Because I’m a little
long-in-the-tooth, mobility is not what it once was. In high school, I ran the half-mile in track;
it has since been changed to the “880 meter run,” something that was
desperately needed because of the metric system.
It seems that the half-mile and
880 meters are one in the same but, to make our north-of-the-border, and
south-of-the-border folks feel more welcome, we have slowly adopted the metric
system of ruining America.
My sainted wife and I decided
that our status as relics deserved a treat, so we opted for a new toilet in the
guest powder room. My sainted wife calls
it the powder room because it sounds nicer than bathroom.
I don’t think it is anywhere
nearly as descriptive as it should be, because there’s not an iota of powder –
talc or otherwise – to be found therein.
There is, however, a bathtub neatly situated inside. But, I digress.
It was off to the giant hardware
store to shop for powder room accoutrements.
Upon arrival, we were met with a
compendium of lavatories suitable for most needs. Oddly enough, all were made
of porcelain, and were white in color.
Stop laughing right now. Back in the 1970’s style dictated kitchen and
bath appliances be offered in harvest gold, and avocado green, along with
white. Matching tile and patterned
linoleum flooring created a late-century train wreck motif that evoked nausea.
It so happens our house contains
both the green and gold bathroom versions!
This shopping spree was to help
make one powder room more comfortable by installing a taller, more elongated
potty in lieu of the current round gold version.
It’s been a long time since I
shopped for toilets; six decades, actually.
So, it was with amazement that I ran across more toilets than I could
imagine. It was time to enlist the aid
of a store professional.
Alas, there was none so, we found
Chip from the lawn mower department was willing to assist us. Chip knew just a smidgen less about toilets
than Smokey the cat.
He patiently read the information
off the boxes to us, as though my sainted wife and I were Serbian refugees
without the ability to form Basic English sentences.
He eventually reached the part
that explained each flush used 3.8 liters of water. Then, he went on to try to tell us this
particular model was crafted in America
But it was the 3.8 liter part
that had me baffled. Just how much was
3.8 liters?
So I asked Chip, “Just how much
is 3.8 liters?”
Suddenly, Chips eyes glazed-over
and began to swirl as if tiny tear eddies formed in his eyes. Nearly 37 seconds crept by when I began
calling him out of his trance.
“Chip! Chip!
Chip!” with only modest success.
Apparently Chip was not the
scholar his employer envisioned him as.
I began thinking about all those
packages bearing product pictures and copious writing crowded with both English
and Spanish advertising. Somewhere on
that packaging there could surely be enough free space to include the American
equivalent to 3.8 liters.
Surely I was wrong. And so, I let the scholars among us buy all
the toilets they wanted. I will keep my
harvest gold treasure for a while longer.
