The World is My Toilette

Note: My spellcheck is broken and the highest grade I completed was third. Don't judge me, please. Or actually, go ahead. Like I care.


The French have the most ineffcient toilets I have ever seen in my life. Okay, so there is approximately a coffee cup worth of water in each vessel(the vessel being slightly smaller than your usual American toilet, which contains all of the necessary water immediately at your disposal.). You are expected to expel all of you waste into said vessel, often creating a backlog of, um, stuff, in said vessel. Upon my arrival I assumed that this was a matter of water conservation, or, in the very least, economics. Then I flushed a toilet.

I did not have the courage to use a toilet for it's ultimate purpose immediately as all are controlled by a duo of buttons, neither of which are marked by reference to their use. When I entered my hotel room and discovered the abundance of flushing options, I gingerly pressed the left button, allowing it time to spray me in the face with fresh toilet water if that is what happened to be the intention of the left button's position.

I then quickly pressed the right option and jumped behind the door of my bathroom, just in case that particular button meant "drown American tourist with torrent of water, alllowing room for European tourist who happens to understand the mechanics of the double bathroom button and is willing to pay 10 more Euro a night". I donned a pair of goggles especially for this purpose. I did not drown.

Both seemed to illicit the same reaction from the toilet: Niagra falls in tiny toilet relief. It was actually quite spectacular if you happen to be impressed by wasting water. Like I said, I initially assumed that one option was utilized for the purpose of drowning innocent people. The other, I figured, was for urine. I was wrong on both counts. The toilet, and it is always a double button option on every single toilet you use here in Paris, (maybe France, maybe Europe) is also probably the same in space. If I had to guess how they pee in space. Either way, it always smells; pressing the button always results in an overwhelming sense that the apocolypse will immediately issue forth from your current, observing (for you must always check to make sure that all of your pee has gone away for any person that might follow after you into the toilet) position and that maybe, just maybe, the toilet will actually leave the proper amount of water in your basin for the next necesarry act. It never does. Just going number one generally results in both a possible religious experience and the inverse response that one would experience when hoping to see the world's most important relic and actually finding a crappy, overcooked, inedible French fry in it's place.

I have barely touched on the issue of how much water actually rushes forth in the event of a flush. I recognize that it does essentially the same job at home but I also support the idea of a cleaner- smelling Earth. This will never happen with the inexpliccable toilets in France. It may overwhelm the septic system (and, in certain Metro stations, it really, really, really smells like it must) but I find that this is preferred by the Parisian decision makers over the other option: Febreeze.

I don't mean to complain but, well, I am an American and that is what I do. It is clear to me that that smell is going directly into the olefacory systems of innocent people who do not deserve to experience the scent of a dead body in a vent when what they really paid for was to smell a giant Parisienne rose. That is, after all, what all other subway systems in the world smell like. Right?

In essence, it appears that a city that is situated around a river that houses the largest boats I have ever personally seen in my life does not wish to properly flush a toilet for the sake of keeping a couple of ducks disease free. At least, that is the best I can figure. Just a word, Paris; Don't take this personally, but most of your city does not smell great, despite it's wonderful appearance. Go ahead and empty these overburdended toilets somewhere besides the public transportation points and you might find that you're on to something. I know of a great landfill: it's called the sewer.