The Urinal Commandments

Sunday, December 16, 2007


Somewhere in our culture, where we teach all men to like football, burp, fart, and generally be disgusting, we have added to that a lack of urinal etiquette. Now, you might ask yourself "Self, why do I need urinal etiquette? I already know how to pee." Ah, you are correct; you do know how to pee. Unfortunately, you do not know how to pee in a public restroom.

In junior high school "Health" class, when we teach our teenage boys about their twig and berries and all the joys that they can bring, I propose we also teach The Urinal Commandments, consisting of the following... all of which have been violated in front of me far too recently.

  1. Thou shall keep your head forward at all times - If you really want to get a peek at my junk, then I guess you will violate this rule. If you are not interested in seeing the goods, then just watch the nice white tile that is behind the urinal.
  2. Thou shall not talk to strangers - No ones cares about any amusing anecdote that either just happened to you, or IS happening to you. In fact talking at all is only allowed if you are a good friend of the person peeing next to you, in which case Commandment #1 still applies.
  3. Thou shall use two hands at all times - For those of you that are very well endowed, you already do this, so skip ahead. Others of you, regardless of whether you need one hand, no hands, or a tweezer, to keep your peter straight, let's always use two hands. There are two reasons for this. First of all, if there is a divider between the urinals, it is meant as that, a divider, not an armrest. I don't need your elbow next to my face while I pee. Secondly, see below about keeping pee within the receptacle.
  4. Thou shall not express your relief in any way - Assuming you are adhering to Commandment #2, no other audible noises are acceptable (with the exception of farting). Not the least of which is a big sigh of relief closely resembling what you might sound like mid-ejaculation.
  5. Thou shall keep your feet a maximum of shoulder length apart - This is a close relative of Commandment #3. Unless you are looking for a Senator Larry Craig style liaison, I do not want to see your feet while I am peeing. You have a whole urinal to yourself, and this should be plenty. If not, use a stall.
  6. Thou shall keep all pee INSIDE the urinal - Possibly the most important of all commandments. For the life of me, I can't figure out how people can miss the urinal. The collection area is approximately 100 times the area of a cross section of your pee stream, how can you possibly miss? If this is a sporting event or a bar, where there is a high probability of intoxication, it is marginally acceptable. But in an office? wtf? If you are in accordance with Commandment #3, then this should never, EVER, happen.
I surely hope I don't need to add anything to this list in the future...

Posted by adit on 12/16/2007 02:37:00 PM  

1 comments:

I read this out loud for family breakfast hour. Anna listened and totally agreed. We all also agree that you are lame (and that we're even lamer for reading this and being amused...). Hey--and what about a post plugging my movie!?

FamilyDO'C said...
January 8, 2008 at 6:10 AM  

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