During my bachelorette years there was one constant in my life, and that was my pink, furry toilet seat which lay in the horizontal position on top of my gleaming white toilet bowl’s curvaceous rim. Whenever I looked at it, the seat seemed to invite me to stop a while, to rest, spend a penny, find comfort or powder my nose. The seat was always ready for action. There was never any danger of warm flesh meeting cold porcelain in the dead of night or of the seat being lower than expected. Each time I needed to, I sat down, fur briefly tickled my posterior, then was crushed beneath it to form a soft cushion and the operation could begin. Life was good. I would not claim that my happiness depended completely on the receptiveness of my toilet seat but I will say that my happiness was diminished in that respect once the toilet seat wars started. Yet I want to tell all women that, if they want their husband’s love, they should keep the toilet seat in the up position. Let me explain. My husband is a prince among men. He did not insist on my taking his last name, he cooks tolerably well and willingly, and he may be better at loading a dishwasher than I am. When it comes to squeezing toothpaste tubes he is flexible. During our engagement, when he spent quite a lot of time at my place, I would often wonder what his tragic flaw was. I couldn’t find one but he had to have a dark secret or an infuriating quirk. The only defect I could find in his character was the fact that he left the toilet seat up. Actually, I also objected to the amount of splashing that occurred after he lifted the seat which reminded me of a waterfall hitting a lake after a long descent. I felt sure the tenants in the apartment below ours were just as put off by that assertive splashing as I was and, being a practical woman, I decided to solve both problems by suggesting he sit down to pee. My fiancée was no meterosexual nor was he particularly interested in exploring his feminine side. His first response was to ask if I had any more bright ideas like tying ribbons into his hair or giving him my hand-me-downs. A few days later, when I finally managed to convince him that I wasn’t trying to emasculate him, he explained that a man who sits down to pee isn’t considered a man but someone who could qualify for a job in a harem. I pretended to see his point, and for a while we compromised by leaving the toilet seat in whatever position we had put it. That put the burden on the other to adjust it before use. I was still left with the problem of the upright toilet seat (the noisy urinations, I decided, could be neutralized by turning up the TV). A truce, however, is not the same as peace and a few weeks later I tried to reason with him. Would it be too much for him to put the seat down after imitating the milkman’s horse? He accused me of suffering from penis envy. “You resent the way I tower over the bowl,” he said, “while you have to squat in the submissive position, and now you want to drag me down to your level!” Angry words were exchanged, and a few days later I found a sign over the cistern that read, “The toilet seat moves up and down. Learn how to operate it.” That was followed by another sign, stolen from the pub, t