Tag Archives: toilet

The American Restroom Association

5 Jan

January 5, 2012

A brilliant philosopher once said to me “heated toilet seats are like a gift from the gods. I really wish that they were the norm in all places of poop.”  Frankly I have no idea why she said that. We were standing together by a quiet lake, moonlight glittering on the water, my arms around her, when all of a sudden she came out with that. Totally ruined the mood.

But she has a point. My love life aside, (and what better metaphor for anyone’s love life than a toilet?), when you stop and think about it, what relationship is more important than a man and his toilet? And a woman and her toilet? Doubly so. Let’s be honest. Put a guy in the middle of a forest, in the back of a military cargo plane, or in the audience of his daughter’s third-grade recital, if he has to go, he’s going, toilet be damned. Women are a bit fussier. Hence the wish for heated poop seats by my romantic philosopher friend.

And lest you think I made that quote up, I did not. How did I ever let a woman like that get away?

What sparked my decidedly non-romantic and slightly gross reverie was this little nugget from News of the Weird. Lately the more I watch the network news the more I think I prefer NotW.

In poker, a full house beats a flush, but on a crowded airplane with a broken toilet, a flush beats a full house every time.

We’ve all been there. Broken toilets, no toilets, toilets that look like a burly mountain man eviscerated a grizzly bear in the bowl. We’ve hated it, we’ve complained, we’ve yelled, we’ve thrown things, we’ve resisted arrest, we’ve- what? Sorry, strike that last part. Broken toilets and a big crowd? It’s Lord of the Flies time. But of all the ways of dealing with a lack of toilets, I daresay that none of us gotten involved with a toilet advocacy group. However, I did just that and dove into the cesspool of the internet to do so.

Who would speak for the toilet-less? Who would be the voice of the incontinent? Who would have really funny business cards?

These guys.

Yep, that basic Power Point cell belongs to the American Restroom Association, and if you want to see more basic and simplistic Power Point, hop on over and see for yourself. (And if you happen to be web developer, they can use you.) I checked out their site and expected to find links to bulk toilet paper warehouses or debates on the merits of hard vs. soft toilet seats but I was doomed to be disappointed. This is a very serious organization. They have a mission statement. All serious organizations have mission statements. The Boy Scouts have a mission statement. China has a mission statement. Even Vice President Joe Biden has a mission statement, but he just copied it from some Senator who used to sit next to him a few years back. Check it out the ARA mission statement:

Wow, they’ve really got it going on. They used bullet points and everything. This is a real-deal bunch. One of their goals is to “communicate with other similar associations around the world.” I have no idea if there are any (though I bet France has one) but the site does have a message board so I surfed over to their discussion thread (there is only one) and did some heavy reading. The forum was very surprising.

Frankly, I was surprised that anyone used it at all.

But the site does feature some important information. For instance, do you know what a restroom is? Or what a pay toilet is? Oh, I am sure most of you think you do, heck; many of you may be sitting on one as you read this, but I for one felt just a little ignorant after reading their definitions.

Not only do I finally know the official definition of a public restroom (I always wanted to know!) but I also know that a pay toilet requires a fee and that the US government has its collective head stuck in a toilet for coming up with a code for that. Seriously, our tax dollars, flushed away.

The site is full of important and vital information, I suspect, though I seem to have missed all of it. Maybe there was another Power Point?
And why couldn’t they use a bigger font? I hope whoever designed this thing knows his toilets better than his html.

All evidence to the contrary aside, the ARA is robust organization. Look at their upcoming events:

I am really bummed that I missed World Toilet Day 2011, but in my house every day is Toilet Day. Honestly, can you imagine a day without a toilet? My mind shudders with the horror. And I want to find out more about the World Toilet Summit. It sounds like the perfect place to host the first annual Mr. Blog’s Tepid Con. Let’s book a hotel now! But where to hold it? Flushing Queens comes to mind.

However, I do not want you think that I am making fun of this issue. “Places of poop” is a serious matter. Check out this piece of “poop culture:”

I’ve heard of manna from heaven, but manure?

Who doesn’t dream of turning his own feces into gold? For centuries, alchemists sought ways of turning lead into gold, why not shit? Face it, none of us has any lead just lying around, but nobody runs out of human waste. All that waste just flushed into the cesspool, septic tank, the ocean, or some kid’s wading pool depending on what municipal regulation you are flouting. Why let some stranger turn your crap into gold when you can do it yourself?

Is it just me, or does it often seem that the stupider people are, the more ingenious they try to be? Sure, this fool could have stayed home, mystified by the bright lights on his television set, but his animal cunning, and likely animal-level IQ, led him to save his poop and dry it on a space heater. Is it really so stupid? Even if he never made a single ingot of gold, he had a really cool composting program going on. Too bad he lived in a fifth floor apartment.

