2005-11-07
Frivolous Rant about Low-Flow Toilets
Frivolous Rant about Low-Flow Toilets
I don’t think I have touched on this, but it just seems so wrong to me in land of the free and the home of the brave that I do not have a choice when it comes to owning a toilet. When we bought our house about a year and a half ago, I came face to face with the hideous, incipient demon of modern environmentalism known as the low-flow toilet (LFT). Sure, the things work OK when you are going #1, but I will damned if any sort of #2 and toilet paper doesn’t immediate cause a clog that winds up using more water (plus time, effort, and energy) to open than a good old standard 3.5 gallon flush would have taken. My three and four-year olds clog up the johns with their little kid poop, and I will spare everyone the details of adult poop. I have had friends who have politely left my house rather than embarrass themselves by pooping at my house and having the toilet clog. I have a toilet kit that I keep handy in my garage with a bucket, rubber gloves, and a handy-dandy plunger to fix the problems as they arise.
I can buy a gun at a gun store or a pawnshop. I can buy alcohol and then choose to turn my car into a lethal weapon by drinking and driving. It is even easier to buy illegal drugs on the street than it is to buy a toilet that gives a decent flush. Although hard to find in the black market, in the last few years, the United States has had discussion with Canada over the issue of toilet smuggling. The law in the U.S. requires that new consumer toilets be limited to 1.6 gallons of water per flush. There is an excellent reason for this law: Congress is apparently so anal retentive that they don’t ever have to go #2. However, that does not change the fact that it is a law for those of us that do go #2. Canada flagrantly disobeys this law, on the grounds that - get THIS for a legal technicality - it is a foreign country and apparently, they all go #2 there. In Canada, anybody, including convicted felons and underage children, can walk into any toilet store, purchase a 3.5-gallon-per-flush toilet and openly flaunt it on the street, and the authorities do NOTHING. Are border searches and diplomatic missions for non-conforming toilets really a good use of our time and tax dollars? Is there some other legislation and regulation we could be using our talents and money to focus on? I am sure there are some more pressing issues in Washington. There just has to be…, doesn’t there?
I am tired of fixing clogged toilets. All I request is my God given right as an American to make an educated decision for myself! That is why today, I am urging all of readers to join me in writing my Senators and Congressional representatives to ask for toilet flush reform. I also urge you to join the NTA (National Toilet Association). Please do it for the children and do it today.
-- rockabillie at 11:49 a.m.