Toilet Turmoil
Written by Confusion support on March 24, 2008 – 11:23 am -
There seem to be a lot of toilet problems in the news lately.
We have all, by now, heard of the woman in Kansas who sat on the toilet seat so long that she actually began growing onto the seat and had to be taken to the hospital with the seat still attached to her. Apparently she sat on the toilet for 2 years, and was fed by her boyfriend who seemed to patiently wait for her to get off, and 2 years later called the police. She had a fear of leaving the toilet and he had a fear she would leave the toilet too! Wonder what shape her hiney took on after that incident?
I recently read in the Common Dreams News Center from author Marwaan Macan-Markar that experts are urging an all-out toilet effort for Asia. Over 2.6 billion people have no access to organized toilets. That’s a lot of body fluid on the ground! 1.5 billion of these people live in the Asia-Pacific area. The article says 200 million tons of human waste goes uncollected each year. There are even sanitation “movements” in various cities working on getting the problem fixed. One organization has built 7500 community toilets in India, but the problem is not seen as high priority by the local Indian governments. It seems if solving a major problem doesn’t make a profit they don’t want to look into it. Diarrheal disease from dirty sanitation is the leading killer of children under 5 in the Asia-Pacific region. Experts proclaim that the poor have to band together and demand toilets and act like sanitation businessmen, in order to get more toilet results.
Some people can’t get a toilet, and others, in Kansas, can’t get enough toilet.
My brother and I used to discuss bathroom behavior at work. There are 6 or 7 stalls in there. At various times it became a very popular place to sleep, after lunch especially. On occasion you’d see, under the stall door, someone’s arms dangling, near their ankles in silent slumber. Often a loud snore was let out from a reposing employee (those always woke me up). And every so often an audible grunt or whimper was heard, and a shake visible, as the person next door “fell off the cliff” in their dream. The rustle of afternoon reading papers was common as was some strange occurrences of big toilet paper rolls falling off the holder and rolling away under the stall door. It was never known if the person bumped it off as they dozed or it was an honest mistake while ripping paper. There was always a kindly sole outside the stall who was willing to retrieve it for you. Now there are less employees and it isn’t as much fun anymore.
The infinite variety of worldwide toilet behavior and problems will always be a source of conversation and contemplation.
Tags: sanitation, toiletPosted in Uncategorized |
March 25th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Hmmm, first, I have to wonder who is weighing all of that uncollected waste. Sounds like a job for that “Dirty Jobs” guy on Discover. Secondly, getting toilets for all those folks won’t really solve the problem, as a toilet is basically useless without being connected to plumbing. You’d simply end up with thousands/millions of full toilets, which would have to be dumped on the ground at some point anyway. Yuck, it’s close to lunchtime, and that’s not an appetizing image. Maybe I should stop now.
But wait, here’s a funny toilet story. When my bro and I were wee lads, we used to entertain each other in the bathroom (nothing perveted mind you). Once, he had to retrieve a towel from the shelves that our dad had installed above the toilet. We always had to stand on the toilet to do so. Well, he went to step up on the toilet, but had neglected to close the lid first. The resulting splash and reaction were rather amusing, as my bro just stood there staring at his submerged foot. I don’t recall whether the water was clean or not. I’m pretty sure he’s washed his foot since then though, so it doesn’t matter anymore.