One of the great privileges of being a man, second only to escaping childbirth, is that we are able to urinate standing up. As someone who leans towards the OCD side of the hygiene scale, I pity anyone who has to sit on a public toilet any more than absolutely necessary!

I work in an office, and every so often I have to make an appointment with Dr John. On those occasions when I’m not the only visitor, I always cringe in fear of a dreaded sound. It’s not the squeaking of the door or the click of the latch. It’s not the  occasional pre-flush or the clatter of the seat dropping. It’s not the jingle of the belt, the bzzzzp of the zip, or the rustle of the pants coming down. It’s not even the auditory palette that accompanies polite, middle-aged posterior perflations…

No, I can handle all of those sounds with aplomb.

The one sound that haunts my darkest dreams defies onomatopoeic description. It is that strange hybrid combination of “plop” and “splash” that heralds the occurrence of a phenomenon colloquially known as “splashback”. Let me explain: when you drop a solid object into a liquid of low viscousity from a height, some of that liquid is going to splash, as demonstrated in this video of someone jumping into a swimming pool. It doesn’t take a physics degree to figure that out.

How anyone can stand to have urinary and fecal soup splashed all over their hindparts is beyond my comprehension. If you are one of those people, then this is a personal plea to you: please don’t subject others to the sound of splashback. Use toilet paper, eat more fibre, use a cork! I don’t care, just don’t make that sound!