Can I Return It if It Is Not Comfortable?

I recently cracked my toilet seat in half.  While I was sitting on it.  I didn't even get to finish the comics section.  True story.  Fortunately no shards pierced my delicate bottom.  I am not one hundred percent certain, but I think skin that has never been exposed may be more delicate than the weather beaten kind.  So I dodged a bullet there.

So shopping for a new toilet bowl seat is not as straight forward as one may imagine.  Aside from the almond versus white and the elongated versus round there are a myriad of choices that no man should have to bother himself with.  It's easier to pick out flowers for your wife and that's just wrong.  Thank goodness the bowl itself usually comes pre-installed in a new home so the shape decision has already been made.  And if you think it is strictly about accommodating the male physique I invite you to "Google" elongated vs round.  There is a discussion thread for every bored man, woman, and plumber on the face of the Earth.

But our story begins on the top of the bowl.  The porcelain-ass interface if you will.   Where man meets contraption (concraption?).  The weak link in any piece of adaptive technology such as a prosthetic leg.  And with all due respect and empathy for the disabled, the importance of avoiding chafing and numbing due to pressure points may be of equal concern to handicapped athletes and potty sitting couch potatoes alike.  And that is why I  don't understand the retail mechanism by which toilet seats are sold.  When you go to purchase new kitchen chairs they are not all hanging on a wall.  Same with living room chairs.  And mattresses.  Even bar stools.  One does not walk into a dinette set showroom only to be confronted with a wall full of hanging furniture.  No.  All the seats are on a display floor.  Strategically placed for the leisurely appraisal of durability, stability, and comfort.  So why when I walk into Lowe's or Home Depot are all the toilet seats hanging on a wall??  Are they artwork for purchase?  They are seats.  And a seat, I should point out, which will get more action than the dining room chairs we use twice a year.  And those chairs were carefully vetted over a course of weeks and months of trial and error sitting.  In furniture showrooms across a three county area I might add.

I know what you are thinking.  I should have gone to the Kohler showroom.  Well, that is like telling me to go see a Frank Lloyd Wright house when all I want is a sub division double wide.  Toilet seats are for the masses, and the masses shop at Lowe's, or Walmart, where we actually ended up buying the thing.  Their selection was rather limited which suited me just fine.  If I couldn't try the seat out, I might as well not have too much to choose from anyway.  Though we did fight over cushioned versus firm.  And "whisper close" versus metal hinged (which slam closed).  And satin finish hardware versus shiny.  And wood toned finish (perfect for a log cabin in my opinion, but not Tammy's) versus plain white.  And plastic molded contoured versus melamine covered wood.  And a ten dollar model versus a twenty dollar model which differed only in their respective warranties.  And if you are not clear as to why a toilet seat requires a warranty I refer you to the first paragraph of this essay.

Excuse Me, That's My Seat

 I grew up eating at a round kitchen table.  Very egalitarian.  Except for our various heights and ability to be heard over the dinner din, we all started on an equal footing as far as meal time real estate goes.  I don't think my parents had any specific social engineering concept in mind when they bought the table.  It was just that a round table fit best in our small eat in kitchen.  My Dad always sat in the same seat as did all three kids.  My Mom's chair, of course, was the one nearest the stove.  A utilitarian decision born of ergonomic necessity.  I never once witnessed her sitting in her chair for more than three minutes at a time.  To this day, even at the age of  83, my mother flits around the Thanksgiving table like some servile hummingbird ready to fill your plate with more string bean casserole or grab a bit of over crisped turkey skin from your plate to see if it was seasoned correctly- Everyone else's needs always more urgent than her own desire to sit down and eat a proper meal herself.

King Arthur, on the other hand, did have social engineering  in mind when he gathered the knights at his round table.  The equalizing force of a round table was so powerful, in fact, that they named the entire enterprise after it; King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  That was perhaps the last time a round table was ever seen in a boardroom.  There has not been a chief executive since Arthur who did not want to sit at a position of prominence during power lunches.  The head of the table is psychologically powerful as well as geographically desirable .  So in spite of my parents best efforts at raising us in the most democratic fashion, where both kings and peasants alike have the same seat at the table, I grab the head chair whenever I can. Where do you think the term "chairman of the board" came from? 

Have you ever been one of the first to arrive at a restaurant where there is a table waiting for you and ten of your friends?  Do you grab the seat at the head of the table?  I do.  Or if it is a birthday celebration I make sure to sit as close to the honoree as possible.  Most people stand around waiting for someone else to make the first move.  I don't think anyone has ever won a game of musical chairs by being nice.
"You take this seat".
"Oh no, you take it.  I insist".    Puh-lease.  If something as simple as where I sit during dinner is going to give me automatic authority, I am not going to waste the opportunity.  I will take all the help I can get in the supremacy department.  Guys with my physical stature don't have a ton of natural charisma.  I figure you have to be at least 5' 11 ", be able to palm a basketball, and have a deep, calm, sonorous voice, not a whiny shrill Long Island accent to command any attention at a round table.

