What a 💩 storm!🤣. So sorry about your pretty toilet. I’m sympathizing to the point of belly laughing at both the pooping & the plumbing. We’ve had nightmares w both. I just spent the first 3 days of my vacation sick….yep! IBS backup from traveling, & well, not “taking nature’s call”. Just got home, & will probably be in the same boat by tomorrow. Maybe our BODIES should have PEX plumbing?🤣
Oh no!! I'm so sorry you're not feeling well. IBS backup indeed! Traveling totally does that, right? I understand completely! UGH!! I hope you're feeling better today. Don't know about the PEX plumbing in our guts but that does make me think about colonoscopies, which my insurance won't pay for. This infuriates me!! The first one, yes, (that I've already had) but after that, nope. I can't believe this is legal after the ACA. It's preventative care! errrrrrrrr
I’m much better now, thank you! It’s crazy that they won’t pay for another colonoscopy for you. Ours will every few years…can’t remember how often. I’m definitely due. Probably should get on that, but it’s definitely not my favorite thing!😂
doing taxes, I came across my notes from 8/2019 and 5/2021 - two different insurance companies and same with both of them - the colonoscopy would cost me around $2,000-$2,400. Freaking insane.
We lived in one of the former Soviet republics for several years and at service stations, parks, and internal airline flights, I always wondered how the last 30 people used any given bog, sometimes basing my observations only upon seeing the shoe prints in front of the facility. On the BabyFlot airlines, I have watched in horror as biohazard oozed down the carpet from the front Tupelov bog up in Comrade Class. I often thought of buying and wearing a biohazard suit on those flights, but settled with long, hot showers and a lot of Purell.
Once, up on St Bernard Pass in Switzerland, I was suffering from a g.i. bug who took up residence while I was in Africa a few days earlier. The rest area facility was gendered, but without partitions. The porcelain squat toilets had a bomb bay between two inverted footprints one “stood” on during defueling. During my time of trouble, as I swayed back and forth while maintaining my balance on the raised footprints over the drop zone, the door slammed open and a large red headed cleaning woman pushed her mop bucket in and setup office with me in my misery in plain view. Apparently I was unremarkable, because she continued whistling some Italian love song without a pause.
In the men’s room at an upscale hotel in Dublin, I was surprised to find a woman handing out bog roll to patrons as required. I asked a friend later if it was a common practice in Ireland. “What? Bog wenches? Yes.” I only repeat what I was told.
In a Southern African country where we lived, the only available toilet paper was locally made and was similar to newspaper except that wood fibers were still visible, which was worrisome for beginners. We referred to the product as the John Wayne brand: it was rough, it was tough, and it would take crap off nobody.
During a technical training session we were conducting at a central Ghana junior college, I heard the call of nature and made my way to the gents. The school was fairly new, but alas, the plumbing, he was buggered. A battalion-sized tile urinal had a plugged drain, so an enterprising maintenance man chiseled a hole through an outside wall and the urinal drained down into a courtyard along a wall that I came to refer to as the green wall of death. While attending to my needs, the door slammed open (I have witnessed more doors slamming open than closed) and in strolled an 18 stone market woman who through a remarkable feat of dexterity relieved herself at the same urinal where I stood in wide eyed amazement.
Oh my!! Those are quite the experiences! Especially on the airplanes...I'm speechless. And John Wayne TP - lol. What's so interesting is how the women responded in all these scenarios. Women in other countries. Bodily functions are just... everyday stuff!
Good luck on your next adventure! I'm sure you'll have elimination stories from this as well!
Thanks. I can only imagine the bodily function adventures along the way.
I once met a woman in Botswana on the trail between our house and the “town” center. She was situated dead center in the path, grinning sheepishly at me, our eyes locked and remained locked, as she squatted and evacuated herself. It was a situation I never looked back upon.
At a certain level, we are all equal in very fundamental ways. We need to keep that fact in mind, because none of us, not one, has ever escaped that reality and we need to maintain a little humility about who we really are and what we really need to do.
Which reminds me of a recording NASA released not long ago of a conversation between a Mercury astronaut waiting in his space capsule while enduring repeated delays and Ground Control. The conversation went something like this:
Astronaut: “Control, we have a problem developing here.”
Control: “What is the nature of the problem?”
Astronaut: “We need to pee. Will that be a problem?”
Control: “Engineering is looking into your request.”
Pause.
Control: “Engineering says you are good to go.”
And the astronaut spent his flight with the curious sensation of moisture moving throughout his space suit and into his extremities.
Your Botswana encounter reminds me of being in Ethiopia, and turning down the street and seeing the same thing. And driving by a school and seen at least 15 boys lined up against the fence doing the same thing. This I determined was the real reason they were always so many flies.
Wow…I know what you mean about pooping where you are comfortable. I don’t like to share rooms with less familiar people because of this issue with sharing a bathroom. It is not gender specific but relative to comfort level with the person. But everyone poops….i remember sharing a house with five other working adults just after college…and we had one bathroom…..need I say more….
oh my, 5 adults and one bathroom! Of course, I think about when we were young and families always shared one bathroom. Two adults, several kids, including teenagers. These days in the "middle class" (where most of us grew up but it has certainly changed), it seems parents always have their own bathroom and kids too, though they might share. Which, now that I think about it, maybe this isn't good for us as a whole. Maybe it makes us too uptight about pooping and bodily functions... ?
