Something You Can Take Sitting Down...

I have a large number of topics stored away about which to blog. Many are URLs of interesting articles I've saved, others are newspaper clippings or scribbled notes about things that caught my interest. I have so many of these things saved in so many places that I often forget I have them, and find them after the particular event about which I wanted to write has already passed.

Which brings me to World Toilet Day, which is celebrated (if I can use the expression) on November 19th each year. There was an extensive article about World Toilet Day and the history of the toilet last month in Time Magazine...you can read all about it here. In short, World Toilet Day, hosted by the World Toilet Organization, is a way to raise awareness for the 2.5 billion people around the world who live without proper sanitation.

The humble toilet is, of course, one of those things we don't like to talk about in polite company, but which is of critical importance to our daily lives. If we didn't have toilets conveniently placed in the Capitol, for instance, Congress would be even more full of ... uh ... never mind. And if you've had - as I have - the experience of using the good old outhouse, you can really appreciate the modern, streamlined, one-gall0n-per-flush ceramic throne.

We have many interesting euphemisms for the toilet as well. It's known variously as the water closet, the lavatory (from the Latin lavare, meaning "to clean"), the rest room, or - if you're a toddler or a toddler's parent, the potty. In England, it is sometimes known as the loo, a term derived from the French expression gardez l'eau! (watch out for the water!), which was often shouted as people threw the contents of their chamber pots out the window into the street below...the expression was corrupted over time to "gardy loo!" and, thus, the expression "going to the loo."

No one knows who invented the toilet, but the unsung hero of toilet development was certainly a gentleman named Thomas Crapper who, in the 1880s, was hired by England's Prince Edward (later, King Edward VII) to construct lavatories in several royal palaces. While Mr Crapper did, in fact, patent a number of bathroom-related inventions, he did not actually invent the modern toilet. He was, however, the first one to display his bathroom wares in a showroom, so that when customers needed a new fixture, they would immediately think of his name.

Well, that's one way to be remembered...

We can also think about toilet tissue, that indispensable adjunct to the toilet. Here in America we enjoy multi-ply, cottony-soft, scented tissue with which to lovingly polish our backsides. The rest of the world isn't so lucky...I remember being appalled at the stiff, waxy paper stocked in rest rooms in East Berlin back in the 80's. Of course, if you've used one of those outhouses we talked about earlier, you will also probably have an appreciation for the many and varied uses of the common mail-order catalog...and possibly even the corn cob.

But that's enough of that imagery.

Mark your calendars now for November 19th, 2010, so that you can appropriately celebrate World Toilet Day.

And flush twice ... otherwise, Congress may not get your message.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo