Potty Talk

Benjamin and I are taking a 2-week massage course here in Chiang Mai. I have plenty of time to tell you more about all of that, but first I must digress on a childish tangent because I have discovered the best, all-time, piece of trivia. In the bathroom. On the back of the stall's door, a sign told me that I was in the wrong bathroom. Yes, I was in the ladies' room, but I was in the stall with the western-style toilet. The sign was there to inform me on the virtues of using a squat toilet: it's better for the digestive organs, it's cleaner (you don't really need toilet paper), blahditty-blah-blah...

The most interesting information on the sign was in regards to the history of the western toilet -- this object of ridicule in the stall, at least according to all that blather about being the 'wrong' toilet. Apparently, a Mr. Thomas Crapper invented the toilet. I was sitting (ok -- hovering) about 3 feet away from the sign at the time and did a double-take to make sure I read correctly. Sometimes, in certain situations, I have a tendency to read a word wrong -- a comical error when, say, you're in Thailand and you see 'whole sale' and read 'whore sale'.

But back to Mr. Crapper: he certainly was a man with 'his work cut out for him' so to speak – with a name like Crapper, your options in life are pretty clear, are they not? You either have to sell diaper products or build toilets or possess an unfortunate problem with continence and henceforth be nicknamed as such. And besides... back in the day, Shoemakers made shoes; Smiths were blacksmiths; a Crapper invented crappers.

However, and sadly so, research on the internet has proven this to be an urban legend -- an unanswered question -- the fact that Thomas Crapper invented the toilet is, well, apparently full of crap. You might find it interesting to know that there are people out there in this big, busy world who have devoted much of their time standing up for the guy and his so-called invention. According to one site, these people have made it their life's work to prove Crapper was the man behind the machine. One of these guys is the historian of the 'International Thomas Crapper Society' (can you believe this?) and the other is writing a book on Crapper's life. Bathroom reading material, for sure.

Crapper was an English plumber born -- hey, guess what? -- the day after me (January 17), although a few years earlier (1836). The interesting thing about his birthday is that it's now known as 'Thomas Crapper Day' according to a book that's deemed, 'the authoritative book for listing special dates and events'. I know what I'll be doing with my hangover the day after my birthday this year: what do they call it? Praying to the porcelain god? How apropos, to honor Thomas Crapper on his birthday, on Thomas Crapper Day, by kneeling before the gleaming white bowl.

Aside from the ultimate question: did TC invent the toilet or not, Crapper's fans argue about things like the date of his death. In one book called, 'Flushed with Pride,' the author writes that he died on January 27, 1910. In fact, the correct date is presumed to be some 10 days off. Hmmm. Perhaps in regards to moving on, the 'ole Crapper was just constipated...

There's really no proof Crapper invented the commode; he held 9 patents for things like drains and manhole covers, but no patents for an actual toilet. Some feel Crapper was riding on the shirt-tail of a Mr. Giblin who did invent some useful toilet technology. They think Crapper got the credit because he bought the patent rights from Giblin and marketed the product. But we're not talking about the 'first toilet ever' in this scenario, we're talking about the "silent valveless water waste preventer" (patent no. 814), which basically just allowed a toilet to flush effectively when the cistern was only half full. Big deal.

The premiere toilet, the first ever, made its debut all the way back in 1596. Sir John Harington, godson to Queen Elizabeth, made what he called a 'necessary' -- one for her and one for him. Apparently he was ridiculed for the invention and never built any more. 200 years later, the idea took off and a series of inventors (who named their calling 'sanitary science') took on the toilet bowl and evolved the idea into what we know today. Along the way, there were some fun names assigned to what we (snore) call the toilet. My favorites: the pneumatic closet, the plunger closet, the three-pipe siphonic closet, and the jet siphon closet. But even more than those, I love the names given to technologies that were meant to improve the toilet -- pardon me, I mean the jet siphon closet -- technologies named: the backflow preventer, a blow-out arrangement, and reverse trap toilets.

Seems to me the 'backflow preventer' and the 'blow-out arrangement' are more suitable as technological improvements for the human body than the toilet, but we can't change the plumbing Mother Nature endowed us with... too bad because I've already got names picked out for my inventions: the 'sphincter-schminkter', the 'alimentary canal cork', the 'comfort station', and the 'waste not, want not' travel accessories.

Well, I guess that's about it for the history of toilets. I'm disappointed that I've been given false information in regards to the origins of said device (I'll make a note on the back of the bathroom door at the massage school)... Mostly, I am disappointed that a man named 'Crapper' did not come up with the invention after all... How beautiful a thing it would have been -- like stars and diseases named for the men who discovered them, why shouldn't the toilet be named after its inventor? Personally, I would be fine calling the toilet the 'Harington', named after the first human to invent such a fine device... And the name would work well at cocktail parties, too. "Excuse me, dahlink, but can you tell me where to find the Harington?" How civilized we would all sound!