“Mysterious Yellow Stains” by I.P. Freilee

Likely because of his penchant for routinely dissing the boatloads of idiotic baby crap that many parents feel obligated to buy, and then ruefully regret (see Chapter 2 of his book The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting, “Get Stuffed”) readers often send the G.U. enticing lists of insane infant merch (20 Fucked-up-est Baby Products, 10 Things Your Toddler Absolutely Doesn’t Need, etc.) Gunc loves the idea of these compilations, and always appreciates receiving them, but his eyes often glaze over when scrolling though, not because he’s seen it all before, but because half the time he has absolutely NO idea how this shit works: what its intent is, how it reflects a valid need-state, which end of the baby it’s supposed to go in or out of. But every so often, there comes a product that is completely self-explanatory (if still mystifying). Like this one: The Toddler Urinal. Now as those of you who have read his book know, the Gay Uncle strongly advocates teaching boys to pee sitting down: it decreases worries about aim, it’s a consistent approach that more naturally leads to pooping sitting down, and it’s a nice way to take a load off (he pees seated most of the time himself and finds it relaxing). He also thinks familiarizing kids with the bathroom (from a young age) as the locus for all watersports activities helps aide the eventual training process. And he’s pretty sure that most houses in this country come with at least one extant piece of plumbing perfectly designed for piss-practice. So why anyone would want to add yet another place in their house for their son to wield his urine gun (with the safety off) is beyond him: especially placing said receptacle in what appears to be the corner of the living room, like the folks in this photo have. By the way, he read that this thing actually “flushes”; you just need to fill the “reservoir” at the kitchen sink. (Emptying the “reservoir” on the other end is another story. Ew.) Gunc just has one question: Does it come with child-friendly urinal mints? He suggests flavors like bubble-gum, kiwi-strawberry, and pizza.