today's thankful thursday is kind of a twofer. yesterday we went to france, (sounds classy but it is only a few hour drive). as happens on long drives, you have to pull over at some point . . ya know? mother nature can call louder than anything and everything else.
so, we pull over, stretch the legs with a little walk to the little girls room. i dislike rest areas but love them at the same time. i always have a little nervousness when approaching public restrooms. rest areas generally have more character than any other pubic bathroom though. i've seen some freaky ones in my life. and i've seen a few that made my brain and bladder have a meeting as to how urgent the need was and what other options there were. this . . .i was not expecting. we are calling a meeting!
hmmmm. . .
not totally disgusting as rest areas go . . .
no tp but i have my own . . .
not smelly . . .
there is the fact that, ya know, THERE IS NO TOILET! . .
it's a hole in the floor . . .
it has a hand rail so you can hold yourself up, ok, so that's a point against the bushes. . .
there are raised places for your feet to stay up out of the way, think i'll keep mine on the floor though. . .
flushes every time you open the door . .. .
i don't think i should have to squat in a bathroom . . .
i don't want to sit where someone else has sat . . .
i need to go . . .
bladder wins!
and that brings us to thankful thursday.
today i am grateful for toilets. when need arises i am grateful for bushes, which i will generally choose over port-a-potties depending on how long they have "been in use". i was grateful for the potty-with-no-seat-so-you-had-to-hover-but-i-would-have-hovered-or-covered-with-tp-anyway toilet we encountered later the same day as the above non-toilet. we actually encountered 2 places with the non-toilet version. that night the bush version was necessary. for my little blond curls, the mommy potty is always handy instead of a bush, (you know the mom-holds-ya-up version). the back of the car or between the open car doors version.
in the other direction, i 've seen toilets with seat warmers, radios, and remote controls. yeah, if you spend a few grand on a potty, you need to research some better uses of finances.
there is a mc donald's here with a toilet that washes the seat after you flush. i'll post the video i took of it if i can find it again. very cool.
there is a long fascinating and disgusting history of toilets and such related activities. before toilets, there was no one place. gah! i mean, come on. even some animals will pick a place and not use other places. then men got actual pots to use and their friends would all stand around them talking while they went to hide them and the sounds a bit. women didn't get to use them, they got to hold it. although there is a recorded instance of a duchess or lady or some fancy thing who couldn't hold it and used the pot. someone walked in on her and caught her doing so and hence the term "caught on the pot". true story.
there is actually a compost toilet that doesn't use water at all. it separates the liquid and solid. the solid dries and composts into a fluffy humus you can put around plants to keep moisture in and weeds down. the wet is broken down so you can use it on plants. what you can do with it is regulated depending on where you live, but rules aside, that's how everything breaks down. that's kind of cool!
toilets were invented before 1800 but still haven't caught on in some places in the world. there was a toilet in a chinese king's tomb that possibly dates back as far as 206b.c. history of toilets has lots of useless info on what happened when. i think everyone knows that even today there are some parts of the world where you use one hand for one things and the other for other things.
weird huh?
that actually brings up something else i'm grateful for. i have to tell the story of how this came up first though. one sunday in church, the teacher went around the classroom asking everyone what they were grateful for. everyone said something like family, home, yada, yada. all great things. these things weren't good enough for him. the teacher points to my husband and he says, "hot dogs, i'm grateful for hot dogs . . and toilet paper. i'm even more grateful for toilet paper." yep, i'm also grateful for toilet paper. think about it for a second . . yep, your grateful for it now too. i'll even give you another reason to be grateful for tp, and the associated rolls. you can pinterest or google and find a million crafts for tp rolls, so go do that. but, the next time your sitting . . .and waiting . . .check to make sure there is another extra roll available. great1 now grab your 2 rolls of tp . . . hold them up to your eyes and look though the tubes. now you might want to scout for pirates or monkeys, or something mundane like that for a while. . but when your ready, move the rolls in different directions and flick your tongue in and out! yeah . . .that's right, your a chameleon! their eyes are on either side of their head and move independently of each other. it actually makes my head spin a little, good thing your sitting down, right? just make sure to lock the door, cuz your not really a chameleon and when the kids/animals/spouse come looking for you, you can not actually disappear into the background so they will ask you what you are doing and you will have to confess that you are a chameleon. your only recourse at that point is to hand them a couple rolls and tell them to pretend they are too and send them out of the bathroom looking for food. unless it's an animal in which case you can probably get away with throwing an empty or scrtitching their head. (that might work on the children and spouses too come to think of it.) hmmm .. . .anyway back to toilets.
while living in the camp site we used a very clean community bathroom. during the winter there weren't many people, but every morning, everyone has the same idea at the same time. at one point i told my husband that i just wanted to pee in peace. then we move into our house and i got my favorite version of the toilet. the home version is definitely the favorite above all others. . .
maybe the at-home-door-locked-kids-in-bed-no-chaos-breaking-loose version is the highly favored version that trumps all other versions ever. it's extremely rare. when your the mommy, there is no pee in peace. which just leaves you with . . . e-a-c-e. Evading Avidly Clamoring Entities. wouldn't have it any other way.
update:
i just had to add this to my potty post.
at a faschings parade this week, we saw something that just made all of us just cringe and laugh and just jaws drop. this was at the head of the line for the potties . . .
to be fair. i saw a guy using a wall not far from here so this has to be better than that.
