Gentlemen Lift The Seat

Most of us have seen this comment--or at least heard it said, if you are a male. IMHO, good manners also requires those who raise the seat to lower it before leaving--at least, in a facility shared with women. A famous story has Winston Churchill admonishing the Foreign Office, saying: "In this dispatch you have used every cliche known to the English language, except 'God is love' and 'Please adjust your dress before leaving." I have been observing different customs about the lid that typically fits over the toilet seat. In my family, this lid is only closed when the toilet bowl is used as a place on which to sit. (I often sit there when I am using my electric shaver.) After a flush, it is our practice to leave the lid up. Others close the lid after use of the facility. We have a different practice when there is a water shortage, increasingly frequent in California. When we have no visitors (durinng the day as well as overnight) we don't routinely flush after urination, we just lower the lid. This little ditty describes our system: "Yellow is mellow, but brown goes down".