Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had a bit of an outburst at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee the other day, revealing that he hasn’t had a working toilet for 20 years and, damn it, he blames the gubmint.
Bill Scher has already offered the the senator some judicious advice on how to find a toilet that works. Clearly plunging his prodigious movements has generated quite a bit of anti-government sentiment in Paul. Perhaps with better facilities he will come around to a more benign view of public policy. We all wish him godspeed.
I just wanted to weigh in here because I f’ing love my toilet. I mean, I love this thing like people love their kids. I talk about our toilet so much it makes my wife uncomfortable at dinner parties.
It’s made by an Australian company, Caroma. In Australia they don’t have any water; consequently, they have the world’s best toilet designers. This is our model, the Sydney Smart. Just look at it. What a beauty.
It has two buttons, one for, er, larger excretions, and one for the merely liquid variety. The heavy flush dispenses just 1.28 gallons of water, well below the federal government’s requirement of 1.6 gallons. The low-flush option, however, dispenses a miserly 0.8 gallons — the most water efficient flush available on the market.
And guess what? I’ve never used the heavy flush. Not once. And listen, I don’t want to get graphic on you or anything, but I have two sons. Our family toilet does not have an easy time of it. It has faced … challenges.
The thing is, the toilet is impossible to clog. Are you hearing this? You cannot clog it, people. (Perhaps only parents of boys understand the cosmic significance of this fact.)
The trick is in the trapway — it’s 4 inches wide rather than the 2 1/8 inches standard in U.S. toilets. Observe:
If this is not making the proper impression on you, perhaps you’d like to see a grown man flush a potato down it (about a minute in):
Anyway, toilets like these were made possible by federal regulations. The government acted in the public interest to require lower water use. In order to make toilets that work with less water, toilet-makers innovated. The result is toilets that are more effective and efficient — better toilets. Everybody wins. Except Rand Paul, who bought a crappy toilet 20 years ago and hasn’t been bothered to go back to Home Depot since.
If he likes, I will personally have one of these toilets sent to Sen. Paul. Perhaps it will change his life like it has changed mine. Perhaps it will reassure him that his freedom to flush his turds with lots and lots of water was not sacrificed in vain.
