For those of you that don't know, I grew up with three brothers. So in our household, my Mom had to suffer through my Dad and four messy, unmannered boys. Okay, we probably weren't that unruly, but we were boys. For boys, mess is comfortable. We're encouraged to play in the dirt, not wash our hands, and show off the day's activities on our pant legs or shirts. That's part of the fun of being male. You get to act like you're 5 most of the time and the result (whether it be oil, dirt, grease, or sweat) is further proof of the testosterone flowing through your body.
To make matters worse for me (and for a certain someone that would inherit the behaviors of an all-boy house when we got married), my first foray into being out of the house was to live with one of my brothers. We had a 2-bedroom apartment that worked incredibly well as a bachelor pad. And wouldn't you know it, boys were still boys. Bless my mom. I think she always knew she was fighting a losing battle, but she always seemed to make the workman like effort. I remember her looking into my brother's bathtub in our apartment and actually being so repulsed that she pulled out the Comet and returned the tub to a sparkly....bland tan color. You can best believe we got her a really nice Mother's Day card that year.
So when I got married, I brought with me a host of bad behaviors - well, bad to Elisa. Because the opposite end of the spectrum was the Kaczka household. My poor father-in-law. While my mom was stuck with the boy parade, he was stuck with 4 women in a house - his wife and three daughters. To say that Elisa and I grew up differently would be the understatement of the year. Elisa learned to be clean, tidy, organized. It's no wonder that her career turned to the structure and organization of numbers. Elisa was groomed to be a girl. A girly girl. Yes, the "I'm going to stand on a chair because a Daddy Long Leg spider has just entered the mile radius around my house" girly girl. You can already imagine the collision on the way. Elisa, with 2 sisters. Brad, with 3 brothers. I think it's fair to say that Elisa probably measured me up one day and promptly started a spreadsheet of all of the little behaviors that would need fixing.
But the issue that really started my "education" was much more basic than the great change that relationships deal with. My eyes were opened up to marriage and relationships, not through thorough discussions and arguments over raising children, religion, or how to deal with finances. No, I now introduce you to the story of the Toilet Seat & The Puppy Picture.
Elisa and I moved into our house about 6 months into marriage. Maybe it was just the fact that being a newlywed was a blur, but the first 6 months of apartment living don't really leave a lot of memories for me. Then again, Elisa and I were both in school full-time, and both had jobs. I was traveling 2 weeks out of the month, and Elisa was trying to figure out what to do with our little Pug Maggie. So the story unfolds on a cold, blustery day in November 2003. Up to this point, marriage had been an adjustment, but I felt that I was holding my own in the push/pull of the relationship. And then I made the mistake of using the bathroom.
After flushing (I was raised in a house of 4 boys, not in the wilderness), I walked out of the bathroom and headed downstairs. 2 minutes later, it began. Elisa called down to me and asked me to come back upstairs. I was already well trained in the "wife tone". You know, the tone they use when they want to teach you something about being a better husband. So I walked up the stairs, and noticed she was in the bathroom. I probably spoke to soon a few sentences ago - I admit my first thought was that I potentially hadn't flushed. Maybe I was raised in the wilderness after all. I walked into the bathroom to see Elisa staring at the toilet. "I flushed!" was my first comment. You know, as I relive this story, I realize that I probably was a bit too defensive about flushing. In fact, even in the retelling of the story I find myself trying to prove to you, the reader, that I actually do flush the toilet. Somewhere, a therapist is praying I come for a few "sessions". For the sake of our story, let's just establish that I'm a flusher. That's not the point of the story anyway. Okay, now I'm flustered.
Back to November 2003. Back to the bathroom. Elisa moved into "trainer mode" very quickly. She educated me on proper etiquette of the toilet seat. Apparently, in normal households across the great USA, you are supposed to put the toilet seat down. I was told in no uncertain terms that the seat belonged in the down position at all times. I think I mumbled "yes, dear", and moved onto other things. I firmly believed that Elisa was going to just have to get over it. It was a toilet seat after all.
