Peeing with the door open

I have a confession to make: I pee with the door ajar. If in someone's house who I just met I'll maintain some modesty. But overall, after knowing someone for over a month, in the name of chronometric economy, I'll skip the crucial step of shutting the door. Unless there's a party and the living room is just off the hall. . My parents made me this way. They also encouraged belching at the table. My father burped the alphabet.

My best friend came from a home where a slip in gas passage earned parental fury. We met at age 18. Her sphincter activated only in a soundproof, sealed toilet after great rumination. By age twenty we took turns in gas station bathrooms.

At age 24, she shocked me by dropping her pants, sitting on the rim of my car's passenger entry, and peeing on the side of the road. My pride welled as she pulled up her pants without anxiety as cars whizzed by. On I95 in South Florida, She'd done a good clean pee, no dribbles. The student becomes the teacher.

She got married two months ago. A week after her honeymoon she called me. “OMG! We poop with the door open.” She explained that not having a door on the master bathroom gives them two choices: dash into the living room while the other performs their evacuation, or remain blanketed in their warm bed. “I don’t think I’d be this free if it wasn’t for you," she claimed.

"Aww, thanks friend. Glad to have helped free up your martial toileting, but remember I only pee in front of you.” Pooping is a behind the scenes activity.

But what’s the big deal. We can't deny that humans would rather announce their need to void rather than their urge to defecate. No one wants to take a dump at the office. Why is peeing a more socially acceptable activity? Maybe because peeing uses our conventional genitalia and pooping employs our ‘alternative’ or ‘back door’ breach. Is it the odor? The production of solid matter? The grunting? Perhaps those inclined to share sustain the mystique of a number 2 for good reasons; a good poop affords us the peace to read our guilty pleasures, like Road and Track or Consumer Reports.