The Toilet Seat Controversy This document is an attempt to apply basic not-so-scientific principles to the age-old problem of the toilet seat. Women complain that it should be the man's responsibility to put the toilet seat down. Men (or at this this man) contends that the efficient and cost effective "last-use" method (invented by John "Last-Use" Toiletsky) can work for us all. Let's say the woman goes to the bathroom 3 times for every 2 male trips. Also, let's assume guys go... ahhh... "number 1" three times as often as "number 2". Feel free to adjust the numbers if you disagree. Now if the female goes, the seat has to be down. If the male goes, it may be up or down depending on the... ahhh... number. So the following table emerges. Feel free to adjust the numbers below and press Submit New Values.

	Use Ratio	Use %	"Number"			% of Total	Motions Per 100 Trips
			What	Ratio	%		Always Down	Last Use
Female		60%				60%	0	18
Male		40%	#1		75%	30%	60	21
			#2		25%	10%	0	3
Total:							60	42
Savings:							18

With seat always put down, the male has to move the seat 2 times when doing #1. Of the two people, for every 100 bathroom trips, the seat has to be moved 60 times (30 x 2). Wow!

Now with the seat in the last postion of use, the maximum number of times it needs to be moved is once to adjust to the current "number". So the seat is in the incorrect position 70% (10% + 60%) of the time for male #1, and it is incorrect 30% of the time for male #2 and female use. So for every 100 bathroom trips, the seat has to be moved 21 (70% of 30 male #1 trips) + 3 (30% of 10 male #2 trips) + 18 (30% of 60 female trips) for a total of 42 times. A savings of 18 (60 - 42) motions per 100 bathroom trips!!

Now I must admit that more calculations are needed to accurately take into account frequency, etc. but I think you can see that savings are within our grasp. Even with the last-position-of-use plan, the male has to move the seat more times -- 24 (21 + 3) to a woman's 18 movements.

The moral of the story is to give us guys a break gals -- we're trying to be efficient. Also, as a comedian once said, I'll put the toilet seat down if my wife puts the driver's seat in our car back before she gets out.

If you want a page with real statistics, then check out this theoretic analysis of the toilet seat "game".

Questions/comments to: /dev/null.

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