wideeyedfunk

Tag: toilets

  • Toilets, and I didn’t know my mom lurked in my head.

    I don’t know what it is about my neighborhood, but people swap out their toilets A Lot. At least once a month there’s a toilet sitting on the curb on our three block dog patrol. We’ve replaced a toilet or two around here, so I’m familiar with the brands and qualities of toilets on the market. I can tell by the empty new toilet box leaning against the old, abandoned toilet whether or not the home is 1) a rental, 2) being prepared for sale, or 3) a cared-for owner inhabited domicile.

    If the toilet is a brand I’ve never heard of, if the flush rating is listed as 4 or 5 rather than 10 – it’s a rental. If it is a good brand but lower end model, probably someone did a quick refurb to put a place on the market – you get the name but you aren’t out of pocket too much. There are a bunch of older folks in our neighborhood and as they sell up after 40 or 50 years, their bathrooms always get a quick shakedown: new toilet, stick on tile floors, paint (as we well know around here having eradicated a perk up with great labor). If the empty box is a Brand Name, Tall, Flush Rate 10, High Efficiency, Dual-Flush, Piston-pump Toilet, we’re talking an investment in comfort and trouble free use. That’s a homeowner friends.

    This all comes to mind because one block down, between our place and the park loop, someone has a toilet out to the curb. They’ve been in the house for about a year. I noticed that the old toilet is cracked on the base and is one of those old, small, low models. One of the ones that feel dangerously low once you are used to the Tall models. When out visiting and making use of the facilities, have you ever felt yourself dropping too far and panicked a little bit? Then you’ve got a tall boy at home and have run into an older low model. It’s uncomfortable and startling. I’m thinking of starting a Coalition to Remove All Potties that are Short (CRAPS) (heh.). Sorry.

    The point of all this is that I thought nothing of the commonplace sight of the neighbor’s toilet sitting on the curb. Until this morning. The sun was shining on Miss Tibbit’s glossy fur and Hamish was prancing along with his tail stump and head held high on our way to the park. The daffodils and earliest tulips seemed extra perky. It’s Easter and I imagined all kinds of little kids and families putting on their Easter finery and posing for pictures (like we used to do when I was little). I figured that almost everyone in the Eastern Time Zone was sick on candy by now.

    I saw the neighbor’s toilet and I heard my mind speaking in my WideEyedMom’s voice “Look at that toilet – and on Easter…” I even turned my head to roll my eyes at Hamish to share the disgrace. Trash the day before Easter, or say, the day after Easter, is just trash – not great but what are you going to do? On Easter? Crass.

    Funny how these things sneak up on you. You think you are your own person, only to discover your parents living inside your mind.

  • Hello Toilet, Thanks for Being There.

    I’m thinking about toilets this afternoon. Yes, I am feeling just fine, thank you – don’t be crude. I mean I am thinking about toilets, not thinking about using one. I think toilets might be unsung heroes and the porcelain joy of our lives.

    Toilets are there for us. They are always in the same place in the dark night. Toilets are a cool and strong comfort during vile, feverish retching. With their lids down they are nice perch for filing nails, watching kids splash in the tub, resting towels on during dog baths. With one simple push of a lever or a button, everything that is distasteful just disappears. Even when not in use, toilets are witness to privacies of every individual in a household – including guests.

    Toilets greet us, all clean and ours, when we come home. Have you never been happy to be back at your own toilet after some kind of sickening ex-household experience? I mourn the absence of my own toilet when living in the outer wilds. I pine for my own toilet while sharing one with a dozen other people in a field research apartment. Faced with unspeakable highway toilet horrors, I have speculated that when we do develop a molecular transporter, we’ll all use it to get home to our own toilets.

    Three days ago the WideEyedSpouse and I were cruising the country byways on the way to archery class. There, on the side of the road, an abandoned toilet. “Free,” it said.

    Toilet

    We stopped to laugh and take a picture. A few hours later the Spouse noticed the fine print on the Free sign: “to a family who will love me.”

    ToiletClose

    I just felt bad. Poor old toilet. It probably served well for years, keeping secrets, holding steady, only to be tossed on the side of the road for the sake of a fashionable bathroom. Years of use left. Poor old toilet.

    But I mean, ew.