I attempted to contact the American Restroom Association for their opinion on turning poop into gold but unbelievably they never got back to me. They must be very busy gearing up for January 17th, International Quilted Toilet Paper Day. The highlight of the festivities will be the unveiling of the world’s largest roll of toilet paper in Czechoslovakia. The first sheet will be ceremonially pulled off the roll by none other than Honorary ARA International Ambassador Regis Philbin, schedule permitting.

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No Toilet No Bride (Classic Repost)

13 Oct

October 13, 2011
Originally published December 13th, 2009

Things have changed quite a bit at Mr. BTR since this first appeared almost two years ago. This was one of the most popular blogs (in terms of views) for a long time, and still ranks high in views every month. While that might just be a search engine fluke, the fact remains that I like it and a lot of new readers may never have read it before, so enjoy this Classic Repost.

 

Who doesn’t trust The Washington Post? For journalistic integrity they are right at the top of the list. Are they? I don’t know, I never read that paper. I prefer to peruse the British press where I can catch a glimpse of a Page Three girl. But this article comes from one of my favorite American News Sources, News of the Weird (Their motto: “For journalistic integrity we are second only to the Washington Post, we think.”).

It is from the November 22nd edition, and credited to the Washington Post of November 12th. So if this was first reported in the Washington Post and then picked up by the News of the Weird, you can be sure this will be high on the agenda at the next session of the UN General Council.

An unprecedented toilet-building spree has taken hold in India over the last two years, spurred by a government campaign embraced by young women: “No Toilet, No Bride”

Now I am nothing if not a credible journalist, so I did a bit of research and found this bit of info on CNN.com, squeezed between a picture of Tucker Carlson’s bow tie and a sidebar about how highly polished Obama’s Nobel Prize is:

“No toilet, no bride,” has become a rallying cry for women raising a stink about the lack of a basic amenity. (Ha ha! Who says the news industry can’t be funny?)

They see it as a human rights issue, especially in villages where plumbing can be nonexistent.

It was that way in Sunariyan Kalan in the northern state of Haryana. Sumitra Rathi said village women had no choice but to relieve themselves without privacy. They would go before sunrise or hold it in until darkness fell once again to avoid being seen. Or they would walk out to the fields and endure embarrassment. They don’t want their daughters to face the same indignity.

“Many of them do make serious inquiries from the families of grooms about latrines,” she said.

Personally, Mr. Blog stands with his sisters on this one. “Places of poop” (as a friend once called them) are vital to the general well-being of every man woman and child. At least in my neighborhood. But I’m not sure everyone agrees with me. About five years ago, I was parked in the local Toys “R” Us parking lot waiting for someone to come out when I saw a woman and her son, who was no more than four, exit the store. I was parked very close to the exit, as it was quiet and I didn’t have to steal a handicapped spot, so I saw the whole sordid scene. The woman held the boy by the hand and marched him to the nearest lamppost where she pulled his pants and underwear down around his ankles, pointed to the pole, and yelled “pee!”

Yes this is true and yes I watched it and no I am not a pedophile.

The kid, without batting an eye, peed, and in quite an arc I must say.

I was appalled. The store they just exited had a bathroom!

So now the kid finished peeing and is standing there, full frontal nudity, in a puddle, in full view of all the perverted trash in the parking lot, and me, when the mother, who had turned her back on this, turned around and asked the kid if he was finished. He said he was. So she reached around, grabbed the kid’s gear, and gave it a few vigorous shakes to get the last drops out. Yes, she gave the kid a reach around in the parking lot.

This kid has a great future as a foster child ahead of him.

She pulled up the kid’s pants and they walked back into the store.

Did I mention there was a bathroom in the store? In fact, two. The kid could have gone himself into the men’s room or, he’s still young enough, with his mother in the ladies room.

So I wonder if that woman came from a non-toilet country, like India? Perhaps she was not yet acclimated to all the wonderful plumbing our great culture has to offer? It could be that, as yet, she was not yet used to the American way of defecation? From youth, I have been privileged to live in houses, and have relatives who live in houses, and shop in stores that have, and work in buildings with, TOILETS. They may not have always been clean or had toilet paper, and they may have looked like an elk was eviscerated in them, but they were good old American toilets and I was proud to pee in them, even in winter when, quoting my friend once again, “heated toilet seats are like a gift from the gods. I really wish that they were the norm in all places of poop.” (She is quite the philosopher. I only hope she’ll speak to me again.) [NOTE: She did not.]

“No Toilet No Bride.” I can only hope that this wonderful slogan takes root in America.

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