Let's talk toilet seats....

Lately, I have had what some might call an unhealthy obsession with toilet seats. Since I grew up in a household of mostly girls, it didn't occur to me until recently that a mixture of boys with germaphobic me would result in an almost constant anxiety about the state of our toilets.

Now, my husband has had many years of practice and I'll dare say that he is a fairly good aim. But, the younger boys....not so good. When we were first potty training J in Ohio, I would just keep a package of Scrubbing Bubble Toilet Wipes close by and make sure to wipe around the toilet and on the seat every time he used the facilities. Now that we have three boys, I just can't keep up. So, I just do what every mother with three sons has done since the beginning of time, I clean as often as possible and learn to look before I step when I am approaching a toilet.

Lately, though, we've had an additional problem. The toilet seats have become uncleanable (I know - not a word). It's true. No matter how many industrial strength cleaners I have poured onto them, they are still stained and the kids bathroom has taken on a permanent odor that I would rather not describe in detail.

So, sometime last month, I declared that our toilet seats would be replaced and I started researching. I had a quest. I was in search of the perfect toilet seat. I listed the problems with our current toilet seats and worked from there. First off, the current toilet seat had a gap between the top seat and the bottom seat which meant that when the occasional lazy boy decided to use the toilet without lifting both seats, any excess would drain to the back of the toilet and down into the hinges where the seat meets the toilet, which were impossible to clean without the aid of a phillips' head screw driver and an oxygen mask. Secondly, the toilets slammed. In fact, Michael has entertained himself for a full ten minutes at the time with this activity. Lift up the seat, slam the seat, watch everyone jump, repeat. So fun. Then there was the yellowish-brown stain issue. I was relieved to see that none of the new toilet seats I was looking at came with this feature.

Yesterday was the big day. I finally bought new toilet seats. I could hardly wait as we drove home from Lowe's. These were not just any toilet seats. They had all of the options. They came with the easy hinge, which allows the seat to come off from the toilet with just a turn which makes for easy and thorough cleaning. In addition, they are unslammable (which I believe actually is a word). They also have a lifetime warranty on the finish - guaranteeing that yellow seat stains would be a thing of the past in the Cook household. And last, but not least, the top seat meets the bottom seat, so when our boys forget to lift both, their misdirected flow will safely slide into the toilet bowl rather than the hinges behind it trapping odor forever.

After the unpleasant experience of changing out the seats which required a full aerosol bottle of scrubbing bubbles and a sponge which should probably be burned, I eyed the new seats in all of their glory. They were so beautiful. So white. So clean. And then came the real test. I inhaled...in the boy's bathroom...and I smelled...nothing. That's right. Only the residual fumes from the arsenal of cleaners that I had used remained in the air. In fact, if I hadn't my eyes open, I wouldn't have even known I was standing in a bathroom. It was heavenly.