AIMING TO PLEASE

I was amused by a line in 'Outnumbered' recently, when long-suffering Mum Sue came downstairs sporting a pair of rubber gloves having been cleaning the toilets. She complained to anyone who would listen that there appeared to have been a urine tsunami in the toilet and could the male members of the household please take better care with their aim.

To be honest they haven't got a leg to stand on since, none of them having reached their fifties, their *ahem 'equipment' would be fully functional and accurate. Unlike mine.

You see, with age comes a lessening of pressure like a garden hose which is so feeble that you need to stand much closer to the flowers if they are to get remotely wet.

I am always embarrassed by a particular public toilet in a Bristol shopping centre which has targets painted in each urinal position. They are about waist height and the chances of my weakly wee stream getting anywhere near the mark are nil.

My poor wife often finds that the tsunami has struck in our house too. I have tried to explain that it's very difficult when you adopt a careful position with your man's bits above the bowl so as to avoid dripping onto your toes, pointing your third leg carefully at the middle of the loo and having checked that all is set, letting loose only to find that the stream which emerges adopts the shape of a divining rod and goes to left and right missing the toilet completely. Quickly adjusting the aim to bring the right-hand stream back into line only means that the left-hand stream is now missing the mark by about a metre.

I suppose I could always forego my macho stance and sit on the loo but this is difficult when you have 'morning wood' - then again, that's a whole different problem.

This reminds me of the old joke:

A Harrow man and an Eton man are at the urinal. They finish and zip up. The Harrow man proceeds to the sink to wash his hands, while the Eton man immediately makes for the exit.

The Harrow man says, "At Harrow they teach us to wash our hands after we urinate."

The Eton man replies, "At Eton they teach us not to piss on our hands."