Flushing My Way Through Europe (cont'd)

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Then there are the kind of toilets that make you really begin to believe in a higher power in the Universe, and it is obviously not an entirely benevolent one. I speak of the incredibly powerful, and somewhat sinister, ferry toilets.

All European ferries are equipped with NASA-developed Super Suction Toilets. After years of research, and with the help of a laser link through the Hubble Space Miracle, scientists have managed to form a conduit directly from ferry toilet stalls to a nearby black hole.

Once you are done doing whatever it was that brought you into the bathroom stall, you look around for a way to flush. If you have had the kind of experience I have with European toilets, this is a task performed with not just a bit of trepidation.

You notice a large, rubber half-sphere embedded in the wall and decide to press it in, fully expecting a normal flushing experience to ensue. It squishes, and you wait.

For a moment, nothing happens. You begin to get nervous and wonder if maybe you pushed the wrong thing.

Then, there is a faint...stirring of the air.

It is followed by a sound like the tide rushing in at eighteen thousand miles per hour. All of a sudden the tiny bit of water, and whatever you just added to it, simply disappears, instantaneously.

It has been beamed through the black hole, you see. A sort of Intergalactic Soil Pipe. At this very moment, your waste is materializing over the heads of some poor unsuspecting alien on a distant planet.

Actually, it is nothing that complicated. The toilet's contents are merely sucked, at supersonic speed, through the bottom of the bowl. They are immediately followed by your breath, your belt if you forgot to buckle, any loose change you may have, the toupee of the guy in the stall next to you, several small children in the area, everything not bolted down to the deck of the ship, and indeed, much of the Western hemisphere.

Ferry toilets are quite an experience that I highly recommend... to the stout of heart. One suggestion though: Before you flush, make sure to get a good hold on something stable. Like Brazil.

At any rate, British toilets are comfortably familiar. They have a luxuriously deep, nicely rounded bowl with the hole located at the back of it. The bowl contains plenty of water, a cozy amount just more than half filled. Best of all, there is a lever -type flush handle near the top of the front of the tank, which sits serenely and properly right in back of the bowl. It's the little things like this that make you feel at home in a foreign place.

Assuming you survive the ferry ride over.

Copyright 1993 © by Reid Bramblett. All rights reserved.