A quote from the author Camille Paglia suggests urination is yet another factor that distinguishes the value of the sexes. To quote, "Male urination really is a kind of accomplishment, an arc of transcendence. A woman merely waters the ground she stands on...there is no projection beyond the boundaries of the self." Or as a succinct sage summed up, we're all either wall sprayers and puddle makers. That seems a rather simple analogy, but let's recognize that having an appendage does offer certain advantages in the ease of bathroom use.

I can't begin to count the number of times I've come out of a theater at the end of a movie and stood in an endless snaking line waiting to use the ladies room, all the while gazing with envy at the available open door of the gents. I envy that men can urinate without having to partially disrobe. I envy that they don't have to sit down on a toilet seat that is sometimes suspiciously wet. I envy that a man can pee discreetly outdoors if he's without a nearby facility. And most of all, I envy, greatly, that a man could write his name in the snow with pee if he wanted to. I once tried and never got past the first letter (You try it. My first name starts with an "M" and let me tell you, knocking out that "M" alone took a lot of fancy footwork).

The general school of thought suggests there is a reason why men need a trough to pee in. They're messy. I have friends who are training their young sons to sit and "pee like a girl." I don't have the heart to remind them that girls are not much neater once their perfumed facades disappear behind a public bathroom door. And it's to that end I'm compelled to expose some universal bad bathroom habits about puddle makers and attempt to draw some scary parallels between genders that Camille never considered.

-To their credit, women are consistent hand washers after they use the restroom, but they are also prone to splashing copious amounts of water on counters without wiping it up and leaving dirty paper towels on the floors if they miss tossing it into the bin. I mean, why would they pick a dirty towel off a dirty floor if they just washed their hands? D-uh.

-In the ladies room at my work hangs a sweetly scripted sign : "If you sprinkle, when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat." Clearly. there are several people who don't speak English because in some cases, only a leaf blower will make that seat inhabitable. I have to wonder--are you people STANDING on that seat when you use it?

-Women have the habit of chattering on in mindless conversation with one another when in a bathroom. I prefer the anonymity of my bathroom experience and feel alarmed when a disembodied voice suddenly says to me, "I love the sweater you're wearing today." I believe most people have trouble talking and peeing at the same time and what's more, I'm a little revolted by the concept that someone else is peeing while talking to me. I suspect men do not chat about the box scores while hovering over a urinal, so please don't yak at me while I'm secluded in a stall.

-Girls, this one is the clincher. I have lived with men my entire life and the one bathroom trick they have perfected is The Courtesy Flush. Sometimes I walk into a public restroom and reel from the general stankery with only one thought: Jesus, did a cow shit in here?! I'm begging you. There is a reason they call it the courtesy flush. By incorporating this habit into your regular routine, you are doing all your fellow puddle makers a great and noble service.

Really, Camille. We have bigger things to resolve than the patterns of our pee, no?