As a kid growing up I did not win too many contests in the macho feats category.  I am going to let you ladies in on a little secret.  Put eight boys together in a woodland setting and they are going to determine whose urine stream makes the biggest parabola (and you thought ninth grade geometry wasn't apropos to real world life)   Needless to say my arc, while elegant in it's design, did not go the distance.  So back at the dining hall you bet your ass I made sure I grabbed the best seat possible, next to the cool nineteen year old counselor, who we were all convinced, could drown a carpenter ant sixty inches distant.  

 

Even today I put a neurotic emphasis on seating arrangements at holiday dinners and family gatherings.  When the dinner is at my house I am the chairman of the (holiday) board.  One time, during an especially well attended Thanksgiving feast, my wife found it necessary to put an extra chair, next to mine, at the head of the table to accommodate one of my brothers-in-law.  If he is reading this I apologize for all the "accidental" elbows to the gut.  I actually did have plenty of room to use my knife and fork.  My seating arrangement hierarchy pathos extends to weddings and bar mitzvahs as well.  If I am the Uncle, do not sit me with the second cousins.  That insult is compounded even more by the fact that banquet tables are invariably round.  As if all the guests are on an equal footing with the bride.  Puh-lease.

I Doubt It, But I Certainly Hope So.

Why do we do things when we know it won't work out?  Hope, that is why.  As a healer of physical wounds (that is basically what dentists do), I stare down the gaping maw of doubt everyday.  And hope rarely rescues me.  As in "Doctor, do you think this will work?"
"I hope so"..... ( If I have to say that, I seriously doubt it will work).

That is why, though it sounds cynical, I always tell patients hope has nothing to do with it.  You can hope all day long that you don't need a root canal but for some reason prayer seems to periodically cure cancer but never a toothache.  There is a saying that most dentists have hammered into their brains early on in their careers: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result".  This lesson applies to many aspects of life but my point is you can hope all you want for a positive outcome but only action will make it so.

President Obama wrote a book called "The Audacity of Hope" which I have not read.  I imagine it is about the importance of hope during times of stress and adversity.  Maybe I should read it before I critique it but since I trend more toward the physical than the spiritual, never mind.  Mindful breathing seems more practical than hoping anyway. That is a physiological function directly connected to a psychological function (the brain needs oxygen).  So when I am done breathing mindfully I still have doubt but I don't care since my brain is high on oxygen.  Maybe Deepak Chopra should name his next book "The Audacity of Mindful Breathing".

I would read a book called "The Audacity of Doubt".  It actually takes more guts, in my opinion, to not act because of your doubts than to act because of your hopes.  Heroism is only bestowed upon those who act.  The saying "no guts, no glory" is proof of this.  It takes more internal valor, however, to know when not to act but you will never be lauded for your discretion.   But it is doubt, not hope, that will more consistently assure a positive result.  A healthy dose of doubt makes us think before we act.  If someone says to you "it will probably be okay", it most definitely will not be okay.  If more people had doubted the advice of their subprime mortgage lenders rather than hoping they could cover the monthly bill we wouldn't be staring China in the ass right now.

The Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Danger

I was watching a morning show this Sunday while exercising on my stationary bicycle.  There was a segment on a daredevil show in Omaha Nebraska.  They were interviewing the brave (foolhardy?) men who crash burning cars into other burning cars and engage in all sorts of pyrotechnic derring do.  I was watching it with a minor feeling of sanctimonious revulsion (you know, "I can't, but I want to, look away from these morons") when I remembered my Dad taking me to the crack up derbies at Freeport Raceway near my hometown in New York.  The bigger the crash, and the louder the explosions, the more we cheered.  If someone was taken away on a stretcher we would clap for his bravery and pray for a speedy recovery so he could come back next month and do it all over again.  Well, if unrelenting agitated nattering is a synonym for praying then perhaps our solicitations were indeed heard.

It was not the sudden nostalgia for my own youth that got me to write about my feelings toward the repugnant voyeurism of reveling in pageants of masochistic showmanship.  It was what the world's greatest stuntman, Spanky Spangler (a Green Beret and Vietnam vet), said to the crowd after his death defying stunt that got me to thinking and writing this blog.  He said, and this may not be an exact quote but the sentiment is accurate; "Being a daredevil is a sign of freedom.  We should remember how lucky we are to live in a country that has freedoms that allow us to do things like this".  Really?  That's what Thomas Jefferson was talking about when he said we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?  The freedom to light yourself on fire and jump from a window five stories up and get paid to do it?  Well you know what?  That is exactly what he was talking about.  The right to be left alone and to live our lives as we choose so long as we don't prevent another citizen from living their life as they believe.  So now my question is how many of Spanky's fans  in the Nebraskan Heartland don't mind if two men get married?  Or if a woman chooses to have control over her own body just like Spanky?

