Better living through science

I once got in an argument about toilets with my dad. We were watching some program about environmentalism and the topic of mandated low flush toilets came up. He was adamantly opposed to the idea, and I suddenly knew things about my dad that were never intended. Namely, that he clogs toilets quite easily. The toilet at my parents’ home is a 70’s model which probably uses 7 or 8 gallons of water per flush, but clogs pretty easily. The talk of toilets that use 1.6 gallon per flush on the TV must have triggered an alarm in my dad’s head and lead him to think that these were 4 or 5 times more likely to get bunged up. Now, my father is quite smart, probably more intelligent than you or I, but he must have been burned badly by toilets in his life to take this irrational stance.

I too have felt the bite of poor quality toilets. Just this summer I made a midday visit to the bathroom at the Imperial Palace, and after doing my business I noticed the toilet didn’t totally flush. I call it a ‘hanging chad.’ I should have just left well enough alone, but I decided to go for the kill and I flushed again. Before I could buckle up, that thing overflowed and I had to hightail it out of there.

The toilets were I work are marvels of modern engineering. 1.6 gallon per flush and they never get clogged, even on the worst of days. People have waged war on those things, but nobody has ever defeated those monsters. The best you might hope for is a bit of toilet paper left after the first flush. You could easily flush a small child down one of these things. And these fuckers fight back. The flushing is so rigorous that it squirts back water. Like a bedee with attitude. You’ll get done, stand up and flush, and then you get doused with a bit of dirty-ass toilet butt juice.