"As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven sacks. Each sack had seven cats. Man, sacks, cats, and
wives, how many were going to St. Ives?"
Now just imagine that you had to answer a riddle like this
every time you wanted to go to the bathroom. France prides itself by having
advanced engineers, yet their toilets are stuck in the 1930s. It’s odd, because
most other things they have here are as-or-more advanced than the U.S. (public
transportation, I’m looking at you…). But their plumbing systems are built as
if running water were still a novelty, even though they’ve had it for as long
as any other European country.
This is most evident in the different ways one can flush a toilet.
Doing so instantly becomes a test of your critical thinking skills. I’ve never
once seen a push lever attached to the tank attached to the bowl like a
standardized American toilet. Some tanks are attached to the bowl, others are
four feet above it, others are hidden in a wall somewhere. And the flushing
mechanism is never self-evident. Do I pull THIS chain, or press THAT button? Or
does this lever over here to something? Maybe if I pull on this plunger? Is that a foot pedal? Or is this a modern one that flushes by
pushing a giant panel into the wall? Or is there an even-rarer automated
flushing system that flushes while you take care of your business instead of
after?
You’ll never know the answer until you’ve tried a few options. It makes
going to the bathroom an adventure, no matter where you are. (Especially when
the urinals are out in the open common area between the men and women’s restrooms.)
Now if only the “showers” were more than a glorified sponge bath…
Also, the answer to the first riddle isn’t 400. It’s 1. The
man telling the riddle was the only one going to St. Ives. I'm sorry if this made you do math.
No comments:
Post a Comment