If you sprinkle when you tinkle. Be a sweetie and wipe the seatie. – Lau Tzu

Just kidding about Lau Tzu there, but whoever wrote those words was wise indeed.

This wisdom was initially intended for men, but should be extended to women as well, because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started to sit down in a public restroom and then been confronted with droplets of urine all over the seat.

This gets me a little upset, but I understand how it happens.

Some ladies like to hover over the toilet in order to avoid touching the germy seat, but in so doing they piss all over it. This leaves the next person in that stall with three options:

1. Hover like the person before you, and leave behind an even larger mess for the next poor soul who enters the stall.
2. Wipe up someone else’s urine. (Not my fave, but I’ve done it when there was a line behind me and I HAD to go.)
3. Use another stall. (My personal favorite. Without a doubt, it’s the coward’s way out, but it’s also the most sanitary.)*

As it turns out, the germy public toilet seat is not as bad as you might think, although it’s quite possible that the germ count rises dramatically on a toilet seat after someone sprays piss on it. Sigh.

I found the article I linked to above interesting in that it suggested the only STD you can contract from a toilet seat is crabs. Now, it’s a well-known fact that crabs can jump pretty far, so those who hover are theoretically no safer from them than the rest of us are.

So, good news. In order to get an incurable venereal disease, you’re gonna have to do something more stimulating than just sitting on a toilet seat.

Ladies, I challenge you. Sit on a public toilet seat today. Just say, “What the fuck” and make your move. Carpe Diem! Live a little! Don’t kill the whales!

But, if you find you must hover, please be a sweetie and wipe the seatie.

*You’ll notice I didn’t mention seat covers here. That’s because I’m giving the pee sprayer the benefit of the doubt by assuming there were none at her disposal.

I notice that I relish eating salads after I spend half the day digging weeds and doing yard-work. I’m angry at greenery in general after a day like that, and it feels really good to see something leafy quivering on the edge of my fork.

Yeah, I got nothin’ today.

However, I would like to take a moment to congratulate my pimp and his wife, Michelle, on their purchase of a new Santa Fe. May their enjoyment of the vehicle last much longer than their car payments do. Amen.

Do not attempt to sing along with The Stylistics when you have a bad cold. It hurts your throat and you’ll go into a coughing fit while driving. That is all.

I’m not certain as to whether I’m an A-list blogger or not. But, if I had to venture a guess, I would err on the side of caution and assume that I am not an A-list blogger and that I am generally shunned by those who are A-list bloggers.

But, I’m not bitter. Oh no! Not me. I’m biding my time and during this brief interim I shall pretend that worrying about whether you are A-list is a bourgeoisie concern, and I can’t be bothered with it.

I’ll say, “I don’t like labels.” Occasionally, I’ll even throw out, “Who cares about a stupid popularity contest anyway?”

This will make me sound all cool and aloof…

As a direct result of my newfound cool aloofness, the A-list bloggers will all start linking to me, and you can bet you’re sweet sticky buns that when that time comes I’ll be putting a giant A+ in the upper right hand corner of my blog.

When my plan has come full circle, I will be known as Debbie the cool and aloof A-list blogger….Suckas.

PS – Thanks to everyone who sent me kind e-mails enquiring about what happened to my site. As you can see, it’s back up and running, and I’m still not dead.

My friendship with Billy is old enough to drive a car. In fact, it’s almost old enough to buy a round of beers. He and I have been laughing with (and at) each other for more than eighteen years.

We met the month after we both graduated from the same high school. I don’t remember seeing him in high school at all. Then again, I was quite preoccupied during that time. All my energy was directed at mooning over a particularly artsy poetic type who dressed like Jim Morrison but looked more like Alfred E. Newman. I also did a lot of mooning over the computer wiz who would become my husband many years later. (You say “geek.” I say “marriage material.”)

But I digress. The point is, for whatever reason, Billy and I didn’t meet until we graduated. And that’s fine with me, because we still managed to share our childhood.

While the cool kids did whatever it is cool kids do, we were singing along with Dr. Demento and playing board games like Stratego and Risk. Unfortunately, Risk requires three people, and it was difficult at times to enlist his brother or one of his sisters to play along with us. The reason for their reluctance was that Billy was and is, shall we say, a wee bit too competitive at certain games.

But, our favorite pastime by far was one we kept as secret as possible from everyone, siblings included. I won’t need to explain our reasons for keeping it under wraps when you find out what it is.

So, as soon as we had the privacy we required, I’d say to Billy, “Get out the stuff” and he would respond by pulling a large linen bag from a wooden shelf and dumping its contents onto the painted concrete floor of the basement.

This floor was perfect for our purposes. It offered a huge space on which to set up our respective armies. Our armies were of the plastic variety. But, they weren’t the cheaply made toy soldiers of today. No. These were made of good thick plastic and they had solid foundations under them. These babies could stand up even on shag carpet! That’s whut I’m talkin’ ’bout!

Hell, you can’t even breath on the ones I’ve seen in recent years or they’ll fall right over. Whatever happened to craftsmanship in toy making?

Um, where was I?

Oh yes, so after we set up our troops on opposite sides of the room, we’d take turns rolling our marbles at each other’s armies. Whichever of us lost all of his/her soldiers first was declared the loser and the game was over.

But, the central thought that keeps coming back to me in regard to our silly game is that it had to start somewhere.

This means that, at some point in our relationship, Billy courageously pulled out a bag of toy soldiers in the hope that I wouldn’t laugh at him for very long and that we’d get a kick out of playing with them together. If that doesn’t prove that he’s the best kind of friend there is, I don’t know what could.

I knew the internet would be the death of me sooner or later, but I didn’t think I’d be around to find out about it… Confused yet?

Yeah, so am I.

Click this link, type in Debbie and check out result number 11. The link directs you to my site, but the description is in regard to another Debbie who is deceased.

Needless to say, I was very surprised to see those words under my blog title, so here’s the e-mail I’m sending in hopes of getting this straightened out.

To whom it may concern:

This concerns your search results for the word “Debbie.”

In particular, it concerns search result 11. Bored but busy

This is the link to your page which contains the inaccuracy:

http://www.lasso.dk/cgi-bin/search/search.cgi?page=1

The information following my site’s title is misleading in that I am in no way associated with the late Debbie _______.

I am the owner of the site titled “Bored but Busy” and of all the content therein, but your search result implies that my work belongs to another Debbie who is apparently deceased.

My name is Deborah M. _______ and I am very much alive. All of the content of Boredbutbusy.com is mine and mine alone (with the obvious exception of comments made on my posts by others).

Thank you for correcting this problem as soon as possible. If you’d like me to compose an appropriate site description, I will gladly do so. Just let me know.

Sincerely,

Deborah M. _______

So, two questions, dear readers:

1. Has anyone had a similar experience?

2. Am I getting stressed over nothing?