The Last Bath
Sunday, April 18th, 2010
Our clawfoot tub, now in the kitchen.
Our extended family may not agree on religion, politics, or sports teams, but they can agree on one thing: “You need a new toilet.”
Every family member who visits says this to us and we always have the same response: “We know.”
It’s funny. I don’t remember noticing the toilet before we bought the house, but as soon as we moved in it became the primary topic of conversation.
“Why do you think it’s like that?” I asked, staring down at the brown, blue and green stained porcelain bowl.
“Minerals,” Doug said.
Our house was built in 1918. The toilet looked like it was built in 1818.
Still, it worked. Okay, so you needed a plunger for anything besides number 1, but as long as you were careful, it worked. We nicknamed it the Geyser because of our close proximity to Yellowstone and its strange colors and ability to shoot water.
I tried various cleaners on the stains until I could no longer stand the thought of flushing another toxic chemical down the toilet. We had other remodeling priorities, we thought, and as long as we warned visitors it was no big deal. Turns out, when you live with something long enough, you forget to warn people until it’s nearly too late.
“Um.” Tap, tap, tap on the bathroom door. “Sorry to disturb you, but we really need you to know that the toilet was like that when we moved in here and if there is any doubt in your mind about whether it will flush please use the plunger.”
We forgot to warn my mother-in-law before she visited, and she was waiting for Doug on the porch when he arrived home.
“What happened in there?” she demanded.
“In where?” Doug asked, genuinely confused.
“The bathroom.”
“Oh.”
When my father-in-law came to visit he immediately offered to buy us a new toilet. “C’mon,” he said. “We’re going to the hardware store and we’re getting you a new toilet. Shouldn’t cost more than $75.”
This was a kind offer, but we gently explained that actually a new toilet in an old house would mean ripping out the existing floor, and once you go there, an entire remodel including plumbing. We didn’t want to ruin his vacation entirely.
Because, you see, this is our only bathroom. That’s right, and we are currently in week two of the remodel, which did include removing the clawfoot tub, ripping out the cheap flooring put in by the previous owners, and taking out the toilet. Not an inexpensive undertaking, but a necessary one.
Our toilet is not gone, however. It’s currently a big part of our lives in the garage, where we are employing space age technology to take care of our waste until a new one can be properly installed.
The Geyser, now in the garage
I’m not kidding. A local company called Cleanwaste sells “Go Anywhere Toilet Kits” which includes a bag that fits over a toilet seat with a powder in the bottom called Poo Powder. They also sell Wag Bags for camping and emergency situations. According to their website, “Poo Powder is a proprietary blend of a NASA-developed super-absorbent designed to gel and encapsulate liquid and solid waste, and a natural deodorizing agent and decay catalyst.” Which means, that you can poo in the bag, it biodegrades, and you can dump the sealed bag into your garbage without having to worry about it exploding or smelling. I know, eww. But a bigger eww would be not having something like that around in this situation.
Where are we bathing? At the gym. Doug claimed that he could go without a shower for a month, which I told him not to brag about, and he broke down after Day 3. Remember, Doug was a river guide for many years and bathed in a river the whole summer, but even he admits that this is different since he is doing the entire remodel himself and is covered in construction materials by the end of the day.
I try to remind him. “When it’s finished the bathroom will be gorgeous, just like our kitchen remodel, and we won’t have to knock on the door when people come over for dinner. Won’t that be nice?“
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