here's for those w/septic tanks instead of city plumbing...i prop it on the tank when we have city guests:

city living's not like town
nothing solid should go down.

country living's not like town
nothing solid should go down.

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Originally posted by Moo:
This is sung to the tune of "Humoresque". The first line goes,

Passengers will please refrain...

There are more words, but I will spare you.

Moo

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I will not spare you. Inquiring minds must know. Here's the whole thing (cue Dvorak)

Passengers will please refrain
from flushing toilets while the train
is standing in the station
I love you.(filler)

Or the people passing by
will see what's come from your inside
and gripe about the mess
upon their shoes!

Of course, to the untutored guest, it only appears that there is a very long spoon in the bathroom, and clearly out there for a purpose, but not one that anyone can think of. This was the occasion for intense and sustained hilarity when I came downstairs after first using it after they began placing the spoon there (I had not been aware of the flap problem) and said that the new cabinet looked very nice (recently installed) but then said,

"And the spoon is for.....?"

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Originally posted by tomb:
a new, patent-pending flushing device that I intend to install on our downstairs demon-possessed toilet--if my mother-in-law ever vacates the premises, that is.

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Originally posted by tomb:
...a new, patent-pending flushing device that I intend to install on our downstairs demon-possessed toilet--if my mother-in-law ever vacates the premises, that is.

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ChastMastr replied:

Erm... you do mean "vacates your place of residence," not "vacates the downstairs toilet," don't you?

Don't you?

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Well, of course I do! Though, if truth be told, I am discovering depths of terror that I didn't know I had after my terrible experiences in/on that British Airways loo.

I am suddenly beginning to realize just why small children become so traumatized by toilet training. That atavistic fear of being flushed into the sewer....

So your post, David, raised these horrific images of my mother-in-law vacating....

We had very basic facilities - like a shovel. My favourite story is when another woman and I trotted off round the corner away from the truck and I was in the middle of er well... and this boy came up to us and stood in front of me and watched me!! Once I had finished he wandered down the road and stood staring at the group. I do wonder if he talks about me still though!

I have few inhibitions now!

Oh the joy of being allowed to be alone in the bathroom.

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Originally posted by Maddie:
The time has come for me to tell a nice little story of when I was on holiday in Ethiopia - a basic holiday, camping around the highlands.

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I didn't know you'd been to Ethiopia, but I'm glad someone else came up with the concept as I have many, many stories...

for example in East Africa it is common for your host to ask you "haja kubwa au haja ndogo?" ("big need or small need", you work it out) and then direct you to either a screened-off place with some obviously well-fertilised (mossy!) stones, or a pit latrine, depending.

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Originally posted by Ultraspike:
Have we finally exhausted this subject? I'm now wondering if there's anyone out there who has actually trained their cat to use a human toilet. I've heard it can be done but have never been brave enough to try it. I had an iguana for about five years and I trained him to go in the bathtub. (Actually he just started doing it on his own.) I've often wondered why dogs can't be trained to do that. That's a big reason I prefer cats, not having to walk them twice a day.

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Oh, for heaven's sake, spike, if you're squeamish, don't read about scatology.

Yes, Canuck toilets work the same way as United Statesians. Personally, I prefer the Euro chain pulling-type myself, altough I do find them noisier.

I have 2 cats, and the only time they pooped in the bathtub was when their kitty litter hadn't been cleaned for a while. Very clear message sent there,"You llke this place clean? Well, so do we!"

reading through i was plagued with many questions, which all got answered, except two...

1. what is/are biscuits and gravy???
i also have this image of custard creams floating in bistro and meat juice...mmmm, tasty

2. erin said she worked in a subway - isn't that an underground tunnel, or the underground train system in usa? how can you eat in them?

And you eat them with strawberry jam (jelly) and cream.

My Mum caught a domestic flight to Brisbane from Sydney and had this US chap sitting next to her. They served scones with jam and cream for the in-flight snack. She had a marvelous time showing him how to eat it (even though being coeliac she can't eat it herself)!!! (You split the scone, then smear jam and cream respectively on the broken pieces.

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Originally posted by Nunc_Dimittis:
In other words, they are scones.

And you eat them with strawberry jam (jelly) and cream.

