Thanks for toilets

Good news: Our toilet has been fixed for the fifth time this month, and things are working much better. [Bless Costco for carrying an $80 toilet set.]

Bad news: Sage was present when Grandpa came over to help take off the old toilet and install the new one. Seeing the naked hole in the bathroom floor that opened into the pipes that go into the sewer reminded Sage of her goldfish that went [and I quote] “down the drain, down into the pipes, and down into the sewer.” Difficult questions surfaced, such as “Is my orange fish down there?” and “Can we ask Heavenly Father and Jesus to get our fish back?”

Good news (sort of): Sage and Eliza were fascinated for well over an hour while they played in the new toilet (and I literally mean IN it) before it made its transition from the living room to the bathroom.

Bad news: Today after Thanksgiving dinner, I heard Eliza’s muffled cries. I ran upstairs [not the first time that night] and found the door closed to the bathroom in the master bedroom [obviously not in my house]. Eliza and her 18-month-old cousin, Bryn, had apparently decided to stop picking on each other (which consisted of stealing each other’s rolls and toys and pushing or tackling each other all night) and join forces in making some mischief. (Either that or Eliza was trying to give Bryn a swirlie.) In addition to the toilet stirring that had taken place by both red-handed (I mean wet-handed) one-year-olds, the curtain on the vanity was ripped down, bottles were on the floor, and the light was off. I am still at a loss as to how they worked their magic in the dark, and how long they were there, and how this made them friends. But sure enough, their picking on each other was over after the toilet incident. Whatever works.

Since this entry seems to be destined to focus on toilet talk, I’ll take advantage and mention a few related quotes and thoughts from this week:

A conversation with Sage when she was trying to get out of doing something: S: "I'm the mommy." Me: "Then you have to clean the toilet." S: "You can be the mommy."

After Sage used the toilet at the doctor's office: "This toilet needs a closer so Eliza and Jacob can't get in it."

On Sunday, in Senior Primary, I let the kids make up new words to a short Thanksgiving song “For Health and Strength.” They chose three things (two one-syllables and one three-syllables) that they were grateful for and substituted them in for health, strength, and daily food in the song “For health and strength and daily food we praise thy name, O Lord.” Perhaps next time I will specify no blasphemy. Oops.

Some were fun, some were silly, and some were ridiculous.

Fun: For clothes and shoes and pumpkin pie we praise thy name, O Lord.

Silly: For love and home and toilets we praise thy name, O Lord.

Ridiculous: For sports and cheese and hamburgers we praise thy name, O Lord. [This was not the only one about cheese, believe it or not. And Danielle wasn’t even there to influence the vote.]

The kids got the biggest kick out of the toilet one (in spite of its syllabic inaccuracies). I’m sure the wise guy (girl, actually) who penned this version had no idea what she was getting herself in to. Had she any idea that her primary chorister had spent six months in a VERY rural part of Mexico without a toilet, she might have changed her tune. As it was, the damage was done. They were destined for a lecture on true appreciation for toilets, bathrooms, and running water. My Primary lecture was more condensed and less graphic than what you're about to read. But here's what's at the heart of my thoughts in Primary.

When I first arrived in Mexico (2001), I was instructed in the processes of excretion by the natives at my “home.” My instructions were to urinate in the dry riverbed, defecate in a small room with a cement floor (and walk away), and deposit used feminine hygiene products in a crack in the stone wall that surrounded the house.

I have written and rejected three drafts of this next paragraph, because it is so tempting to give detailed information about an issue that caused me much concern, planning and adaptation. However, I realize it is likely an issue that laymen will find repulsive, even though any Mexico Literacy Program participant can attest to the importance of this issue. Let me put it this way-- when you have to think so carefully and often about how to excrete waste without being seen, soiling yourself, tipping over (in the poo room, this could be considered suicide…literally), you begin to wonder if diapers or catheters might not be a good idea for adults after all, and you certainly don’t shrink to discuss the latest developments on tricks for “using the bathroom” (a term used loosely), or fecal patterns related to three straight months of bean and tortilla consumption.

I was blessed with a roofless, walled “bathroom” area during my second three months in Mexico. The urine soaked into the dirt and fecal matter was to be shoveled up and flung over the wall. I don’t know which part I liked the most about this “bathroom”--the privacy, the legitimate, acknowledged bathroom spot, or the prospect of not having to see others' business.

With this background, I feel quite qualified to say that I am extremely grateful for bathrooms and toilets. I’m grateful to not have to pay 20 cents to obtain 4 squares of coarse toilet paper and access to the only bathroom in a public place. I’m grateful that in most public bathrooms in the U.S., while I’m sitting, my knees don’t touch the door; the stall is usually much higher than my neck; and employees regularly empty trash cans, repair (or at least label) defective toilets, and clean stalls. I feel overjoyed that most bathroom doors have free toilet paper, soap, paper towels, toilet seats and lids, working locks, feminine products dispensers, air fresheners, trash cans for feminine products. Even basic bathrooms often feature hanging artwork, baby stations, music, and automatic devices for flushing and dispensing water, soap and paper towels. In my own home, cleaning the toilet once every two weeks is a small price to pay in exchange for the disappearance of our excretions one second after that little lever is pushed. I am blessed.

I hope I remember not to complain when Ronald McDonald is low on paper towels, or when the library's bathroom has some trash on the floor. Or even when I have to wait in line at the airport to drag my kids and luggage into the spacious “Family bathroom” for diaper changes and potty stops. Maybe I can just use those opportunities to compose my own thankful song for all the many luxuries that I do have. “For soap and locks and free bathrooms I praise thy name, O Lord.” And for much, much more.