Women Are Pigs

For decades, men have been bemusedly smoking their cigars after dinner wondering why Ethel is still in the rest room long after the tray is overflowing with ash.

Rumors have surfaced that women have meetings in the rest room about the men secluded outside. That we repaint our faces so we can look exactly the same as when we entered. That we have, in fact, found the fourth dimension and it exists in stall number four. These are lies.

The truth is simple.

Reason #1 - Math

A man walks up to a urinal, unzips, flushes, does his business, zips, and leaves.

A woman on the other hand goes into a stall, closes the door, locks it, unzips, undresses, applies a sanitary sheet, sits or squats (sidebar: women who don’t sit are called “squatters”), does her business, stands, redresses, re-zips, turns around, flushes, turns back around, unlocks the door, washes her hands, and leaves.

It’s in the math. There are eleven extra steps for women. It’s the difference between building a box and building a house.

Reason #2 - Women Are Pigs

Some women don’t realize that no matter how much target practice you get, it is physically impossible for women to hit the bull’s-eye every time or even most of the time. It’s the difference between aiming at a deer with a rifle and crosshairs and aiming at a deer with a pistol while blindfolded and facing the opposite direction. No matter how many times you’ve tried to shoot a deer with your eyes closed, your back turned, and a .22 in your hand, you just don’t have the right equipment to bag the deer.

That said, when women squat, they miss. Often. So, other women must go through a big time-consuming seat-wiping ordeal before getting down to business.

I’d go into a tirade about how simple and polite it is for squatters to lift the top seat before doing their business. But this isn’t a story about rudeness, poor hygiene, or people who were clearly raised by wild chickens.

Reason #3 - Women Take Forever Because Women Take Forever

If the first woman didn’t have to spend four years in the bathroom, the second woman wouldn’t stand around with her legs twisted wondering what in God’s name is taking that first woman so bloody long. Meanwhile, a third woman decides to apply a little makeup since she has nothing else to do. Before you know what’s happening, forty-eight women are performing various impatient movements while standing in a line that stretches to the Starbucks a block away.

So there you have it. Math, piggishness, and the bottleneck. Were our bodies created in such a way that it didn’t require a minimum of fifteen steps to dispose of our waste, we might get out of the bathroom in less time than it takes my mother to tell me why men won’t buy the cow when the milk is free. But until evolution leaves us properly equipped, we’re doomed to a production in the bathroom that requires a director and a prop girl.