An Essay by Gil French

A toilet is a porcelain convenience about which people rarely talk openly. Credit for its invention is often give to Thomas Crapper, about whose name I promise to exercise Herculean restraint, but it was actually invented nearly four hundred years before he was born. I mention his name only because I like it and welcome any opportunity to say it aloud in mixed company. The artifact attributed to him usually resides secluded in a room called a “bathroom” although the device itself is rarely, if ever, used for taking a bath. Nearly every residence in this mighty republic contains at least one bathroom, each sporting a toilet. Many homes contain two or more bathrooms allowing several household members to experience relief simultaneously. Is this a great country or what?

Toilets have been around for centuries although they did not always look as they do now. In early days they took the shape of a simple hole in the ground. A hole that was easy to dig and also easy to cover up, although I do not know what tools early humans had for digging holes. The ancient Romans were deeply into sanitary practices, although I am not sure how often they practiced. They had a marvelous system of waterworks that brought water to their city and another system of pipes and channels that carried the used water and its disgusting contents out of the city. This water was dumped into the Tiber River where no one knew what eventually happened to it. It’s probable that they did not go swimming in their Tiber River.

As history progressed into the middle Ages, sanitation took an abrupt turn for the worse. In fact there was no sanitation. Filth and garbage was simply dumped into the streets. Naturally walking was very hazardous in those days. However, for the common folks, there was no other means of transport. Furthermore, the really had no way to clean up unless they lived near a river. Just imagine how dirty the rivers and the folks who used them or innocently lived near them were back then. But, in truth, no one was very clean at that time. Even the aristocracy sported unpleasant body aromas at that time, or so I’ve surmised since I wasn’t there then.

At some point between the dark ages and more modern times someone got the idea of building a clever little structure called an outhouse. This was a simple wooden structure that enclosed a bench with a cleverly place hole in the seat. It certainly was not very comfortable being stifling in the warm weather and freezing when the temperature fell. Nonetheless, it was private, useful and fairly secure. Needless to say, users would try to be as speedy in using its services as they could since it was neither comfortable nor odor-free. While this was a distinct improvement of the primitive measures used in previous eras, it still did not suit the demands of more advanced societies.

With the advance of civilization, more modern ceramic toilets appeared. Very likely these contrivances were located outdoors, which helped keep the indoors fresher and somewhat odor-free. But unfortunately this had its less endearing features. For one thing, it was not very private, a condition that many of its user found inconvenient. Furthermore it subjected its users sometimes to severe weather. So society’s clever engineers thought of a way to move its convenience inside. This required someone to invent metal pipes, which undertaking was accomplished by a gentleman named Barry Shlockmeyer (I made this name up because I didn’t feel like researching it but if you know who really did invent it I would appreciate your letting me know).

In many homes, the bathroom is the warmest room in the house. This is because, its use requires a measure of undressing, which many folks are hesitant to do in cold locations. I am proudly among that number. Our home has a bathroom on the second floor, which is warmed by a radiator and is fairly comfortable. Our bathroom in the basement, however, is has no built-in heating facilities. I have placed a small space heater there, which provides adequate warmth, at least for those who are not too fussy.

Toilets are the subjects of very few articles or stories. There is very little romancing of toilets or odes written to or about them. They are very quiet members of our society and do their assigned work with silent authority and without excessive boasting, expecting little in return for their humble and vital services. They are certainly of much more gainful use than many other, far more celebrated and lauded artifacts that we employ in our daily lives. I think that it is our duty to show our greater appreciation of these devices. I will make the effort to do so but am quite busy right now and promise to get back to it when I have more time.

830 words