I’ve moved three times in my adult life. Each time it was easily the biggest hassle I’ve ever been through. Nothing takes more planning, timing and people-coordination than moving all of your belongings from one spot to the next. Getting your crap into the new place is only half the battle, of course. Once everything is in there you still have the bigger mission of somehow maneuvering all of your crap around in a limited space, trying to find the perfect layout; a balancing act that would make Jesus wink in approval. Please, no feng shui crap either. Personally, it is the longest part of moving but also the most rewarding. When you’re completely finished, the time to get to know the “built-in” parts of your place comes next. And nothing excites and pleases me more than learning the intricacies and nuances of my toilet.
That first time when you slowly slip your sweat-drenched pants down your thighs to your ankles and your buttocks slaps loudly against the cool porcelain, you’re aware that this is a rare event and you pause, letting the first lucky poo nugget “turtle-out” a bit, savoring the moment. I don’t count the time when you first began to look for a place as the first-time house-shit either. You know: when you’re doing a tour of the house and the landlord graciously leaves you alone, allowing you to look around in private and you immediately head for the bathroom to relieve yourself. That doesn’t count and shame on you for thinking it did.
I love taking my time and learning the personality of my toilet. Every day I learn something new about it and look forward to the time when me and my ceramic buddy will share quality time together. I’ll usually leave him (yes, I consider my toilet male, it this alright?) a Scientific American magazine to flip through and he doesn’t seem to mind that it’s a two-month old issue either. We’re at that level of trust and understanding but this hasn’t happened overnight. This is months and months of half-hour or longer talks and compromises.
Just this past week, I learned a valuable lesson from him. He had, up until this point, not informed me of his toilet paper to water ratio and thus exposed me to this fact by overflowing his water out and down the sides of himself, soaking both my bathroom rugs. Fifteen minutes and four towels later, I had the bathroom back to a manageable state, all the while cursing at him for the first time in our unique relationship. It wasn’t pleasant. But we both learned a lot.