The next time I failed to place the seat in the downward position (suddenly, I envision a flight attendant providing proper instructions on this), my reaction went sarcastic. Upon asking Elisa why it was so important, she proceeded to let me know that if I didn't put the seat down, she could fall in when it was the middle of the night and she needed to use the John. See, this is what you do in marriage...you have heated conversations about how to prevent the butt cheek from submersing in the toilet. It makes you crave the fights about what to eat for dinner, doesn't it? I asked her why she didn't just turn on the light. I had a difficult time envisioning Elisa backing up to the toilet like a truck to a loading dock, without "using her rearview mirror", if you will. Again, the conversation ended with a "yes, dear", and I started to realize that Toilet Seat-gate wasn't going to be going away anytime soon.
Now I'll admit that after being scolded multiple times, I started to at least try. My OCD mind first thought it would be good to just try to make it a routine thing. Do it right after you flush. Or after you wash your hands. Or maybe don't even lift the seat at all (Elisa and all women are probably pulling the Comet out as a reaction to the last suggestion...it was a joke, put the rubber gloves down ladies). But it became clear to me that 20+ years of a toilet seat free zone were working against me. I think it would be fair to say that I developed a sort of block to this learning process. Part of me still didn't get why it was a big deal. Part of me just couldn't remember to put the seat down.
But my eyes were finally opened when I was at my in-laws for a Sunday dinner. I had used the restroom, and was still in the stage where I wanted to make sure my in-laws approved of me. For those that know me, it just means the sarcasm was only at a level 4, rather than the typical 10. I don't think anyone knew that I had been the last to use the restroom, but when Elisa's sister went to use the John, I heard it shouted through the house. "Who left the toilet seat up?" My first thought was to act offended like the rest of the household. "Yeah, who would do such a thing!". But I knew Elisa would see through that. Secondly, I thought of bouncing up and down like a 4-year old - I'd try to convince them that I really needed to go to the bathroom, and so they would never know I had been the last one to use it! It was genius - except, bouncing up and down with crossed legs is probably not the best way to endear yourself to the in-laws. In the end, I think Elisa actually squeezed my leg under the table in a "oh dear, will you ever learn"? sort of way.
And surprisingly, it was this quintessential moment that I realized the reality of relationships. One that I hope to explore in further writing. We may like to pretend that our personalities can change. After all, there are self-help books lining the shelves of Barnes & Noble that tell you change is possible. But what I realized in that moment is that I wouldn't suddenly wake up and realize that the toilet seat needed to be down. It wasn't about the toilet seat at all. It was the fact that I was fighting the natural inclination to fall into a "role" in my relationship. Because my theory on relationships is as follows - relationships are not about how to fit 2 different personalities into 1 life. Instead, it's about understanding that in all matters of relationships, the two individuals involved need to fall into roles that generally challenge and are at tension with the other. The OCD cleaner vs. the "can't I just dust around the furniture" cleaner. The disciplinarian vs. the melting marshmallow. The spender vs. the saver. And that so long as the intent of the two individuals is aligned (they're doing it for the same reason), these roles are crucial to a healthy relationship.
How does this relate to a toilet seat? I realized in the in-law moment that Elisa was already knee deep (or should I say toilet water deep) into the role of teacher. It was time for me to become the learner. Our intent was the same - that neither of us wanted me to be the urban equivalent of Tarzan. My mental block had come from the fact that I was trying to "change" myself when that just wasn't possible. I am who I am. I will always be a "does it REALLY matter what position the toilet seat is in?" kind of guy. But when I accepted that I needed to learn what was being taught for the good of my marriage, things got generally easier and my marriage did too.
After countless ways of trying to determine how to finally put the toilet seat down, I settled on a simple approach. I needed a reminder - not of toilet seat etiquette, but of my required role. An off the wall reminder that I needed to be the learner. In essence, I was like a little puppy. So I found an address sticker of Elisa's that had a picture of puppy on it and I put it on the underside of the toilet seat. Every time I used the toilet, Mr. Puppy would be staring at me. And whether it was my new devotion to actually accept something that I needed to learn, or my shame at the puppy mocking me about a toilet seat, the toilet seat started coming down faster than the Berlin Wall.
I remember they used to have posters in classrooms saying "Everything I needed to know, I learned in Kindergarten". Apparently, everything I needed to know about relationships I learned with a toilet seat. Now I just need to copyright that and make a poster.
And nearly 8 years later (as shown below for the non-believers), Mr. Puppy is still affixed to the underside of the toilet seat. Something tells me that when we move, that seat is coming with me...in the downward position, of course.
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