Shopping for toilets -- a crappy way to spend the evening

As you may be aware from previous posts, we have been remodeling our upstairs bathroom over the past couple of months. The general overhaul was spawned by the need for a new toilet, but it soon burgeoned into new paint on the walls, new tile on the floor, and soon, I'm sure, a new bathmat/shower curtain/toothbrush holder ensemble. We have enough Star Wars Slurpee cups that we could spare one as a toothbrush/toothpaste holder, but apparently Star Wars bathmats and shower curtains are out of the question.

Anywho, after several hundred dollars and dozens of man hours to fix everything else, it was actually time to start toilet shopping. Toilet shopping left me amazed and perplexed. Let's just say that as a society, we've come a long way from taking poops in a ditch.

Toilets have lots of features these days. You can buy taller toilets so you don't have to sit so low (free business tip to whomever wants it: create a line of customized 'low rider' toilets for those that don't want to sit so high). You've seen round toilets; you've seen elongated toilets; but now you don't have to be limited to one or the other....that's right: you, too, can enjoy the spaciousness of an elongated toilet in the same amount of space as a round toilet! Introducing the 'compact elongated' toilet! Why should you have to decide between elongated and round? You deserve the best of both worlds. Throw in a cup holder and I'm sold.


I also enjoyed a state-of-the-art flapperless toilet tank which featured (no lie!) the patented "Niagara" system. The "Niagara" system collects water at the top of the tank in a trough. When you pull the flush handle, the trough tips over and releases the water, like the rolling mists of Niagara itself, into the bottom of the tank and into the bowl. What an age we live in.

Another thing I noticed was that toilets have a 'flush rating.' This is based on a number of factors, including water amount, tank-to-bowl orifice size, the manner in which the water is dispersed around the bowl, and the drain size. The higher the flush rating, the less likely the toilet is to clog, or require second flushes. At Lowe's, flush ratings are on a scale of 0 to 5 stars. There was a disturbing number of toilets signs that said "Flush Rating Not Currently Available." Yeah right, like I'm going to by a toilet that doesn't have a flush rating yet. That has 'disaster' written all over it. At Home Depot, the flush rating is a scale from 1 to 10. I saw one with a 10 rating, and underneath it it said "Best." But I had to scratch my head when I saw a toilet with a 2.5 rating, which was subtitled "Good." Since when is 2.5 out of 10 good for anything, much less washing human waste away from your house? Talk about flush rating inflation...

The worst part, though, was the images that the toilet gurus and mucky-mucks put in your head to convince you that their toilet is the best. The first one I saw was: "Strong enough to flush a tennis ball." Ewww! What on earth would I need to flush a tennis ball for? I don't know what it was about that image...the sphereness, the bouyancy, or the sheer diameter of a tennis ball....but I just crossed my legs thinking about it.

Another toilet promised: "Can flush 150 feet of toilet paper without clogging." First of all: 150 feet of toilet paper is a LOT of bad Mexican food. But does ANY toilet need to be able to flush 150 feet at once? If someone uses 150 feet of toilet paper before they flush, then I've got news for them: they have bigger problems than what kind of toilet they have.

Another sign said: "Can flush a bucket of golf balls without clogging." That might be an attractive feature...if I was an elk. Or a rabbit. I'm still not comprehending how this promise is supposed to make me buy that particular toilet.

I'll tell you right now what they need to put on these signs:

"Can flush a GI Joe / Barbie doll / Tonka truck without clogging"
"Will not damage cell phones dropped inside" [shoutout to Hannah]
"Guaranteed to not stop working so you have to replace it, your bathroom flooring, your wall paint, and your shower curtain/bathmat/toothbrush holder ensemble"

Quinn