I’m Not Going to Put the Toilet Seat Down

Editors Note: Today, Leo and I engaged in a “Philosophy Battle”. We took an obscure sentence, and gave ourselves a one hour time hack to write a Philosophy Friday piece. What you see below is what we did in this past hour. We have a bet riding on this, so please put in the comments below who you think “won”. Enjoy! 

I’m Not Going to Put the Toilet Seat Down

Entirely Dictated by Life is life.  Everything we do, every decision that we make, every word we utter is the by-product of a previous interaction or experience. Tastes and intolerance is molded by the joys and pains which seared themselves into our deepest crevices. Phrases uttered by an unnecessary impact on illustrious idol makes idiom.

We learn to love the setting sun, the demise of a day and all the hope that its predecessor brings.  We adapt approach to prevent the repeated torment of our central pump.  Like a wild animal once kicked we flee from any potentially aggressive boot.  Even the slightest shuffle can create a stampede in the opposite direction.

We are a ransom note strewn together from the pieces cut from others.  The truest version of ourselves is not our title, our cover or even our pages.  Who we are is the shifting of the eyes of those who read our words.  We are a letter cut free from a magazine in an effort to construct someone else’s sentence.

When the letters used to construct our sentences are abrasive we do not do well to comfort the eyes of our readers.  If, by chance, your misfortune is that of having struggled through similar symbols to those of a new note it is natural to remove yourself from such a circumstance.  Life is easier lived when mistakes are not repeated.  Yet for some reason I continue to leave the toilet seat up.

-Leo Jenkins

 

I’m Not Going to Put the Toilet Seat Down

As I write this, my actual bathroom toilet is filled to the brim with literal shit. Somehow, the toilet clogged, and somehow, I cannot find our plunger. So there it sits…

As my nostrils pick up the faint smell of feces wafting into my living room, I can’t help but think that this is a great analogy for life sometimes. Life can be a toilet bowl. Sometimes it is clean, with fresh water, no spatter marks, and a nice vanilla candle lit next to it. That’s what we aspire to anyways, a sparkling porcelain throne that is clean and never smells. Sometimes though, you fill it to the brim with excrement and can’t get it to go down. And then, for some reason, the shit just keeps on coming.

Sometimes you get out of the Army with visions of grandeur. Sometimes you think you have a full proof plan, and a few back up full proof plans. Sometimes you lose your health insurance while your spouse has a chronic illness. Sometimes they get pregnant on top of that. Sometimes you can’t sell your house that you were convinced would sell right away, the house that you poured all of your savings into, only to have it suck the life out of you as it sits idle on the market. Sometimes, you find yourself hiding your car from the re-po man every night. Sometimes you have to sell almost every thing you own that is of value to make your rent payment. Sometimes, you have to convince yourself “who cares about a credit score”. Sometimes, you have a panic attack every time an unknown number calls your phone, thinking it must be another disconnection notice, or creditor.

Sometimes, the shit just keeps piling up, while you frantically look for a plunger.

When this happens, you have two options. You can either go out and procure a plunger, and deal with the shit sitting in your bowl head on. Or, you can put the toilet seat down, close the door, and pretend it’s not in the bowl. You can quit checking your mail. You can quit answering your phone calls. You can admit that the toilet bowl has defeated you.

But let us say that a toilet bowl is just a toilet bowl, and neither its contents nor the volume of its contents matter. What matters is how fast and how effectively you deal with it.  What matters is that you don’t quit, that you push through the shit – plunger or not. It’ll wash off at some point, right? Deal with the smell until you figure out a way to solve the source of the smell.

What matters is that you always say, “I’m not going to put the toilet seat down.”

-Marty Skovlund

Now post your comments below about who won! Leo or Marty!