I've been self conscious about wiping since tenth grade. Before then I believed I wiped like everyone else--wiped like my classmates and friends. But that all came crashing down before baseball practice one sad spring afternoon.

Immediately following the final bell for school to let out, three friends and I had about 45 minutes to kill before practice. We chose to kill this time by buying potato wedges and chicken fingers from the Circle K down the street and then shitting them out before practice finally began. It was an afternoon ritual we all enjoyed quite a bit and from which my young arteries will never recover.

At the time I was still new to the school and new to these friends so I always thought, even if subconsciously, it could be found out that I wasn't so cool after all and I'd lose said friends. Therefore when I stood up to wipe on that fateful day and looked over to see Casey in the next stall looking up (the stalls were only chest high) his face proved my theory. Proved my sin and my break from the norm. I was no longer the new guy from Connecticut who didn't really like potato wedges and ordered them anyway, but the freak who stands when he wipes.

Immediately Casey, Brandon, and Chris--the seated wiping maniacs--interrogated me.

"U stand?

"Who stands?"

"U stand?"

"He stands"

"When u poop! "

The cross examination continued like a black and white gangster musical involving a cheating goomah and I was that cheating goomah. And like her I had absolutely no defense. It wasn't that I felt guilty, for it's not the prostitute who feels guilty; it was that I was innocent of even knowing my sin. Like a baby who hadn't known it was wrong to pull his penis in public, I was finding out that not everyone was comfortable with some casual afternoon stroking.

I answered as best I could--that standing is a genetic trait. That it is how my Irish ancestors have wiped for thousands of years, but no matter my claims for legitimacy it was no use. My wiping when standing discovery sealed my fate as an outsider and it still makes for some burdensome and awkward moments between the four of us when the subject of toilet technique comes up.

That memory has never left me and even now when wiping I squat quickly to hide from whomever has just entered the bathroom. It's reflexive at this point and I can't help but wonder if there are others out there like me. I've never taken a survey nor been able to find much sociological research on the subject so I don't know. It's like Native Americans or Japanese internment camps, if we don't talk about them, they never existed. But unlike them we have no political action groups out there to protect us or help elect officials that will finally bring some light and acceptance to us scared minorities.

Perhaps that's in fact the reason we're all so scrutinized, because us standing wipers are not the minority at all but a growing majority. We're like the Latino community, under represented and un-counted, but soon people that want to get elected won't be able to ignore us anymore. Soon us standing wipers must rise up so that we no longer have to squat down when someone enters the bathroom. So we don't have to uncomfortably hover over a toilet until our legs almost give out so those who would judge us and call us out to the authorities won't see the top of our heads.

I see a future where we can all stand or sit without regard or remorse. This is America after all and no one should feel like an outsider for his or her practices. So I say to any who are like me and reading this--fear not, for our time to stand and wipe has come.

© 2008 Tyke Johnson