Just forgot.
Joe had not meant to leave the seat up again. He had promised Mam to mend his ways but talking it over afterwards with Geraint in the railway sidings had spawned a flow of subversive mycelial thoughts that spread and advanced each time he used the bathroom.
The rails were a comforting backdrop for the boys to try on the fit and suitability of new ideas before integration into their developing adult identities. The clatter of rolling stock, honk of diesel horns and that special click as the point changes engaged oiled the process.
What ya say?
Joe was focussed on separating black licorice laces from red.
It’s philogynist. That’s the antonym of misogynist. Geraint repeated his explanation. .
Misogynist, philogynist.
Joe rolled the words as they seeped between his teeth and overflowed his lips before sucking them back into his mouth.
Well why should the seat be left down? Geraint continued. Can’t be Victorian sensitivities; we always flush. No judicial precedents I know of. Anyway why should women have the last word? Only one female in our house. It’s a crime against men, against manhood.
They agreed something needed to be done. Geraint at 17 years was 6 years older than his undersized “after-thought” brother; an unchallengeable and authoritative, if somewhat pompous, oracle on all matters pertaining to bodily functions…….and to females. A head flick returned a straying lock advancing across over-sized, black-framed glasses to his outer visual fields. The specs, like his chosen subjects English, Philosophy, Biology, had been meticulously chosen to impress at the Law School interview. The offer arrived next day.
The female psyche is a delicate but rigid phenomenon, unaccustomed to change.
Geraint spoke this recently discovered still tremulant formulation out loud for personal consumption and smugly observed it set.
What dictionary you swallowed now? Unable to admit he was impressed, Joe offered Geraint his last red licorice lace.
~~~
Between midnight and 3 am was optimum. Later than that and their mother’s “problem,” still unresolved since Joe’s difficult birth, might necessitate a nocturnal visit. Geraint kept sentry outside the bathroom door. In whispered sniggers he educated Joe in the historical antecedents of Gardyloo.
“Coming from the expression <Prenez garde a l’eau!> a warning common in early 1700s to unwary passer-bys, shouted as residents emptied their chamber pots from the upper floor windows of Edinburgh’s overcrowded tenement buildings.”
Joe knew they had chosen the correct Gorilla Glue formulation when he heard Mam’s scream. It had been Geraint’s idea to glue the lid to the seat itself and then the seat to the pedestal. The whole edifice was as immoveable as a modern art installation.
~~~
The parents decided that a new bathroom suite was overdue. A new lavatorial law, drafted by Geraint was adopted by common agreement. Framed and hung above the toilet, it defied going unnoticed.
Dear User
Have you rushed?
Have you flushed?
Seat up or down?
No cause to frown
However endowed
Both are allowed.
