Men need to take this advice sitting down

Snow has finally disappeared from the north-facing hillsides in my hollow. The winter has been rough on the trees down there and I’ll have to engage in a bit of cleanup this spring. A cardinal couple has decided to construct their nest in a bush by the side door consequently, every time I go out they fly off. I should leave a note suggesting they decamp to a quieter spot, but for now, here they remain. Perhaps I’ll name them, maybe Ralph and Alice.

As these things are wont to do, odd thoughts traveled through my head last week while on a driving trip, a trip across four states in three days, wherein I occasionally availed myself of restrooms in restaurants, gas stations, and convenience stores. And I’ll just blurt it out: men when you need to use the bathroom, sit down!

When my wife and I married more than 40 years ago we agreed that I would do all of the housework. She was doing important things and I was, well, middle management all of the way, so it seemed appropriate for me to do the cleaning, laundry, yard work, ironing, etc. The cleaning of the bathroom was a revelation to me.

Anyway, many men can be incredible pigs when it comes to bathroom cleanliness and I suggest that whoever is in charge of bathroom cleaning in your house should insist that men sit. It’s easy and doesn’t emasculate in any way, shape, or form. When on long-distance flights I used the restrooms (tough to rest in a 3’X4’ space) just ahead of my wife, cleaning up whatever prior men had wrought. It was the least I could do for the person who made my life so meaningful.

The worst example I’ve encountered of this sort of pig-like behavior was at a Willie Nelson concert. I don’t know if this behavior was peculiar to Willie’s crowd, but at this particular venue there weren’t enough restrooms so, as usual, women stood in line while there was no line for the men’s room, because men were using the sinks. It was one of the few times I failed to wash my hands. OK, enough of this.

On Super Bowl Sunday I stopped at a Starbucks in a town north of here and ordered a yuppie toffee nut latte from a young barista wearing a name tag that read ‘Taylor.’ When she asked for a name to write on my ‘coffee in a cardboard cup’ (a terrific John Kander song from a 1971 Broadway show) I gave the only appropriate name for the day of this year’s game; Taylor. And it was gratifying to stand with a bunch of folks at a busy Starbucks waiting for a beverage, gratifying to hear a barista calling out the name Taylor, me knowing folks might wonder if that was really my name, perhaps thinking of the girlfriend of a football player.

Also on Super Bowl Sunday, there was an unexpected knock on my door. All knocks out here are unexpected. It was a young man who’d written a very sweet letter last year, asking if he and his small daughter could come out here to hunt for what are called ‘sheds.’ Deer grow new antlers every year, shedding the old ones. After they headed to the woods I put a pair of antlers on the hood of the guy’s pickup truck, not wanting the little girl to be sad if they came up empty. I needn’t have worried. Another knock at the door and there stood dad and daughter with some of the most beautiful antlers I’ve seen and the child, no more than two years old, was giddy with delight. It’s all so simple.

Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County. The Dubuque Telegraph Herald recently published a 60-page magazine of Kurt’s columns. The magazine can be purchased at store.telegraphherald.com/product/notes-from-rural-america/