Potty Talk

Here I am, as usual, a day late and a dollar short! Yesterday was National Toilet Day and I forgot to observe it.

The mention of it made me think of my own private (until now) fearful relationship with the toilet. I have been the not so proud owner of exploding toilets, leaking toilets and apparently possessed toilets (one was known to let out eerie noises only at certain times of the night).

A coworker happened to tell me a few years ago that when her roommate went to use the commode, surprise, surprise, an alligator appeared in the bowl. I didn't doubt her for a second. Back in the '60's in the suburbs of New York City, a very popular present for high school boys to give their girlfriends for occasions when they were expected to come bearing gifts was a baby alligator. Why pet stores would sell such a creature is still beyond me but they did. The girls would be either amused, horrified, or annoyed at their beloved's lack of imagination. The mothers usually found no humor in this whatsoever and would promptly discard the critter into the toilet and flush it into the already overly inhabited New York sewage system.

Esso, which later became Exxon, advertised "Put a Tiger in Your Tank" for years -- they probably didn't realize their beloved animal had serious competition in many domestic tanks.

I read on-line that in Edinburgh, Scotland, a number of college students taped campus toilets shut to try to bring attention to the very serious problem of lack of proper sanitation across the globe. An estimated 40% of the world's population does not have the luxury of using bathrooms the way we are so used to taking for granted.

It puts a new emphasis on the severe consequences of our water shortage in the South and when we sit on the throne helps us to appreciate the possibly endangered opportunity.