Know Your Toilet

For sometime now, I had been pondering about writing on this topic, more as I see unclean toilets and those that have not been used properly. This blog is not to be seen as a yucky article or as wasted keystrokes of an insomniac moron, but rather as a public awareness campaign, the sorts usually done by NGOs - a small difference: given a choice, I would rather be a capitalist!

First and foremost, we have to understand that the potty is not a place to wrench away the guts with abhorrence. This is a place of spiritual pleasure where one can download the mental stress in the form of physical release of unwanted shit, literally. This is a place to revere and wonder and gape at with awe and reflect it upon our own life. What else can gobble up tons and tons of shit thrown over from the top and still manage to sit calm and work relentlessly? (If you got reminded of some colleague of yours when you read that last statement, the pun was unintended!). This is the domicile of congeniality, a mandatory spot that demands your visit everyday, failing which you end up spending your subconscious sphere worrying about not relieving your intestines. Hence, we are not talking about an unearthly astronomical gadget that smells of or eats up unwanted digested waste, but rather of a friendly part of your home or office that demands certain moral responsibility and ownership from every individual.

Second and secondarily, we have to understand that a toilet does not comprise only of the potty that we just prided so much about. It has other things that we will deal with shortly, that you will be surprised how you missed noticing them (!). These are essentials of any toilet and maintaining these is our responsibility if you want yourself and everyone else around you to be a neat toiletarian (soon to be added in dictionary).

A toilet is to be as aesthetically designed as any other part of a home or office. This is the first step towards maintaining cleanliness. It should evoke that unknown feeling of orderliness in you. It should struggle to overcome the chaos that your mind is usually defaulted to and make you look forward to a pleasant experience of five minutes (or longer, depending on what you had for dinner last night). An ideal color could be anything brilliantly different from your living area or working place. Bright colors usually give a jolly ride experience - yellow, green, blue and other such aesthetically pleasing areas of the rainbow. Boring and intellectually non-stimulating colors such as brown, maroon etc., should be refrained from. They discourage a healthy use of the toilet and make a person want to run away before pulling up the pants.

Enough attention should be given to the location of various assets. It is a generally accepted notion that the toilet should rather be in a corner of the restroom and the area in the middle be used for bathing or shaving. Design your space with your head. A bathroom could turn into a romantic rollercoaster, depending on what you choose to use it for. It is ideal to have quite some space allocated for your bathroom so you can fit in a bath tub, a shower, a wide mirror, a locker, a wash basin, a toilet (with good-looking equipments) and enough moving area. By enough moving area, I mean more than enough space for at least two people. A big bathroom is usually a good stimulant to all kinds of metabolism that the human body undergoes. And if you are a crazy romantic, move the potty as distant as possible from the main area. It is also advisable to locate it as distant as possible from where you keep your toothbrushes, because I remember reading this somewhere: Everytime you flush, tiny molecules of dirt, germ and you-know-what can leap into air for about 10 (or more) meters. (I have been keeping my toothbrush in the kitchen ever since). Keeping all this in mind, the ideal place for the potty is the far end of your bathroom. Designers should make sure toilets are fed with fresh air using an air duct and have enough head space. Maintenance personnel should make sure there are repellents and fresheners handy.

Now comes the most important part of this write-up: using it. Please sit completely, do not strain your legs. As I mentioned before, it is a pleasurable 5-minute experience, depending on how you see it. Relax your mind and stretch your limits. Sulk in the comfort and forget your worries. Subject yourself to the luxury. Accept it as a part of your routine life. You do not have to exercise precaution to close your mouth, but do not make a sound when you try, for the benefit of others. Rather give it its time. The more you wait, the more it waits. But you will emerge victorious if you hang on, patience is the key. And once the gates are opened, thy shall hear what thy predecessors hath heard! Thy shall revel in the ecstasy that all thy colleagues hath enjoyed! The noble heavenly imperial ambrosia of an exquisitely crafted, perennially pleasing, serenely soothing, blazingly peaceful plop of a solid rushing into an eagerly waiting liquid medium in a continuous random stream of motion (movement, i mean). Lengthen the moment, strengthen the control and pull (push?) yourself up - If you had remembered to latch the door, none is seeing! It is your private moment to glory!

So much for personal pleasure! Now comes the moral responsibility that you owe to others waiting in line - Please dispose your mess. It is your toilet (OK, the company's toilet) and it is your duty to leave it the way you would want it to be when you step in. Put yourself in the shoes of the person coming next. Get up, remember to flush adequately and clean yourself. Dispose the tissues into the bin, not the potty. Most corporate toilets clog because of flushed tissues. If you know where your food should go into, you are supposed to also know where it should go out to. If you use water to clean, make sure you leave the place dry. There is no harm in using a lot of tissues to dry up the place in whatever fashion you prefer, assuming you are in the habit of washing your hands with soap at the end of the exercise. Cleaning up your own mess is a bare minimum courtesy expected of you anywhere, more so in this case. When the next person steps in, give him the same environment that you gave yourself. It is the least you can do for your colleague. And once you are done with all these, walk away in pride and satisfaction!

Things to Note

1. Leave the place dry.

2. Do not clog the flush with tissues; Use the bin.

3. Think a lot, intellectually i mean. There is no better place to instigate your intellectual stigma than the gaping hole.

4. Put your mobile in silent mode.

5. Try not to fart, if it is an office restroom. But if the pressure is beyond what you can take, let go and refrain from thinking.

6. When you step out, if there are people outside, see them in the eye, do not squirm. Most importantly, Do Not Shake Hands! If someone is raring to go in once you come out, go ahead and say "Have fun mate!"

7. Keep Smilin!