“How the bottom [flush] of a toilet bowl can inspire you”

HOME, 2.30pm. I am upstairs, cleaning the toilet and pondering the gender gap; flushing and brushing, and just… contemplating the differences between women and men as reflected in social, intellectual, and cultural attitudes.

“Extraordinary!” I think, lifting my head and reaching for the cistern handle, “how the bottom [flush] of a toilet bowl can inspire you.”

I begin scraping at lime-scale with a knife, which has the effect of filing quite a sharp edge on my thoughts… very sharp in fact; I’m now [scrape] writing an entirely cogent introduction to a speech [scrape] in my head. It is called, “Toilet-Cleaning, through the Prism of Gender,” and it seems to be writing itself very quickly in concise paragraphs [scrape].

Toilet scoured, I pick up mop and squeeze it out in bucket.

I find [splash] the grubby bathroom floor every bit as creatively inspiring as the bottom of the toilet bowl: I’m [mop] already right into the main body of my speech; writing a trenchant little section entitled [dunk], “Deltoids, Trapezius and Biceps: How Male Musculature Can Put itself to 100 Push Ups and yet Cannot Put itself to the Task of Manoeuvring a Light Plastic Brush Around a Toilet-Bowl.”

I bang the mop about with brutish vigour, contriving a nice paragraph as I go along, which contains some hard fact.

Every speech needs a bit of hard fact:

“It is a scientifically proven fact that men [mop] have greater lung-volume per body-mass than women.

“They also have larger hearts [splash] higher red blood cell count, higher haemoglobin, [squeeze] and greater oxygen-carrying capacity. Men also have denser, stronger bones, tendons and ligaments.

“In fact, gross measures of body strength [mop] suggest a 40%-50% difference in upper body strength between the sexes, and a 20%-30% difference in lower body strength. Most significantly [dunk], men also have much higher hand-grip strength than women, which is particularly pertinent — I think you’ll agree — given that a light plastic toilet brush weighs six ounces.”

“Yes,” I think, panting, “my speech is taking shape quite nicely. Now, time to clean the bath.”

I douse j-cloth with detergent and apply to scummy tide-mark.

I scrub, huffing and puffing. But this does not dissipate my creative inspiration. Quite the opposite. The scummy tide-mark is a muse! It tricks yet another paragraph — “Men: Toilet-Cleaning and Shirking” — out of my brain, as if by magic:

“There is no scientific basis [huff] for a genetic explanation of why — when it comes to toilets — men’s modus operandi is “shirk, not work”. But this does not make the job of cultivating awareness [puff,] and a sense of personal responsibility in men any easier; if a boy got away with an “I flushed it didn’t I?” attitude throughout his entire childhood, [huff], you have your work cut out.

You can try explaining to him that his lack of ancestral guidance as a boy is no justification for spooking at a toilet-brush like a horse at a jump, for the rest of his adult life. But you will [huff], only end up blue in the face. (Personally, I’ve found that thrusting a toilet-brush angrily at my partner is much more effective. Or else you could follow my sister’s advice, “save your marriage and get a cleaner,” though personally I think this lets your partner off the hook far too easily.”)

I sit gasping for breath on the side of the bath. Yes, I think, my speech is rounding out quite well… that last bit of advice gives it a nice, personal touch.

I turn my attention to the sink, regard toothpaste snaked across soap, and all of a sudden — just like that — I have my closing paragraph — in which — even if I say so myself, I develop quite a compelling line of argument: “A Case for Mandatory Inclusion into the National School Curriculum: The Principles of A, B, C’s; 1, 2, 3’s and Flush, Brush, Flush.”

There.

“Toilet-Cleaning, through the Prism of Gender” is ready for delivery. Now all I need is an audience.

Shouldn’t take long to assemble one: I can hear my husband’s car pulling into the drive.