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mmmmmm, cream tea - with proper cornish clotted cream and strawbery jam and crumbly scones...

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm - pity about the instant calories, but soooooo nice

I thought of this thread quite recently; I was in a neighborhood, fairly upscale coffee shop. I borrowed their (unisex) facilities, and was amused to see, behind a ladder leaning against the wall, a urinal. With a silk plant in it.

Biscuits are a quick bread -- kind of like scones, kind of like shortbread -- and are divine with butter and honey and alternatively with a thick, white, sausage gravy. I used to go to a place that made a killer red-eye gravy, which is sausage gravy with coffee grounds in it. mmmmmmm

Cream tea, as noted above, is one of the finest things on the planet.

TOILET CLEANSERS THAT WILL EAT YOUR CISTERN!

You know those things you buy, usually in packets of two? Drop them in the cistern and they deodorise, reduce limescale and turn the flush water a charming shade of ocean blue? I started using them a few months ago in my nice new blue-and-white bathroom. Every few weeks, as the flush paled, I'd chuck in another one. Then I noticed the cistern was beginning to leak in big blue puddles...

They hadn't been dissolving: they had been forming a layer of sediment in the bottom of the cistern thereby rendering, by some osmotic process, the cistern porous. We had to spend hours flushing it all out.

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Originally posted by Benedictus:
I borrowed their (unisex) facilities, and was amused to see, behind a ladder leaning against the wall, a urinal. With a silk plant in it.

Bene

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Originally posted by RuthW:
.... I used to go to a place that made a killer red-eye gravy, which is sausage gravy with coffee grounds in it....

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Good grief, woman, who told you that? You start spreadin' culinary slanders like that around, it will make California fall off into the sea just that much quicker.

Coffee grounds indeed. I spit on your coffee grounds! Pthew!

Red-eye gravy is made from the pan drippings of cured ham, and the magic ingredient is black coffee, not coffee grounds! Eeeuuuwww! Some people even make it with de-caff coffee, but that's a narthern innovation that I don't hold with.

There ain't any sausage innit atall.

On the other hand, I am the King of biscuits and gravy. Every year on the Martin Luther King weekend, a bunch of us rent a condo in Steamboat Springs and go cross-country skiing on the pass up above town, then relax in the Strawberry Hot Springs (don't ask) afterward.

And always, one morning I make Sausage gravy and home-made buttermilk and soda biscuits (NB: they taste *nothing* like scones. I know this for a fact. Scones saved my life when I was a hungry American teenager at Oxford, but that's another story.) My friend told me my breakfast is the only reason they invite me, and I thought it was because of my scintillating conversation...

Concern was expressed because a large number of girls were eating their lunch in the toilets - EEEUUUUGH

They had a dish on the breakfast menu that was biscuits cut in half with two fried eggs and sausage in the middle and red-eye gravy poured over the whole thing. And you could get fried catfish for breakfast, too.

I much prefer red-eye gravy on grits. (For those who do not understand the reference, grits are hominy that has been dried then ground to the texture of coarse cornmeal. It is then prepared much as you would oatmeal or cream of wheat. Hominy, by the way, is corn that has been processed by soaking in lye. Yum!)

I've never used those blue toilet cakes. For a while, I used a preparation that dissolved the iron deposits inside the tank; unfortunately, it also dissolved the rubber seals on the toilet.

I've never seen anyone put red-eye gravy on grits -- but I haven't seen very many people eat grits, period. And I wasn't about ready to order grits when there was sausage and biscuits and whatnot to be had.

'driving the porcelain bus'
'talking on the big white telephone'
'kneeling to kiss the porcelain god'

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Originally posted by Miffy:

And why do you men ALWAYS have to go just as we're leaving the house,and running late?

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Originally posted by Miffy:
Let's move on from food. What do we all READ whilst errr.....paying a visit?

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When I was a teenager we had a book in our bathroom called Stories for the Here and Now.

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Originally posted by The Coot:
I've seen a few references to 'throneroom' and 'old faithful', and David offered 'piss eaters', so I am obliged to donate:

'driving the porcelain bus'
'talking on the big white telephone'
'kneeling to kiss the porcelain god'

none of which refer to usage of the toilet for every-day, common or garden body functions. But still.

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Originally posted by Campbellite:
Well, at least it was well watered.

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