Can Educated European Men be Right?

Recently while fulfilling his duties as a highly successful businessman, Chuck found himself at a conference that required a stay in a hotel (no, this tale does not involve call girls – stay with Chuck though). The first night of the conference saw an opening dinner and key note speaker* that invariably lead to a few bottles of red wine being polished off. Chuck hobnobbed accordingly for a few hours and at 8.45pm retired to his room. A short while later there was a tap on the door. Chuck answered to find a colleague and obligingly invited him in.

*The speech was conducted by the president of an extremely prominent Australian corporation. Chuck points this out only so that he can highlight how bad the speech was. Clearly he had not written his own speech and must have only laid eyes on it 3 minutes before he took the stage as he stammered and stuttered throughout. He also ended so abruptly that many in attendance thought that he’d suddenly experienced a bout of diarrhea. And to think he’s likely on a 7 figure salary!

Being relatively early, the colleague thought the idea of a nightcap sounded like a grand plan. Chuck had a spare bottle of wine and promptly poured two glasses. After 20 minutes or so, the colleague jumped up and headed for the bathroom. Chuck thought nothing of it and upon the colleagues return continued a lively conversation. After an hour or so, the colleague excused decided to retire for the evening.

Chuck completed his regime of 350 nightly push-ups and headed to the bathroom to clean up in preparation for bed. As Chuck entered the bathroom, he was immediately struck by the sight of the toilet seat being down (the seat, not the lid).  Surely his colleague had not taken a number 2 in Chuck’s crapper? Chuck immediately felt violated and had to brush his teeth using bottled water.

Chuck decided not to pursue the issue any further.

However, the next afternoon Chuck and his colleague found themselves in another colleagues room while working on a proposal. Chuck couldn’t help himself and had to ask the second colleague his thoughts on the etiquette of shitting in another mans hotel room. After detailing what transpired the evening before, the second colleague immediately stated that it was completely out of line and inappropriate.

Before Chuck and the second colleague could mock the first colleague mercilessly over this faux pas, he had leapt to his feet and offered:

“No, no, no, I didn’t take a crap, I took a piss”

This lead to uproarious laughter at the thought of a male colleague sitting down to urinate. His response to this laughter was:

“In Europe (he is European), educated men sit down to piss”

Aside from being hilarious, what also amused was the fact he classified himself as an educated man and then used the word ‘piss’ in the same sentence.

Once Chuck and the second colleague managed to compose themselves, they pressed their colleague on the topic. He was absolutely resolute that when urinating he sat down -the exception to the rule being in public toilets. His rationale was that sitting down was cleaner, more efficient and allowed for the opportunity to change ones mind – that is, say you first sat down to wee, well while you are there you may then take the opportunity to poo. This opportunity to change your plans would not be there if you were standing to piss.

The last point resulted in another round of robust laughing.

Once Chuck finished laughing, the colleague looked at him in all seriousness and said:

“You’ve just had a baby Chuck. All’s well now, but think about when she starts to crawl and pull herself up. What happens to be the perfect height for babies to grab onto and pull themselves up on? A toilet bowl. And if you’ve pissed all over it, what’s going to be in the babies mouth?” He then performed a slobbering sound like a baby slurping on a rim loaded with stale urine.

Chuck was stunned, the colleague did make a point.

From that afternoon on, Chuck monitored his urinating like a hawk. Was he able to consistently hit the bowl without any stray pee heading towards the floor or onto the bowl?

No! But upon close inspection it wasn’t too bad.

Anyway, Chuck was in the bathroom a day after arriving home from the conference when Mrs Long asked if he could smell anything. Not realizing that it was a rhetorical question, Chuck said “no” to which Mrs Long responded, “it smells like a men’s urinal in there”

Chucks first thought was to wonder how on earth Mrs Long knew what a men’s urinal smelled like. The second thought concerned a lifetime of sitting down to piss!