Random Thoughts

Illustration: The Effects of Chloroform on the Human Body (1912) by Richard Tennant Cooper

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Being young is great, but it's not sustainable.

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Even if our government had the power to rename the Gulf of Mexico - what a waste of resources that would be. The expense and time-waste of reprinting maps, changing signs, retraining meteorologists to use the new name, etc.

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A few years ago, I had a conversation with the plumber who was unclogging the toilet in our vacation rental. He said he used to work for a big hotel. They were using low-flow toilets, and they to deal with clogged toilets daily, at least a dozen per week. When the hotel weas refurbished, they replaced all the toilets. The new ones were also low-flow, but of a different design that flushed more efficiently. They went from a dozen clogs per week to less than 5 per month.

I've seen this effect in my house. When we had to replace a toilet, the one we bought had a promotional sign and video claiming it had the power to flush a bucket of golf balls. I happen to own a bucket of golf balls, and I don't plan to flush them. Even so, it is obvious that this one is powerful. The design matters more than the amount of water. I've seen high-volume toilets that could barely flush a single sheet of toilet paper, and new low-volume models that could do whatever was needed.

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I used to be funnier, but the times have worn me down.

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I will speak up in defense of paper maps. When we took our big trip around the country, we didn't use paper maps for navigation, but we used them to get the "big picture". We would spread out a map of a region or state (or the entire country) and say: We're going from here to there. What cities and points of interest are on the way? What are the potential side trips? Where will we want to stop for the night? Where are the rivers and mountain ranges? That's information you don't get from the GPS device in your car or phone.

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Once upon a time, each U.S. president saw himself as serving or leading ALL citizens, not just small factions of extreme loyalists.

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Call Back Later

There was a time when all our phones were landlines. We didn't call them landlines; we just called them phones. They were attached to the wall by cords. Some people equipped their phones with extra long cords so they could walk across the room while talking.

My friend Char, who lived in a small studio apartment, had a cord long enough that she could get to any spot in the apartment while she was on the phone. On a couple of occasions, while we were conversing, I heard the toilet flush.

"If you're going to use the toilet while we're talking," I told her, "I don't want to know. Please flush after we hang up."

Now that everyone has a mobile phone, it seems that making calls from the toilet is a common practice. I notice this in public restrooms, where I often hear the person in the next stall chatting away. Some women like to use the handicap stall as a phone booth. (These are probably the same people who use it as a dressing room.)

At home, it doesn't occur to me to carry my phone into the bathroom. In a public place, my phone is in my purse and goes where I go. If it rings while I'm busy, I don't answer.

Some people, though, can't resist answering a call. And if the call of nature happens simultaneously with the call of the phone, they multitask. Some see their toilet time as an opportunity for privacy, and schedule their calls accordingly.

A recent study suggests the 39 percent of people take their phones to the washroom, and that nearly half of those people have dropped the phone into the toilet. This isn't good for the phones. I once managed to accidentally drop my phone into a glass of water, just a week after I got it. Fortunately, it was insured, and I got a quick replacement. As silly as I felt at the time, how much more embarrassed would I have been if the phone had vanished into the commode?

Although the obvious solution is to stop making calls in the bathroom, it seems unlikely people will change that bevavior. I suggest wearing the phone on a lanyard. Many people have already thought of this, and there is a wide choice of suitable products available from all the usual places.

 

Potty Training

Hubby and I spent nearly a year traveling throughout Europe. During that time, we encountered a lot of public restrooms. It wasn't at all unusual to find a restroom that was intended to be used by both men and women. In many cases, there would be a row of stalls for women on one side, and a row of stalls for men on the other side. The sinks, used by both sexes, were in the middle. In some cases, there were stalls marked for men and stalls marked for women, intermingled, with a few unmarked stalls, too. In some cases, stalls weren't labeled, and you just took your turn, regardless of sex. As far as I could tell, nobody suffered any ill effects from this. I only felt uncomfortable once. That happened when I used a traditional women's restroom that had attendants. Oddly, the attendants were all male. (I don't remember what country I was in at the time.)

The restrooms that were available to both sexes could have been used by people who were transgender, and nobody would have noticed. For most people, restrooms aren't places we go to report on who else is there.

Once in a diner in the U.S. I walked into the ladies' room and saw a man standing there. He had come in with his baby to use the changing table. I didn't feel threatened, but just went ahead and entered a stall.

Even in the U.S., where some people are hyper-aware of sexual division in public facilities, it is generally legal for a disabled person who needs assistance to be accompanied by an opposite-sex companion. After my accident, I was in a wheelchair for a while, and needed help in the bathroom. My husband went with me. Sometimes we used the women's room, sometimes the men's. We just rolled into the handicap stall and closed the door. Nobody fainted, nobody called the cops, nobody died. We both survived without permanent emotional trauma.