Uncanny

This diatribe is about public restrooms. For those of you who want to elevate your reading, perhaps you’d better not continue. 

When entering a ladies room stall, many commodes are now equipped with rotating sanitary toilet covers, which go around when you wave at them. I thought this quite civilized until I waved, and sat, and rode around a toilet three times before it stopped. 

I used to know how to flush a toilet. I’d push a handle, and that was that. Now, one has to stand and study the contraption. Does it flush itself or does it pretend to flush itself? There is a difference. Often, self-flushing commodes pretend they are showers and activate at the wrong time. And when they are supposed to flush---they simply refuse. If this happens, a little red Alice in Wonderland button commands, “Push Me”.  This is when I recommend that you push and run.

Sometimes, there is a hidden floor handle to stomp. Other times, you are required to play hide and seek with a secret lever located somewhere in the vicinity of the toilet, but not attached to it. Consequently, with all of these challenges, I often find myself in a public restroom, standing there, staring at the toilet. 

Curiosity got the best of me, so I asked a reliable source if the vicissitudes are the same in the facilities for gentlemen. Oh, pity the men. Not only do they have the same problems, they are confronted with dry, waterless urinals. I have always thought that urinals would be beautiful planters. Of course, if they are waterless, you’d have to plant a cactus. But I digress.

My source told me that now they have composting urinals. I’m not sure who collects that stuff at the end of the day, but it sounds environmentally disgusting. I was also shocked to read that to save energy, toilet scientists are now experimenting with electric toilets. I am not sure if they have to be plugged in to work, but I wonder if they will have a Ben Franklin kite affect in an electrical storm. More power to anyone who can save our planet. I’m all for it.

 Esther Blumenfeld (go green!) 

Comments

[Max Franks]

Hi Esther, it's Max from PostNet.
I didn't know there was such a thing as a toilet scientist. If I could re-do college I think I would've majored in it, because I would imagine it's not terribly popular, and there would not be a whole lot of competition to become the premier toilet scientist in the United States, or at least the southwest.
Love the site, by the way. Growing up in a Jewish family (with a mother who throws Yiddish words randomly into English sentences) I love this kind of humor. Keep on being funny, I'll keep reading it.

Max