Happy Post VD day

Nothing says love like… A Japanese toilet (photo from Cheryl Friend,: )

If you want to give your spouse a gift that will leave a meaningful memory, if it doesn’t cause a divorce, buy a high-tech Japanese toilet like I found in my hotel in Tokyo. To set the scene, you check into this beautiful hotel after a long, long, twelve-hour flight from the states. The room is very small since real estate is so expensive causing them to cram so much into such a confined area. Almost everything in the room touches something else. The craziest thing, though, is the bathroom. It looks like they had pre-fabricated bathroom modules installed into the open room when the hotel was built. Small, plastic walls with the coolest space-age toilet you have ever seen.

I had a couple of hours to kill before meeting the crew downstairs, and decided that I had to deposit some American fertilizer before taking a shower. I sat down on the toilet with an old issue of USA Today that I was re-reading for the fourth time; but that soon lost its appeal and was replaced by my curiosity of the fancy computer on the wall next to the toilet paper roll. It had a lot of buttons, with little cartoon pictures depicting certain functions of this high-speed, low-drag futuristic waste disposal unit. The problem I encountered came from my lack of understanding Kanji. Warning, graphic language to follow—hide the kids. There was a block with numbers on it, so I started pushing them and noticed the numbers getting higher, 10,15,20,30,40 before it stopped. Not knowing better, I pushed another set of buttons which resulted in a strange motor noise from somewhere in the back of the toilet seat. Not sure what that was, I peer between my legs and noticed a little white rod directly in the center of the space under my hinny.

About the time I figured out what this thing was, it erupted with a water jet of 40 Celsius or 104 degrees Fahrenheit straight up my butt crack giving me a scalding enema. I shot forward into the room, screaming like a chick, with a stream of hot water arcing over onto my back until I lay prostrate, half-in and half-out of this plastic bathroom. Once my weight came off the seat, it triggered a shutdown of the bidet, but not before it left a searing red line up my butt and the small of my back. Water was everywhere.

After I was able to regain my composure, and recover from this attack of the robotic toilet seat (this took awhile) I finally figured out what all the little cartoons were depicting. I guess there is something to be said for crapping in a hole in the ground like they do in Turkey or a nice old American Toto porcelain John.
But if you decide to get your spouse the toilet with all the works, get one of these Japanese models, but make sure that you get the one with English printed next to the cartoons…
Semper Fi,
Taco
PS, Here is an update on these toilets... (Thanks to Bridget)
Japanese Company Offers Free Repairs on Toilets That Could Catch Fire
Monday , April 16, 2007


Japan's leading toilet maker Toto Ltd. is offering free repairs for 180,000 bidet toilets after wiring problems caused several to catch fire, the company said Monday.
The electric bidet accessory of Toto's Z series caught fire in three separate incidents between March 2006 and March 2007, according to company spokeswoman Emi Tanaka. The bidet sent up smoke in 26 other incidents, the company said.
"Fortunately, nobody was using the toilets when the fire broke out and there were no injuries," Tanaka said. "The fire would have been just under your buttocks."
The company will repair 180,000 toilet units manufactured between May 1996 and December 2001 for free, she said. A manufacturing defect is thought to have led to the faulty wiring.
Toto has been a pioneer in high-tech toilets fitted with pressurized water sprayers - a standard fixture in Japanese homes.
The popular Z series features a pulsating massage spray, a power dryer, built-in-the-bowl deodorizing filter, the "Tornado Wash" flush and a lid that opens and closes automatically. Prices range from $1,680 to $2,600.
The model is not sold overseas