God's Waiting Room

Getting old does not have to suck.  Just ask the residents at Broadmead Retirement Community in Hunt Valley, Maryland.  Having enough money to buy in and stay in won't, of course, make you automatically happy but it certainly will keep you unbothered.  And that is a state of well being I can see myself actually achieving.  Self actualization may never be in the cards for me so I can be content with living on the bottom floors of the pyramid.  And Broadmead does safety and social so good that one might actually have a shot at esteem and self actualization in the eventide of their existence.

I witnessed it for myself in the smiles and cheerful dispositions of even the most marginally ambulatory of the matures I encountered while visiting my in-laws.  The entire place could easily be mistaken for Stepford Connecticut 40 years later.  Even down to the front gate which, we were ominously warned, closes at 9:30 PM after which who knows what would have become of us.  Perhaps, like the unwitting wives of that fabled community, I would have been drugged and had a chip implanted in me.  Then programmed to blithely fabricate dentures there for the rest of my useful dental life.   Another obsequious robot programmed to meet the needs of this coterie of hyper content senior citizens.

The cast of characters I met in just one afternoon and evening was enough to fill me with such a sense of joyful anticipation that I can barely wait till I am 85 years old.  I am ready to retire there now. And if Medicare pays for my very own POV then I say who needs more than one pair of shoes?  It's just a 5 minute trip from your independent living apartment to the dining hall and if you forgot to plug in your POV then the courtesy golf cart is just one free phone call away.  And between the rocket scientists and brain surgeons who have retired here, fascinating dinner conversation will never be wanting.  Yesiree, if this is God's waiting room, then take my copay and pass me the "People" because I won't mind waiting.

Camping

There is a campground at the end of the street on which my cabin sits.  I am obsessed with the affairs of the people who camp there.  I used to be one of them.  Until I bought this permanent structure in which to sit and watch the stream as it gurgles by.  We use to drive down Woodland Valley Rd on our way to pitching our pup tent and wonder about the people who were lucky enough to own one of the houses lining the road.  Now I am the one sitting there wondering about the addled drivers with three bicycles and five lawn chairs perched precariously on their roof tops as they cruise up and down my street in search of free firewood for their bonfires.  I mention our pup tent because even though we mostly car camped I still acted as if we would soon be embarking on a ten mile hike from the parking area to our actual campsite.  Our tent was invariably a bungalow pitched among palatial estates.  The three room tents which most of the other campers enjoyed were probably bigger than the homes they left behind.  One time I actually saw an air conditioner protruding from the mosquito netting.  As a general rule of thumb, if an appliance can be powered by propane, Coleman will produce a camping version of said gadget.

Our campsite was always a very spartan affair.  Two man tent, one burner stove, mini lantern, and if I was feeling particularly charitable about how much room we had in the trunk I would allow Tammy to pack one luxury item, usually a folding camp chair.  If she insisted on such extravagances I would have preferred the space saving economy of those sit on the ground Crazy Creek chairs but in the interest of marital harmony I capitulated on the seating arrangements.  Normally I just use an in situ log as a decent ersatz Barcalounger.  I could never understand why campers need so many different places to sit.  The sites do come preequipped with a picnic table.   Even if they do decide to sit at the picnic table it must be enveloped by a dining canopy as if the mosquitoes don't have just as much right to be there as the barking dog, and as if nature is nothing but an unexpected interloper.  Most campers have such elaborate kitchens set up I am unclear as to why they don't just stay home and  have a barbeque in their own backyards.  At least that way they wouldn't have to lug a portable sink, two twenty pound propane tanks and a Viking grill into the woods.

I also wonder why they drive three hours to get away from the noise and lights of the city only to blast their radios and light up the night sky with two burner Coleman lanterns and strings of decorative owl lights   I have seen more stars in a Walmart parking lot at night than in some of the campgrounds I have slept in. It has always been my goal when car camping to at least have the guise of roughing it.  Because let's face it, car camping can only be called roughing it in the same sense that golf can be called a sport.  It is more like a hobby.  Like building detailed models of nineteenth century clipper ships or participating in Civil War reenactments.  But perhaps the most egregious insult to the bucolic ambiance of the state campground is the transistor radio slash CD player.  I am not talking about the weather band.  That broadcast may very well be of  interest to the entire campground community.  But I cannot envision any circumstances in which Salsa music and/or the Yankees game would be of any interest to my fellow campers.

