Toilets

Something to think about while you sit and read this

Photo by Gabor Monori on Unsplash

On a recent road trip across the country, I stayed at a lot of different motels and hotels — mostly the cheaper roadside motels, being budget conscience and all. Every now and then I’d splurge and lodge at one of the more fancy places. It was always nice for my road-weary body to feel a little pampered with thicker towels and linens with a higher thread-count.

But the things that most Inns, whether fancy or not, don’t take into account are toilets. I’ll get to that in a moment.

I was driving across some state, don’t remember which one, doesn’t really matter. The day was long, the sun was setting, and I was tired. I decided to stop at the next place I saw. Just my luck, a few exits up was a prefab town with half a dozen of the most popular name-brand accommodations. I needed a little luxury and choose to stay at one of the more pricey places.

The exterior looked nice, but the interior was starting to show some wear; hallway carpets were a little worn in some places, and the elevator was very slow and had some graffiti scratches. The staff was friendly and helpful though. And as with most hotels of this caliber, the room was spacious, clean, and the pillow-top bed was excellent. The only issue I had with the room were a few pubes in the tub that the cleaning crew had missed. Oh, and yeah, the door to the room did not sit correctly in its frame. Yes, it closed and locked all right, but still sat cock-eyed — letting in a sliver of hallway light. I brought these issues to the night clerk at the front desk. She showed concern and offered me a different room. I declined. It was late, I had already settled in, and all I wanted to do was poop, shower, and hit the sack. The clerk sent somebody up to wipe the pubs, apologized for the inconvenience, and made a note to pass along to maintenance about fixing the door before the next customer booked the room.

I was impressed at her professional demeanor and decided that on the return trip I’d make a point to stay there again.

I went back to my room, took off my clothes, and then sat nude on the toilet for a much needed road-poop. I didn’t have my phone within reach, so as I was trying to relieve myself I started examining everything around me. And since my…