‘Who gives a cr*p? Let’s talk about what goes on behind closed bathroom doors’

It’s something that pretty well every one of us does every day, at least once, but it is also one of humankind’s greatest secrets … More secret than any Masonic pledge, something which by definition, can only be self-taught, a function which is private to pretty well every one of us, except in very special circumstances!

I am referring of course, to our daily visit to the loo, toilet, WC, crapper, lavatory or dunny. A small room with many more names than I have listed here (the Americans, being very coy insist on calling it the ‘bathroom’, whether there is a bath in there or not).

It can be a room richly furnished, with gold-plated fittings, marble flooring and a picture window of enormous size, overlooking a view that includes, all in one scene, ocean, forest, pretty little village and distant mountains; this is the rich person’s toilet. Or it might be little more than a cupboard containing a lavatory bowl and a hand basin, with a window the size of a postage stamp, overlooking the side wall of the abattoir next door. In either case it has just one function — the removal of bodily waste.

That’s when everything gets secretive; little ‘tricks-of-the-trade’ we all learned through personal experience, things much too embarrassing to chat about over a pint at the pub or during the lunch break at work. But I’m going to to blow a few of them now — only the male version of course, I have no idea how women go about their business, (no pun intended).

Once the door is safely shut and bolted there are several things to be done, according to ritual; some tear off a short length of paper to drop down the bowl, to cut down irritating splashes during use, especially in winter when the water down there can be very cold.

Next comes the dropping of the trousers and pants — does one drop both garments to the ground and leave them there, or does he leave the trousers down and the pants up over the knees, or finally does he keep both garments up over the knees? Some wipe the seat with toilet paper now, some don’t bother, but either way sitting down comes next — gingerly if it’s a cold day, and whatever he is accustomed to doing while the action is going on is started.

He might keep papers or a book there, to while away the time; some even take actual work in there with them, so as to be doubly productive, others have their smartphone and open up some pre-loaded game, while some just sit there gazing at the door handle or something. The choice of entertainment is apparently endless — most men know what they like to do in there!

Then there’s the messy bit — the clean-up when the job is finished. There are numerous ways of using the supplied paper (if you’ve managed to get some these days!). Some tear off one sheet, some tear off four and I don’t doubt there are some who tear off 10, in all cases as one continuous strip, not a pile of souse paper! What does he do next? Well, it all depends on the individual again; there are folders and there are scrunchers. The folders, as the name implies carefully fold all the sheets together so they finish up with a sort of book of as many pages as there were sheets torn off the roll; the scrunchers simply screw the selected number of sheets into a loose sort of a ball and use that.

Even I am too embarrassed to explain in detail what follows. Suffice to say, there are many ways of going about the task, with different methods suiting different people in different ways, from sitting or standing to do the work, or working through the legs or round the legs. You get the gist, and you’ll no doubt have a method that works for you!

Almost finally, there are one or two ways of completing the job … Does the flush get pulled first and then the trousers and pants pulled up, or the other way round, does one face the bowl while accomplishing this final ritual, so a check can be made to ensure that all is functioning as it should, or should one keep their back to it and just hope all is well?

The absolute final act before stepping out is to get dressed. Again, the methods vary — from pants up first to shirt down and pants up last.

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