#440 Flushing Meadows

When I was visiting Mexico, I got to sample some of the many cross-cultural experiences we so often lack. There’s nothing like going to a foreign country to give you perspective on your own culture. Take toilet paper for instance. Plumbing and paper are things that are distinctive from one society from another. That and the electrical plugs. In Mexico the standard, when there appears to be a standard, is to have the plugholes aligned top and bottom—what to us looks side ways. The holes that are rotated 90 degrees from what we’re used to. I struggled in many a dark corner trying to plug something in until I remembered they have things catawampus. Or perhaps it’s us that’s catawampus. Mexico is, after all, part of the 95% of the world that calls soccer football so who am I to judge? They also have a problem with flushing toilet paper. Most of their sewer and plumbing systems can’t handle the clogging engendered by flushing every little piece of toilet tissue for everything. So it’s not unusual to walk by a female restroom and detect a faint odor. At first I thought it was a rat problem or perhaps an overly zealous cleaning woman with an ammonia fetish, but no. It’s just that they encourage the fair gender to wad up and deposit their number one wipe-age in a trashcan that always sets right next to the toilet. The hotel I was staying in was completely on the modern end of the plumbing spectrum. They had those new-fangled suction power toilets. The ones that scare the holy peewads out of you because they sound like someone suddenly fired up a 747 turbine right next to your delicate parts. You want to make sure you’re standing up when you flush or the suction could render you more neuter-y than you absolutely desire. On their typically hot semi-tropical days, many a Mexican fire department has had to extract a stupid gringo from an ill-flushed toilet. Imagine holding your hand on the end of a canister vacuum cleaner nozzle. Now magnify that by a hundred. I don’t know about you but there’s something pretty disconcerting about sitting quietly on the throne and accidentally pushing a button and having a huge suction surge loudly rip the skin off your derriere. The toilet is emptied completely and quickly so don’t be dropping in any car keys. Or gerbils. I suppose if one were of a hydraulic and engineering turn of mind, that one could arrange the fleshy parts of one’s body in such a way as to effect a perfect seal. If one were to suffer from the stove up malady so often experienced by travelers, one might be tempted to try a non-drug related alternative remedy. Once the seal on the seat is complete, constipation could then be forcibly relieved with the simple push of a button. Kind of a reverse bidet. The Oreck Orifice attachment. Or instead of an enema, an out-ema. Viva la differance!
America, ya gotta love it.