The State of Bathrooms in the Western World, Part I

Many years ago, when Anonymous Poo was a university student, she spent a semester in Paris (France, not Paris, Texas). She had her own, lovely, studio in the attic of a building in the 17th Arrondissement.

This studio had an electric toilet.

If you are an American, you have probably never encountered an electric toilet. However, you probably have encountered a garbage disposal. Garbage disposals and electric toilets are siblings. They have the same parents, but they've chosen different life paths.

Here's how an electric toilet works: one flushes by pushing a button, then a motor grinds the contents of the toilet into a sluice palatable to French septic systems.

Here's what doesn't work about electric toilets: said sluice has to wait in line behind water before entering the drain. So, if water is in the queue (from the kitchen sink, for example), it jumps to the head of the line and forces the sluice back. And AP means back. Back up the drain of the shower or the kitchen sink.

Yes, eww.

So, AP must admit that despite six months of food and art and fashion and language and architecture, what she remembers most strongly about her life in Paris is learning how to navigate the intricacies and temperament of the French septic system.

Perhaps this experience is a metaphor for learning about another culture. Helas. C'est la vie.

Image from Belmay.