This toilet has vexed me for the last two days.
We held the Deadspin Awards last night at Irving Plaza, and rehearsed there the day before. I was delighted to stand on the same stage that actual cool people in bands have been on. But, oh man, this toilet next to the stage.
I don’t mean to impugn Irving Plaza, a charming venue, and I was happy there was a stage-adjacent toilet so I didn’t have to pee next to the unwashed masses. I mean, I took a shit in a toilet Cam’ron might take a shit in next month. Pretty dope.
And I get it. The building housing Irving Plaza is more than 150 years old, and things get shoehorned in. The design is weird. But come on. This is even worse than London’s toilet at the top of the stairs. When the future Pope John Paul II spoke here in 1976, did he have to deal with this crappy toilet?
Here’s the deal: The step in front of the toilet made it impossible to find a good position to pee. When I went in the first time, I realized I had four options:
- Step up onto the ledge, and pee from an uncomfortable height to the toilet — risking pissing all over the sides of the toilet and the floor. (I don’t know why this was so hard. It should’ve been easy. But being that close to the toilet made it impossible to aim. I swear. I am not a crackpot.)
- Don’t step up onto the ledge, and pee from an uncomfortable distance to the toilet — risking pissing all over the front of the toilet and the floor. (Yes, I realize that I could also get better at aiming my dick and pissing directly into the toilet. Whatever.)
- Do an awkward lunge to the right side of the toilet, stretching my hips, groin and thighs as I pee. This makes the target easier to hit, but it is also an awkward position that no normal man would choose to pee in.
- Just sit down and pee. This seems like the most logical option, but it actually may have been the worst. For one, there was a weird mirror on the back of the door, so I had to stare at myself and judge all my flaws from a foot away. Plus, the ledge made it so that either my dangling feet just barely touched the floor (on the lower level) or were entirely too close to my body, like a bad off-brand Squatty Potty.
I mainly used choice No. 3, but I attempted all four options on various trips to the bathroom. None were great. Was I missing something? I am 34 and, in a proud moment, I am now asking the public to please help me improve my peeing skills.