BATHROOM NEWS
Here are a few fascinating bits of bathroom trivia that we’ve flushed out from around the world.
BRUSH WITH THE LAW
In December 2013, violent clashes broke out on the streets of Hamburg between German police and protestors. Among the protestors’ beefs: a stop-and-search law that allows cops to confiscate anything they want. The protests took a silly turn after a 23-second video surfaced on YouTube that showed a hooded man being detained by riot police: They pinned him up against a wall, lifted his shirt, and confiscated a toilet brush. (Then they arrested him.) It’s unclear why the man was carrying a toilet brush, but his arrest really inspired the protestors. The next night, dozens of angry Hamburgers (people who live in Hamburg) hit the streets with their own toilet brushes. Some in the press were calling it the “Toilet Brush Revolution” (a phrase that sadly never caught on). According to the World Bulletin, in addition to “flashing their toilet brushes at police officers,” some of the Hamburgers “adopted a new way to protest these stop-and-search measures by carrying ridiculous items in their bags such as cucumbers and dirty underwear.”
MESSAGE FROM THE PAST
In July 2018, Alex and Jess Monney were remodeling their bathroom in San Jose, California, when they discovered a note hidden behind a wall that read: “We remodeled this bathroom summer 1995. If you’re reading this, that means you’re remodeling the bathroom again. What’s wrong with the way we did it?!?!?”
Accompanying the note was a photograph of the previous owners. Beneath that was a photo of the owners’ pet rabbit. Amused, the Monneys tweeted a photo of the note (and the rabbit), and the tweet went viral, amassing tens of thousands of shares (even one from comedian Sarah Silverman). The Monneys were interviewed by NBC (it must have been a slow news day) and Alex had a message for the former owners: “Thank you for the note. It gave us a lot of smiles. Your bathroom was great. Sorry for messing with it.”
A TIP FROM UNCLE JOHN
Here are two simple, natural ways to mask or eliminate unwanted throne room odors: put a bowl of white vinegar and baking soda on the tank or a container of activated carbon on the bowl, just behind the toilet seat.
BATH & BREAKFAST
Proving that the “tiny home” craze is getting a bit out of hand, a 200-square-foot apartment for rent in St. Louis, Missouri, made the news in 2018 for its odd floor layout: The bathroom and kitchen comprise the same tiny room. The stove is next to the kitchen sink, which is next to the toilet, which is next to the bathtub, which is right across from the stove. The good news: if you have long arms, you can flip your burgers while you’re taking a shower. The bad news: you’ll need to space out your cooking and going times. The ad for the tiny apartment, which passed all city inspections and rents for a low $525 per month, drew dozens of queries. And according to the landlord, the new tenant is very happy.
Guinness World Record holder for most scrapbooks: Hugh Hefner (2,396).
“It’s one of those things where you think, ‘it can’t actually happen,’ ” said Animal Control supervisor Rebecca Franklin, “but now it has.” What happened? In July 2018, a ball python poked its head out of James Hopper’s toilet in Virginia Beach, Virginia. At first, Hopper wasn’t even sure the snake was real. “When I saw the tongue,” he told WTKR-TV, “I was like, ‘Wow.’ ” Although pythons aren’t venomous (they kill their prey by squeezing all the air out of it), Hopper was lucky that he didn’t find out about the toilet snake the hard way. Hopper and his roommate carefully used a fishing pole and some string to lasso the 2.5-foot snake and pull it out of there. Then they called Animal Control to help track down the python’s owners, who hadn’t seen their pet for two weeks.
THE UNFLUSHABLES
They called it the “fatberg.” It was 23 feet long and weighed a ton. It looked like a giant, black monster from the underworld. What was it made of? Thousands of used wet wipes, held together by fat and sewage. Workers used a crane to extract half of the fatberg from a clogged sewer line; the other half had to be removed by hand. This particular fatberg came from the bowels of a neighborhood in New South Wales, Australia, in 2016. But there are more of them growing out there, perhaps even one below you. NSW utility spokesperson Nick Kaiser blames these blockages on a recent fad of adults who habitually use wet wipes: “They’re being advertised as basically an extra way to freshen yourself up after the bathroom.” But despite what it says on the label, wet wipes are not “flushable.” Kaiser offers a friendly reminder: “The safest way to think about what you can put down your toilet is the three Ps: pee, paper, and poo.”
A FART JOKE
Q: Why is it against the rules to fart at Apple headquarters?
A: Because they don’t have Windows.
Ew! The day after Thanksgiving is so busy for plumbers that they call it “Brown Friday.”