Garrison Keillor: "Do not flush while seated on toilet"

[babylonsister]

"Do not flush while seated on toilet"

It would be easy to miss those seven simple words next to the flush button in the airliner bathroom. Pay attention, or ruin your life!

By Garrison Keillor


Dec. 17, 2008 | It is rather haunting, the notice above the Flush button in the toilet on the airliner, "Do Not Flush While Seated on Toilet." One imagines the engineers of the toilet running tests with flush dummies with big flat butts and the suction ripping the stuffing right out of them, and the engineers thinking, "Oh criminy, you mean we wasted three years on this sucker?" So lawyers were brought in to write the warning, which had to be short enough to be printed in large type so that geezers would see it, who are the ones most likely to flush while seated.

So they limited themselves to those seven words and eliminated "Flushing While Seated May Suck Your Colon Out Of You And Cut You A New Orifice While Changing Your Gender In Ways You Don't Even Want To Think About."

I sat down on the closed toilet seat to ponder this and saw that, from the angle of the sitter, the warning notice is not all that prominent. A person could sit there and not notice those seven words, or mistake them for something innocuous such as "Do Not Flush Wallet Down Toilet" or "Use Only As Much Toilet Paper As You Need," the sort of signage that's written by morons for idiots, and so -- distracted perhaps by sudden turbulence or feeling rushed because others are waiting -- he presses the Flush button and suddenly feels the toilet grip his hinder like a python seizing a rat. He tries to pry himself loose. No go.

Now the flight attendant is tap-tap-tapping on the door. "Are you all right?" she asks.

The man on the toilet, Mr. Murphy, doesn't know how to answer that question. He is, basically, all right in that he is an economist with a shining résumé, is married to a noble and resourceful woman, has three excellent children who are drug-free and on the upward path, and he is flying to Washington to interview for a high-level position in the Department of the Treasury.

On the other hand, he is trapped in the toilet.


more...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2008/12/17/flush/

[panader0]

1. I love Keillor, but if this is a metaphor, I don't get it.

[Lautremont]

2. Bush is the shitter and the toilet he's trapped on is America?

That may not be correct, because America is not a toilet. There are parts of it that are quite nice, and then you cross the Hudson...

[hay rick]

8. And you're not in Jersey anymore.

Happy to complete your thought for you.

[acmavm]

5. Me either, I was trying to figure out who Murphy is. But I was laughing so

damn hard tears were running down my face. As usual.

I sure do like that man's sense of humor.

[Harry Monroe]

3. Reminds me of something written on the bathroom stall in my dorm in college

"Flush thoroughly, it's a long way to the cafeteria"

Flush thoroughly, it's a long way to the White House!!

[awoke_in_2003]

4. It's a long way to Tipperary. nt

[pipi_k]

6. I wonder if they ever considered

putting a bunch of ventilation holes or canals around the top near the rim. Under the seat so people don't sit on them, but high enough so that no nasty stuff can accidentally come flying out the sides

Or maybe an emergency string to pull that would stop the suction?

Or a pressure sensor that wouldn't allow the toilet to flush at all if it detects more than 10 lbs of weight on it?


I've never been on a plane so I don't know what the toilets look like, but it seems like it would be an easy enough (though maybe costly) thing to do

[bertman]

7. What if you can't read English??

[DRoseDARs]

9. I can't imagine it's that difficult to put sensors on flight toilets that prevent inadvertent flushs

If they can make toilets that flush themselves (via infrared distance sensors), they can make toilets that WON'T flush until you move away.