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Toilets are funny things, aren't they?
Funny peculiar, I mean, not funny ha-ha. I'm not talking toilet humour! Well, perhaps it's not toilets as such that are odd - perhaps it's our attitude to them, and to what goes on inside them. Excretion. You do it, I do it, everybody does it - we all have to dispose of our bodily wastes. So why is it such a taboo subject? It is only nature's way of dealing with the leftovers after digestion. There's nothing odd about sharing a meal with friends or talking about the delights of eating, so why do we get so embarrassed about something that is, let's face it, an equally natural bodily function? |
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Just look at the behaviour of people when they go to the toilet. Suppose you are at someone's house and you find you need a piss. You sidle up to the host(ess) and mutter 'excuse me - where's the - erm...'. A tactful person will leap to your rescue and point out the smallest room without your having to be more specific. You scurry off to the bog, hoping no-one has noticed you've left the room, and bolt yourself in securely. On completion, you tiptoe back and try to pretend you never left. If someone is crass enough to ask where you went, you come up with a polite euphemism: 'I was powdering my nose', 'spending a penny' or 'visiting the little girl's room'. It's bad enough if you have to have a piss in someone else's house. But the horror of needing a shit when you are away from home is unsurpassable! All kinds of paranoid thoughts flash through your mind once you have locked the door. 'Suppose I leave a smell? What do I do if it won't flush away? Everyone will know it was me! Oh god, they'll never invite me here again!' And then there's the distaste at having to use someone else's bog-roll. First you have to find it. It's probably hidden under a knitted crinoline lady, or a fluffy poodle - well concealed, just in case visitors might think that the householders ever do anything as common as taking a crap. And then it is never the kind you are used to. The perforations are in the wrong place, so the pieces are too large or too small. Or it won't tear properly, and you end up with a long straggly bit that is absolutely useless. Or - horror of horrors - it's that rock-hard, scratchy, stuff made out of greaseproof paper. Why do people use that? It's like wiping your bum with a brillo pad! And you can guarantee that someone will come and rattle the door handle while you are in mid-excrete, and you panic, hoping the lock will hold... Yes, using other people's loos is bad. But public toilets are a real nightmare. They always smell. Always. They either smell of piss, or if they are fairly clean, disinfectant. Or, worse than either of those, there's an overpowering stench of rose-scented air-freshener. Speaking of which... the toilet where I used to work had a gadget fixed to the door, and every time the door was opened it puffed a mist of this stuff into the air. If you happened to have your head pointed in the wrong direction as you walked out, you got it straight in the eyes. Highly unpleasant! There's never any bog-roll in public loos. Except what has been bunged down the pan, totally blocking it so nothing will flush away. That's if the chains work, which they probably don't. The doors never shut properly. Either they are too loose and have a tendency to swing open unless you wedge your foot against them,or they are too tight and you can't get them open again. Visions of being trapped forever - oh dear, what can the matter be... And the acoustics! What a lovely echo - the cubicle would make a wonderful concert hall. But the sound of your piss hitting the water sounds like Niagara Falls, and the tiniest fart rumbles around the entire building like a mammoth clap of thunder. Even when you've finished 'spending a penny' - now that is a euphamism I loathe. Nowadays it's more likely to be 20p you have to spend. I really resent having to pay before I pee. When forced to use public toilets I am usually desperate, having held out as long as I could in the hope I could make it home before disaster struck, and fumbling for change while hopping from one leg to the other is not my idea of fun! But I digress... The aftermath is just as distressing. If you are a hygienic sort you are going to want to wash your hands. Well, first there are no plugs on the washbasins so some enterprising soul has wadded up a hunk of bog-roll to create a temporary dam - and then decided not to remove it, leaving a bowlful of greasy, cold water. If there is a basin free you just have to hold your hands under the tap. The water is always either icy cold or boiling hot, giving you frostbite or some nasty burns. Or, worse, they are the taps that you can't just turn on and leave running; the water will only come out if you hold down a knob. So you can only wash one hand at a time. And of course there's no soap. Well, there might be a tiny fragment floating in one of the half-full basins, but if you try to pick it up it will disintegrate, leaving a nasty residue on your fingers. Or there may be a millimetre left in the bottom of one of those soap dispensers - enough for you to see, but not enough for the nozzle thing to be able to squelch it into your hand. Or if you are very lucky, the dispenser will have enough soap in it to work. Unfortunately, the nozzle will be bent so instead of landing in your palm, the gunge will fly through the air and land on your shirt. OK. You've managed to get your hands sort of clean. Now they are dripping wet. You want to dry them. No chance! If there is a paper towel dispenser, it will be empty. Or it will be full, but jammed, and no amount of banging or prising will release the contents. If there is a roller towel, it will be at the end of its tether. The ten-foot long remnant will be trailing across the floor, through the pools of water - at least, you hope it is water! The bit that isn't touching the floor will be soggy and covered with dirty hand-prints. If there is neither of these... there will be a hot-air dryer. Terrible things! Half the time they don't work at all. If they do work, the only way to get them to dry your hands is to put them so close to the blower that they get scorched. You are left with the feeling of hands almost-but-not-quite-completely dried, so you have to wipe them on the bum of your jeans. And there is no way you can dry your face with them - even if the end is reversible, it will never end up pointing in the right direction! The blast goes straight into your left ear, deafening you for days. Of course, it could have been worse. You may have had to suffer a SUPERLOO! These demonic creations were invented in France (wouldn't you know it?). Not content with invading your nostrils with a ghastly perfume, they play soft soothing musak to accompany your shit. And to stop you hogging it, the door flies open after 15 minutes, exposing you to the passers-by. At which point, if you don't scarper quick, you will get drowned and disinfected as the innards are hosed down to eradicate all trace of your presence. In France, several people were killed by these claustrophobic moulded plastic conveniences. The doors failed to open, and they were flushed away. It could happen to you! Now, just suppose you suddenly feel the call of nature and there's not a public loo in sight. What do you do? For men, it's quite a simple solution. Just find a secluded corner - say, an alleyway filled with dustbins, or between two parked cars, or if in the country there's always a bush handy - and relieve yourself. Anyone who glances your way won't be able to see what you are doing. But nature really discriminated against women in the peeing department. We can't do that! Leaving aside the problem of exposing the necessary parts - what with skirts, tights, knickers, and so on, all having to be lifted or dropped - we then have to squat. It is totally obvious to any passer-by what we are doing. Even if there's no-one about, it is an extremely precarious position to have to take - balancing on tiptoe, holding all items of clothing out of the way of the stream - and in the country, nettles and thistles are guaranteed to add to the discomfort. It's just not fair! Mind you, men do sometimes take their ability to piss anywhere to extremes. I used to live in a tower block. And people pissed in the lift. Why do they do this? Can they not hold on just 2 minutes longer until they are back in their own homes? Do they piss on their living room carpets if they are too lazy to stand up and walk to the bog? It's disgusting! Apart from being bloody anti-social, wouldn't they be happier relieving themselves in familiar surroundings? It's much more comforting to piss and shit in the safety of your own toilet. You know where you are then, you know you're not going to be disturbed, you know where the paper is, and you know it's the right kind of paper. But here's something that has always puzzled me. Why, when you are in the house alone, do you still lock the toilet door? No-one knows what you're doing. No-one's going to burst in on you. What are you afraid of? Answers, on a postcard please... |
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