THE DAILY SAM: AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 TOILETS
I have discovered something wonderful from the response to my toilet blog: the world of the bathroom is much larger than I ever realized. All these years I have been sitting there thinking I leaned pretty much all I needed to know about the toilet when I was two or three years old. What a fool I have been!
Andrea Kimmich, my dear friend from my formative years in the exotic town of Armonk, New York, sent me a video clip consisting of one extraordinary commode after another. Thanks for that, Andrea. I thought the saxophone shaped urinal was brilliant, and the penis shaped faucet really spoke to me, but there is so much more. Visit this website and explain what we see there, if you can. Or better yet, use the Google image feature to search for Toiletten der Welt, and feast your eyes!
Fellow Red Room blogger Eric Nichols shared some information about the “squatty potty,” but then Eric lives in Alaska, where people sometimes have to wait as much as six months for it to be warm enough to pee. Another Red Room blogger, Ellen R. Sheeley, raised the tone a bit with news that there is a Peace Corps toilet. Next time you are feeling down about the United States and our place in the world, conjure up that image.
Travel really does broaden a person.
About Sam
Sam Barry is the author of How to Play the Harmonica: and Other Life Lessons and coauthored Write That Book Already! The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now with his late wife, the author and founder of the Rock Bottom Remainders, Kathi Kamen Goldmark....
Connections
Wow, Sam, thanks for
Wow, Sam, thanks for plugging the PC loo! No need to conjure it. . .here's a fine example of a Peace Corps toilet in Central America, designed by a dedicated volunteer using appropriate technology (paper not included). Note its centrality in village life and how privacy has been carefully guarded.