It's Happening...The Toilet Gets Its Due

The humble toilet is making headlines by Peter Gilstrap


What’s been around for 4,500 years and is full of shit? That’s right, our friend the toilet. Yes, it was in the year 2,500 BC that water-flushing commodes first appeared in homes, courtesy of the technological advances of the Harappan civilization in India and Pakistan. Over the years the fad caught on, as citizens in Crete, Egypt, Persia and China simply stood and let the chips fall where they may.

Those who study such things believe that it was the luxury-loving Romans who eliminated the stand and deliver posture, introducing the sitting version, the ancestor of our beloved porcelain throne. The humble device has served humanity well. After taking thousands of years of crap, it’s nice to see the toilet get its due.


In South Korea, they fondly call Sim Jae-duck Mr. Toilet. Why not? The former mayor of the city of Suwon, Sim has forged a career out of beautifying public loos; now he can literally call a toilet home. Named Haewoojae, or a "place to solve one's worries," Mr. T’s creation is a two story, $1.1 million, 24 1/2-foot-tall potty-styled dwelling, built to commemorate the first meeting of the World Toilet Association.

Visitors are charged $1 (proceeds go to the foundation) to tour the 4,520-square-foot House That Crap Built, which features four bathrooms and a staircase—that would be the drain—capable of collecting rainwater used for drinking. No word on whether Mr. Toilet will be erecting a vacation cottage in Flushing, New York.



Nothing says “yummy brown goodness” like tucking into a toilet bowl filled with chocolate ice cream, at least in Taiwan, where “BM” stands for “big money.” The country now has 12 toilet-themed restaurants, where famished diners sit on toilets, eat from miniature toilet bowls, and slurp lemonade from hand-held, hospital-style urine caddies.

Eric Wang, owner of the Marton (Chinese for toilet) chain, says, "Most customers think the more disgusting and exaggerated the restaurant is, the funnier the dining experience is." Chuck E. Cheese has nothing on this place. What’s on the menu? Wang explains that the big sellers are curry hot pot, curry chicken rice and chocolate ice cream because "they look most like the real thing."

 

It’s easy to drop loads of cash shopping in New York, but what about plain old loads? This holiday season, good news for Big Apple consumers with nowhere to go. The Charmin toilet paper company opened 20 free bathrooms in Times Square, and what better way to inaugurate the craptastic venture than with a real live celebrity? Genius funnygal Molly Shannon was on hand to cut the TP ribbon, but it wasn’t all smiles. Dick Wilson, the actor better known as Charmin’s “Mr. Whipple,” went to the big bowl in the sky the very same day. Sadly, with only 20 crappers, the 21 flush salute was one short.

 

 

 

Peter Gilstrap is a Los Angeles writer who will be spending Christmas in Tijuana.

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