One time I actually asked the guy in the campsite next to mine if he wouldn't mind lowering his radio.  He was listening to a Yankees game and oddly enough the announcers shrill voice was preventing my campfire from fully calming me with its hypnotic flickering .  He said no problem, but his actions implied otherwise.  There obviously was a problem.  He did indeed lower the radio but as I sat there by my fire he proceeded to break down his camp in an increasingly agitated fashion.  He finally finished packing up and as he was driving away he paused in front of my campsite.  "Are you happy now?" he yelled at me before he drove off.  "I have been here two nights and no one had a problem until you showed up.  Enjoy your weekend."  I could only sheepishly reply that I had merely asked him to lower his radio, and it was not my intention to evict him from the premises.  I am not making this story up.  It actually happened in the campground at the end of my street.  That night was probably the most restless I have ever had sleeping in a tent.  I woke up at the sound of every rustling leaf as I fully expected this psychopath to return with a three foot long machete and hack me to death while shredding my tent to pieces in the process.  And I don't like for my equipment to wear out prematurely.

Capri Or Not Capri

No one appointed me fashion police of course, but I would like to make a few observations.  I am not claiming to be the first one to muse about the capricious nature of fashion and my barbs are by no means to be taken personally, except by that lady in Macy's the other day.  She knows who I mean.  How was I to know she was talking into her bluetooth when she said " I don't know if I should buy these".  She was looking right at me, so of course I said "Oh my god sweetie, don't do that to yourself!" Donna Karen did not have this woman in mind when she designed that blouse, believe you me.  Designers are artists, not tailors.  She may just as well have stripped down to her underwear and strapped on a sandwich board with an oil painting on one side and a watercolor on the other with DKNY printed on her forehead if the goal was to advertise her artistic taste.


Another irritating trend is the pointless Capri pant.  Not quite pants, not quite shorts.  There may indeed be a window of opportunity in the Northeast when they are weather appropriate.  Unfortunately they are rarely fashion appropriate.  They reveal that exact ten inch span of female anatomy which study after study has shown to be the most diet and exercise resistant.   Have you ever seen an "Ankles of Steel" exercise video?  Of course not.  Why draw attention to them?   Buns, abs, and boobs, are the female trifecta.  In fact a cursory search of the internet will reveal a definite male bias against these modern day clam diggers.  That is why it was disconcerting to have learned during this same internet search that men are now wearing them.  Oddly, the bloggers commenting on this trend were concerned with the sexual preference of the men wearing them.  As if even a gay man could possibly look good in them.  My unasked for advice? Only wear them with heels.  Never flats.  And men?  Nobody, on either team, should be wearing them.

So what is the point of trendy fashion?  To make the wearer look good, or to make the designer look good?  Is wearing trendy, but obviously unflattering clothing a personality statement?  Perhaps.   But once Marshalls gets a hold of the remainders, believe me when I tell you the wave is already breaking on the beach, in spite of what their commercials might otherwise imply.  And speaking of false advertising, I think Victoria's Secret should be required to place a disclaimer on the labels of their push up bras.  It should read; "Warning, you must eventually take this off in front of your man and his crestfallen expression may be hazardous to your self-esteem."

My wife likes to take me along as the color commentator when she goes shopping for a new outfit.  You know, she throws out a hard stat like that woman is a size four, and I come back with an historical fact like she hasn't hit a size four since 1982.  Usually though, I just sit outside the dressing room, with the other men, trying to look disinterested.  When one of the other wives emerges we all pretend to divert our eyes so as not to appear as if we are breaking the Tenth Commandment. But of course we're all peering over the rim of our glasses thinking the same thing. All the men should be allowed to give either a thumbs up or down.  It would save a lot of heartache later on at the Christmas party.  And when my wife emerges wearing a sexy outfit, she always asks me what I think within clear ear shot of the other men.  If she looks great, I can't act too enthusiastic in front of the other husbands.  "Yeah, good", I reply in the most  nonchalant voice possible.  And if the outfit isn't flattering, I can only squeak out a red faced "maybe not". 

If Mom has a cap on also then it's okay

If at this point you are thinking that I am a repulsive male boor I am not.  I am equally critical of men's fashion faux pas'.  For example a baseball cap is never, not ever, appropriate when wearing a sport jacket or suit.  Unless you are an NFL draft pick at your first news conference.  Or at the Department of Agriculture's Fall Harvest Gala in Lincoln, Nebraska.  And even then only if it says John Deere.  And if you are a male with a flocculent back and shoulders please do not wear a tank top at the gym.  I'm kidding for comedy of course.  Don't wear a tank top anywhere.