02.19.09
Extra Toilets are a Waste
Take this situation.
You are a guy. (Or if you really insist otherwise, feel free to switch the genders). You and your best (male) bud are on the way to class. You pause by the restrooms. Your friend really needs to go.
Your buddy walks into the toilet – the girls’ toilet.
What do you do?
That is the prime paragon of the existence of social constructs. Why should anyone care which toilet they enter if they’re all basically the same? It’s all arbitrary plumbing. Ten thousand years ago – four hundred years ago even – if you were around would you care if some joker hung up a sign that said:
“For girls only. Pee on the next tree.” (I want that sign.)
Actually this post should have gone up on another place as a serious argument, but that line was far too good to not be here.
Anyway the point here is that next time you want to enter a toilet while a friend of yours is around, why not stress-test your friendship with that situation? Use the line.
Anon said,
March 9, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Technically, it would take extraordinary urinary tract pressure or some kick-assed acrobatics to actually pee ON a tree. You might have meant shrubberies or bonsais but strictly speaking, those are not “trees”, so to speak.
riezawa said,
March 9, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Technically, any part of the tree can be considered “on”. For example, one could stand on the above ground roots of a tree and still claim to be standing on the tree. Likewise, one could pee at the base of the tree and still claim to be relieving oneself on the tree.
Anon said,
March 10, 2009 at 6:11 am
You can say that you will be meeting up AT Time Square but you don’t say that you will be meeting up ON Time Square despite being on the pavement of Time Square..
riezawa said,
March 10, 2009 at 10:24 am
Arbitrary argumentation ends here. At, on, in, mostly interchangeable depending on the situation.
Social Constructs « Pull the Other One, It’s Got Bells On said,
November 14, 2009 at 11:18 am
[...] should be more feminine”, or, “You’ll be a man, my son!”? Like the toilet argument, all this should be irrelevant. Referring to that article… this is the “serious [...]