I replaced the master toilet in my condo with a medium-profile style because these old knees have a difficult time on the regular-sized (low-profile) ones; like just about all the ones at work.
This one is my very favorite; also because it is a water-saver type that flushes with some sort of jet action (ka-woosh and all gone). When I replaced my bathtub with a walk-in shower (the knees again), I had them put in an extra grab-bar conveniently located for assistance in standing up again.
If necessary, I can use the toilets at work, but it takes some certain acrobatics to stand back up.
Yes! Your story / your experience is exactly why chair height toilets are the norm now. You're not the only one with old knees! Love that you got a walk-in shower with bars. Such a good idea.
So sorry about the plumbing calamity but laughing all the way through your presentation of it! Have you seen the retail toilet displays that brag about how many tennis balls will fit down the commode in one flush? I stood shopping for a new fixture a year or so ago, staring at the tennis ball pronouncements and wondering just what sort of diet those marketers had, to think there was any similarity. 🫣
Awfully glad to have added some levity to your disaster! I kid you not. The display pictured some number of these in the clean white porcelain: 🎾 🎾 🎾 🎾 🎾 🎾 !! So clean, so white, sooooo wrong.
I think about the young children in my life and their experiences using the toilet and not knowing (up to a point) that there is any shame around it. The older children (7) want privacy now, but the younger one (4) does his business quite uniquely and with pride! I guess sometime between ages four and seven is when there's the equivalent of Eve eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge and becoming aware. It's bittersweet that one day the four year old will ask for privacy, too.
oh Ashleigh, thank you so much for this comment! how quickly we go from pride to shame. If we could at least stay neutral - it is what it is. Everybody poops!
What a 💩 storm!🤣. So sorry about your pretty toilet. I’m sympathizing to the point of belly laughing at both the pooping & the plumbing. We’ve had nightmares w both. I just spent the first 3 days of my vacation sick….yep! IBS backup from traveling, & well, not “taking nature’s call”. Just got home, & will probably be in the same boat by tomorrow. Maybe our BODIES should have PEX plumbing?🤣
Oh no!! I'm so sorry you're not feeling well. IBS backup indeed! Traveling totally does that, right? I understand completely! UGH!! I hope you're feeling better today. Don't know about the PEX plumbing in our guts but that does make me think about colonoscopies, which my insurance won't pay for. This infuriates me!! The first one, yes, (that I've already had) but after that, nope. I can't believe this is legal after the ACA. It's preventative care! errrrrrrrr
I’m much better now, thank you! It’s crazy that they won’t pay for another colonoscopy for you. Ours will every few years…can’t remember how often. I’m definitely due. Probably should get on that, but it’s definitely not my favorite thing!😂
so glad you're feeling better!!
doing taxes, I came across my notes from 8/2019 and 5/2021 - two different insurance companies and same with both of them - the colonoscopy would cost me around $2,000-$2,400. Freaking insane.
Ridiculous!!!
An odyssey. Wow! So much work.
A few anecdotes, though not amusing at the time:
We lived in one of the former Soviet republics for several years and at service stations, parks, and internal airline flights, I always wondered how the last 30 people used any given bog, sometimes basing my observations only upon seeing the shoe prints in front of the facility. On the BabyFlot airlines, I have watched in horror as biohazard oozed down the carpet from the front Tupelov bog up in Comrade Class. I often thought of buying and wearing a biohazard suit on those flights, but settled with long, hot showers and a lot of Purell.
Once, up on St Bernard Pass in Switzerland, I was suffering from a g.i. bug who took up residence while I was in Africa a few days earlier. The rest area facility was gendered, but without partitions. The porcelain squat toilets had a bomb bay between two inverted footprints one “stood” on during defueling. During my time of trouble, as I swayed back and forth while maintaining my balance on the raised footprints over the drop zone, the door slammed open and a large red headed cleaning woman pushed her mop bucket in and setup office with me in my misery in plain view. Apparently I was unremarkable, because she continued whistling some Italian love song without a pause.
In the men’s room at an upscale hotel in Dublin, I was surprised to find a woman handing out bog roll to patrons as required. I asked a friend later if it was a common practice in Ireland. “What? Bog wenches? Yes.” I only repeat what I was told.
In a Southern African country where we lived, the only available toilet paper was locally made and was similar to newspaper except that wood fibers were still visible, which was worrisome for beginners. We referred to the product as the John Wayne brand: it was rough, it was tough, and it would take crap off nobody.
During a technical training session we were conducting at a central Ghana junior college, I heard the call of nature and made my way to the gents. The school was fairly new, but alas, the plumbing, he was buggered. A battalion-sized tile urinal had a plugged drain, so an enterprising maintenance man chiseled a hole through an outside wall and the urinal drained down into a courtyard along a wall that I came to refer to as the green wall of death. While attending to my needs, the door slammed open (I have witnessed more doors slamming open than closed) and in strolled an 18 stone market woman who through a remarkable feat of dexterity relieved herself at the same urinal where I stood in wide eyed amazement.
I could continue, but I need to go.
Oh my!! Those are quite the experiences! Especially on the airplanes...I'm speechless. And John Wayne TP - lol. What's so interesting is how the women responded in all these scenarios. Women in other countries. Bodily functions are just... everyday stuff!
Good luck on your next adventure! I'm sure you'll have elimination stories from this as well!
Thanks. I can only imagine the bodily function adventures along the way.
I once met a woman in Botswana on the trail between our house and the “town” center. She was situated dead center in the path, grinning sheepishly at me, our eyes locked and remained locked, as she squatted and evacuated herself. It was a situation I never looked back upon.
At a certain level, we are all equal in very fundamental ways. We need to keep that fact in mind, because none of us, not one, has ever escaped that reality and we need to maintain a little humility about who we really are and what we really need to do.
Which reminds me of a recording NASA released not long ago of a conversation between a Mercury astronaut waiting in his space capsule while enduring repeated delays and Ground Control. The conversation went something like this:
Astronaut: “Control, we have a problem developing here.”
Control: “What is the nature of the problem?”
Astronaut: “We need to pee. Will that be a problem?”
Control: “Engineering is looking into your request.”
Pause.
Control: “Engineering says you are good to go.”
And the astronaut spent his flight with the curious sensation of moisture moving throughout his space suit and into his extremities.
Is that story really true? Funny!
Your Botswana encounter reminds me of being in Ethiopia, and turning down the street and seeing the same thing. And driving by a school and seen at least 15 boys lined up against the fence doing the same thing. This I determined was the real reason they were always so many flies.
It is true.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwik_pDu19SEAxXWweYEHRzLBckQFnoECBwQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.smithsonianmag.com%2Fsmithsonian-institution%2Fsecond-man-space-had-wee-wish-that-he-had-bathroom-before-blasting-off-180980002%2F&usg=AOvVaw00_mBOesiR3wjMY4m9f9AV&opi=89978449
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwik_pDu19SEAxXWweYEHRzLBckQFnoECDcQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fjournals.physiology.org%2Fdoi%2F10.1152%2Fadvan.00175.2012&usg=AOvVaw2zQyqOr8TpdUzMDZKo4FDI&opi=89978449
Almost every time we passed an African local bus stopped by the roadside, we could always count on seeing a few Golden Arches.
And I’m pragmatic enough that I made a few myself.
Wow…I know what you mean about pooping where you are comfortable. I don’t like to share rooms with less familiar people because of this issue with sharing a bathroom. It is not gender specific but relative to comfort level with the person. But everyone poops….i remember sharing a house with five other working adults just after college…and we had one bathroom…..need I say more….
oh my, 5 adults and one bathroom! Of course, I think about when we were young and families always shared one bathroom. Two adults, several kids, including teenagers. These days in the "middle class" (where most of us grew up but it has certainly changed), it seems parents always have their own bathroom and kids too, though they might share. Which, now that I think about it, maybe this isn't good for us as a whole. Maybe it makes us too uptight about pooping and bodily functions... ?
And then there are the six bathrooms on 300 passenger international flights.
I replaced the master toilet in my condo with a medium-profile style because these old knees have a difficult time on the regular-sized (low-profile) ones; like just about all the ones at work.
This one is my very favorite; also because it is a water-saver type that flushes with some sort of jet action (ka-woosh and all gone). When I replaced my bathtub with a walk-in shower (the knees again), I had them put in an extra grab-bar conveniently located for assistance in standing up again.
If necessary, I can use the toilets at work, but it takes some certain acrobatics to stand back up.
Yes! Your story / your experience is exactly why chair height toilets are the norm now. You're not the only one with old knees! Love that you got a walk-in shower with bars. Such a good idea.
So sorry about the plumbing calamity but laughing all the way through your presentation of it! Have you seen the retail toilet displays that brag about how many tennis balls will fit down the commode in one flush? I stood shopping for a new fixture a year or so ago, staring at the tennis ball pronouncements and wondering just what sort of diet those marketers had, to think there was any similarity. 🫣
Whaaaatt???? No! I’ve never seen that! That is absolutely hysterical. I’m just shaking my head. 😂
Awfully glad to have added some levity to your disaster! I kid you not. The display pictured some number of these in the clean white porcelain: 🎾 🎾 🎾 🎾 🎾 🎾 !! So clean, so white, sooooo wrong.
hahahahahah!!!
I think about the young children in my life and their experiences using the toilet and not knowing (up to a point) that there is any shame around it. The older children (7) want privacy now, but the younger one (4) does his business quite uniquely and with pride! I guess sometime between ages four and seven is when there's the equivalent of Eve eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge and becoming aware. It's bittersweet that one day the four year old will ask for privacy, too.
oh Ashleigh, thank you so much for this comment! how quickly we go from pride to shame. If we could at least stay neutral - it is what it is. Everybody poops!