If you make the request funny, can you tell your guests how to use your toilet?
Anonymous writes: At my mother’s suggestion/command, my brothers and I have always peed sitting down, to minimize splashing. I continue that practice, and I would like my guests to as well. I want to hang a humorous sign in the bathroom instructing guests to sit down, but my wife says that it would be rude.
I think you can ask this of your own close family, but your brothers are already in the good-boy club. Otherwise, I agree with your wife. It may seem strange that it’s OK, for example, to require your guests to take their shoes off but impolite to ask them not to pee all over your floor. But the gracious host presumes innocence. A guest might inadvertently step in mud, but it’s infantilizing to suggest — even via jokey sign — that they can’t handle their own waste without Mother’s special training. If a guest misses the target from time to time, that’s the cost of inviting other bodies into your world, and you owe them the grace of not reminding them how gross we all are during a nice dinner.
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