standers and sitters we have some 50 standers and 5 sitters at work. there are 4 potties. they used to be divided 2 and 2. now the upstairs potties are either. and the downstairs potties are designated. the discussion about seat up or down started at one company meeting. but fortunately died out quickly. might have been when the time pool started up. anywho, i've done some experiments on potty cleanliness when used by standers and sitters. and i have some theories on stander and sitter psychology. which it pleases me to announce will be subject for the rest of the post. the experiments are pretty easy to conduct. you need two potties, a stander, and a sitter. designate one of the potties as stander only. and the other as sitter only. evaluate their cleanliness each week. most of the ick on a potty is on the top of the bowl and the bottom of the seat. the stander's potty will have more ick on the top of the bowl. the sitter's potty will have more ick on the bottom of the seat. why? not going there. anywho, this result will be rejected by every sitter that's ever lived. why? well, my hypothesis is that at some point in a sitter's life they had a potty all to themselves. and since they never raise the seat they never see the accumulated ick. to them the toilet is always pristine. except when it's time to clean it. which typically happens more often than a stander's. the expectation then is that it's dirty and gets cleaned quickly. and the lasting memory is of the shiny you-could-make-soup-in-it bowl. then that utopia ends. and the sitter has to share the potty with a stander. and the stander invariably leaves the seat up. so now not only is the potty actually dirtier (there are two people using it) but the sitter gets to see the previously concealed ick. the potty's icky. it didn't used to be. clearly this is the stander's fault. the solution? why, make the stander put down the seat. poof! potty's clean again. sorta. the ick is still there. it's just the sitter doesn't have to see it any more and can go back to the nice fantasy land that the potty's clean. the stander of course has no such delusion. standers have been using dirty potties all their life. dirty is the normal state of a potty. so what's a stander to do? this was my proposal at work: get lids for the potties. put the company logo on the lids. company policy is to put the lid down. seat down is prettier. lid down is prettiest. and best of all, it's position independent.  ¶ 8:47 PM