Women and bathrooms

Sitting on a wet toilet seat is among the most unpleasant sensations in the world. I get very agitated when it happens. Generally speaking, I'm mindful of checking the seat before I sit. But sometimes, when I've got to go badly, it slips my mind. And inevitably I'm in a movie theater or a bus station or some such godawful place where sitting on a wet seat makes you fear for your life. Which begs the question, is it better to sit in the pee of a stranger or the pee of someone you know?

Now, I am not an advocate of standing above the seat to pee. It's a toilet, for god's sakes, you're supposed to put your butt on it. But if you have a huge problem with germs or cooties or whatever you think you're going to catch, put some paper around the edges and then sit. When you stand above the seat, you inevitably wind up peeing all over it, and it's likely that you wind up pissing on your leg as well.

Recently I went to the bathroon at ImprovBoston, a theater that I go to on a regular basis. I went into the bathroom immediately after somebody I know - not well, mind you, she's the girlfriend of a sorta-friend of mine. And when I went in, there was pee on the seat. On both sides of the seat. It was like she had sprayed the whole place with pee. That's just nasty. Now, on one occasion in my past I admonished a woman coming out of a pee-covered bathroom stall. But how do you accuse someone you sort of know of peeing on the seat? How do you act knowing that you had to clean up someone else's uirne... someone you then have to go chat with out of common courtesy??

I just don't know. And personally, I'd just feel awkward writing to Miss Manners about this sort of thing.