Commentary

Not all toilets created equal

Jackass sey di worl' no level. Jackass sey how man whe use pit tilit fi measure up wid man whe use some blow dry one?

JACKASS WAS WATCHING this channel that has come to mash up all male human and beast's night-time, Home and Garden Television, or HGTV. (Thinking about it, it could just stand for 'Hog and Goat Television' and carry coverage from Jamaica's Parliamentary sittings). It was the usual stuff and then came this feature on the latest developments in toilets, or 'WCs' as they delicately called them.

Now Jackass' ears prick up fas' fas', because that device is a most important part of life. For verily Jackass says unto thee, if man nor beast is comfortable on that throne, then certainly he or she is neither king nor queen in his or her castle.

Long gone are the days of pulling on the long chain like you are ringing a church bell. Long gone too, apparently are the days of simply going and flushing.

Jackass saw toilets with fish tanks on top (the fish don't go down with the flush), toilets that have self-plunging mechanisms, toilets with variable volume flush and even a pink one that looked like it should be worn, not sat upon.

But the one that really took the cake was a US$5000 set-up, which you can talk to. Yes, the toilet tek chat from the owner, as on being spoken to the lid goes up. (Jackass does not know if that means that only the owner can use it, as anybody else could stand over it and holler 'open flushame' till they are overfull in the bowels and nothing would happen.)

Blow-dry facilities

The only thing the user of this J$300,000 toilet has to do is sit and put 'heffort' into the sitting. It has blow-dry facilities and more buttons than a cellular telephone. And, get this, once the business is over the user simply gets up and, six seconds later, the toilet lid closes all by itself.

Damn! Six seconds! Depending on the level of usage, that is about the time it takes from release to that distant thunk of arrival in a pit latrine. That is six seconds difference that really means a lifetime.

Now, in this supposed age of globalisation, a person still using a pit latrine is expected to compete with somebody who is using one of those 'blow and go' devices. The world is not level at all, is it?

How in the name of six seconds is that going to work? For truly the measure of a society is not only the roads and the cuisine and the buildings, but the manner in which its citizens dump their waste. And we are not talking about Riverton dump here, OK?

But think about it. That space-age toilet costs more than many cars in Jamaica. For that US$5000, you can get a deportee station wagon, insure it, get two big deals and have enough left to buy a couple spare tires.

So which would you rather? To drive a car or own a toilet?

Jackass sey di worl' no level. Jackass sey a no everyting inna life need fi hadvance.