t help most of us.

Then there are those who take this one step further if there is company coming: The seat cover must be down as well!

So, assuming a mixed-sex residence, how should this be resolved? My first reaction is that whoever has to clean it should get to decide. (That’s because I clean the toilets here in the palace.)

Programming theory has an elegant solution. The state of the toilet seat and cover is an “unitialized variable”, so the program should never assume it is in any particular state. Therefore, any routine that involves the toilet seat starts by setting the toilet seat either to a known default value, or setting it to the desired value for that routine. Pretty simple, eh? The rule of thumb is to be liberal about what you accept but very strict about what you do, which means that you make no assumptions about starting values, but always end a routine in a known state.

Basic fairness would require that all users have a similar experience, that none is treated preferentially. I know, somebody always expects to preferential treatment.

Therefore, based both on equal treatment of all comers, the need in some houses to keep pets from drinking the toilet water, good manners, and a basic programming response to a repetitive routine, we hereby decree that both toilet seat and cover should be down whenever you end your business in the bathroom, and that you shall not complain about the state it is in when you arrive. If I were king, this would be the law. Until then, it’s just a good idea.