By popular demand (one person), here is the story behind the world’s most comfortable throne and how I came to have one in my very own home.
It starts in a typical Isla Vista, California scene with four guys crammed into a two-bedroom apartment. One of them was a clean freak and got a little too into the homemaker/nagging mother role.
He’d do little things like tape a note to the wall reminding everyone not to turn the heater up past 68 degrees, hide the vacuum cleaner to avoid neighbors getting their hands on it, or complain about a bathroom habit the name of which is synonymous with winning often and running naked.
Yes, he loved all things clean and the apartment was his palace. His roommates thought his behavior odd and often annoying, but gladly stepped in and accepted some of the frequent positive comments from visitors regarding the immaculate shape of a guys’ apartment.
One day, this young man returned to the apartment after a very long day at school and work. Several hours in class, one on live radio, and a few on the phone in the office had drained him, and he shuffled home slowly, anticipating but not quite yearning for the frozen pot pies and Albertson’s tub-o’-ice-cream that awaited him.
He switched on his room light and squeezed through the space between the dresser and the bed, which he had placed carefully to maximize space for his roommate and himself. He had measured each piece of furniture and drawn plans to exhaustion to find the perfect layout; this was just the type of meticulous activity on which he deemed worthy of spending time.
What ho! A brown package the size of a textbook lay upon his Los Angeles Dodgers pillow. He picked it up and studied the label, which had the correct address but a rather strange addressee.
He whirled around to find his three roommates peering into the room from around the corner in the living room, each one on tiptoe and about to burst into laughter. They had obviously been waiting all night for this moment.
“Who’s Dann7 McQueef?” the neat freak wondered aloud. That was indeed the name printed on the label.
Peals of laughter bounced off the walls in the cramped hall space as the three men urged Dann7 to open the package.
Their eyes shone into the dimly-lit room as Dann7 tore open the package to reveal a blue video sleeve containing a white video cartridge. Not a one of them noticed a brochure for the Toto Toilet Company of Japan that fell to the floor.
Puzzled, Dann7 allowed the tape to be ripped from his hands and shoved into the VCR in the living room. The four guys gathered around the small TV set and anxiously waited to see the contents of the mysterious white tape.
They were like zombies with eyes glued to the flickering screen as the 12-minute video played, describing the latest and greatest in Toto Toilet technology - the Washlet.
The Washlet. Such a simple concept, yet so brilliant and modern. An accessory to any regular toilet, just take off the old seat and lid and install the Washlet.
Tired of single-ply toilet paper and fighting off those first few seconds of cold-on-bare-ass in the morning?
My friend, the Washlet is just for you, the video seemed to say.
Five different settings for strength of spray at two convenient angles. Self-cleaning nozzle. An all-new blow-dry function complete with air temperature control. Lifetime guarantee. Four easy payments.
Everything but an obnoxious bearded man screaming, “I’ll give you TWO more bottles of KABOOM if you call right now!”
They watched until the TV screen went blue, and then the three men turned slowly toward Dann7 with expectant looks on their faces. They rushed forth with pro-Washlet arguments:
“Think of the money we’ll save on toilet paper!”
“One less thing for you to nag about!”
“Between the Washlet and Mario Golf, I might never leave the bathroom!”
“Self . . . cleaning . . . that is so you, girlfriend!”
The idea was enticing, but Dann7 quickly calculated that they would have needed to pool together one dollar for every home run that Barry Bonds had hit up until that point. Or about a dollar for each point in Rob Deer’s 1991 batting average, four times over.
He nixed the plan, but the other three could tell that he had at least entertained it. In all, they had gotten a lot more than expected out of the practical joke stemming from a late-night infomercial.
Dann7 was struck by everyone’s willingess to share the same crack-cleaning nozzle, but he would never forget the fifteen minutes that he and his friends spent imagining Isla Vista’s first toilet paper-free apartment.
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Somehow, I was aware of the tale of the Toto tape and revisited the story by surprise one brisk February day.
I chose the cheapest apartment closest to school that I could find when I first moved to Kochi, and that proved to be a huge mistake for many reasons. I put up with it until the contract ended in April, but I wasted no time in finding a better place well beforehand.
Several places fit my desires, and I was having a little trouble deciding between them. The apartment agent showed me into my current place, “Neo Clement,” and one of the first things he did was to open the bathroom door and unveil the Washlet that came as part of the deal.
My eyes bugged out of my head at the prospect of actually owning and using one of these delightful devices every day without having to share it or pony up the dough neceesary to purchase it.
Forget the fantastic view of the rivers and sacred mountains of Kochi, forget the airy breeze that passed freely through the place and the perfectly situated sun-soaking layout, I was gettin’ me a Washlet!
In addition to the Isla Vista folklore, consider that I was using something like this at school and avoiding using my toilet at home due to poor ventilation.
This was truly a sales point, and I chided the agent for leaving it out of the brochure as it would have made my choice so much easier. He cocked his head and raised a finger.
“Ah, but this is the only apartment in the building that comes with a Washlet.”
“SOLD. Where do I sign?”
I was giddy waiting for my first chance to use the throne, and I dutifully refrained from sitting on it until the last box was unpacked and everything was in its place.
I plugged it in and studied the buttons on the panel that jutted out from the right side of the pot. One resembled the stop button on a DVD player, another showed an upside-down heart being showered with water, and the third looked like the restroom woman sitting on a water fountain.
Upon first contact, it was pre-warmed bliss. Oh, yeah, it’s going to be an easy winter, I thought.
My seat doesn’t come with temperature control, but I am able to control the strength of the stream and the seat is pretty smart - it won’t spray unless there is a weight applied on it. Consider what I had to do to find that out.
Two weeks ago, I was cleaning up when I accidentally pressed the spray button a second time - lo and behold! The wand moved back and forth, covering three, no, four times the area it hit when stationary. Don’t you love discovering a new function of an old toy?
My family came to visit in May, and one of the many fun surprises was the Washlet in each of their hotel rooms. My brothers got the most exciting one of all, a Washlet that included a gigantic remote control.
Many of the newer models come with a wall mounted remote control, but this one was about twice the size of a universal remote and worked from outside the bathroom. Unfortunately, we tested out just how fun it could be before anyone actually had to use the facilities and had the joke pulled on them by surprise.
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I never thought that I would be a bidet guy, but one man is responsible for getting me started thinking in that direction. One night, in one of the all-time best examples of reasoning by analogy, he said:
If you got some on your arm, would you use a piece of paper to wipe it off and call that clean?
Well, no. Thanks to the Washlet, not any more.