Via Andante come this breaking news about Germany's uncertain excretory future:
German men are being shamed into urinating while sitting down by a gadget which is saving millions of women from cleaning up in the bathroom after them. The WC ghost, a £6 voice-alarm, reprimands men for standing at the lavatory pan. It is triggered when the seat is lifted. The battery-operated devices are attached to the seats and deliver stern warnings to those who attempt to stand and urinate (known as "Stehpinkeln").
"Hey, stand-peeing is not allowed here and will be punished with fines, so if you don't want any trouble, you'd best sit down," one of the devices orders in a voice impersonating the German leader, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. Another has a voice similar to that of his predecessor, Helmut Kohl.
This is what happens when you don't do your share of the chores. Just think of all the humiliation that would've been saved by just spritzing a little 409 around the bowl. Seems pretty apparent who trägt die Hosen in German households.
I might think about putting one of these in my own house if I had a wider selection of German voices to choose from. Colonel Klink, for example. Or Franka Potente.
So far 1.8 million WC ghosts have been sold in German supermarkets.
But Klaus Schwerma, author of Standing Urinators: The Last Bastion of Masculinity? doubts whether it will ever be possible to convert all men.
"Many insist on standing, even though it leads to much marital strife," he said.
In German, the phrase for someone who sits and urinates, a "Sitzpinkler", is equivalent to "wimp".
Christ, but Germans are weird (and I say this as a half-Kraut myself). My dad used to live in Alsace, and he was the one who introduced me to the Teutonic obsession with bodily functions. There was one bar with toilets for stools and rools of TP for napkins, for example, and every commode I saw in the country had a little shelf inside the bowl for help in examining your...leavings. I guess the only thing more natural than relieving yourself is feeling ashamed of it.
Sitzplinker is a great insult though. I'll have to remember to use that.
I can't imagine anyone cowed into installing one of these in the first place would have the temerity to risk peeing on the seat.
It's no more difficult to lift the seat that it is to put it down. If this topic creates honest friction within a couple they ought to seriously consider whether they are meant for one another. Chances are, you've got bigger fish to fry. On the otherhand, if this is the most dire problem in one's relationship, you're probably a very, very lucky person.
How does one write a 144 page book on the topic "Standing Urinators: The Last Bastion of Masculinity?"
For the record, my argument for putting the seat down has always been quite simple - I have cats who like to play in the toilet bowl, and who've had SEVERAL near misses to falling in. So in this house, the seat AND lid are kept down. By everyone, male or female. (Besides, having the lid down is just nicer aesthetically, in my opinion.)
Wasn't Freud obssessed with potty training and its repercussions? Hold on, he was German, wasn't he? Whooaaa! I wonder what he'd "make" of this?
From Pete (A Perfectly Cromulent Blog) comes this fascinating news item: German men are being shamed into urinating while sitting down......
| --Posted to Blog D'Elisson on Sep 27, 2004 1:57 PM:. |
Hmm. Won't this lead to men not lifting the seat at all and just aiming at a smaller target? While this may eliminate the late-night-wet-ass problem for women who use the facilities after hours, I'd think the risk of sitting on the near misses would be a bigger source of complaint.