What Would Mr. Thomas Crapper Think of Automatic Toilets?

I find it very coincidental that the anniversary of the passing of Thomas Crapper, which is January 27^th, happens to coincide with my recent personal boycott of public bathrooms. I propose that if Mr. Crapper were alive today he would be flushed with anger over the corruption of his simple but revolutionary invention, the toilet, in the name of technology.

I try to think back to when the toilet situation in this country started going down the, well, drain. And why, as Americans, we didn't take notice. And now, here we are getting pre-flushed, post-flushed, and "during"-flushed en masse and we can't do a darn thing about it. The genie's out of the bottle. Pandora's Box has been opened. And we stood by (actually "sat") and let it happen. We are such a trusting and forgiving and overly-flushed people.

And we used to think cell phones were annoying.

Because of the sensitive nature the subject of flushing assault while using today's modern comfort stations, I don't foresee an entire nation rising up, so to speak, to protest this nation-wide monkey-wrenching of Mr. Crapper's once stock-still invention. Needless to say it would take a movement of monumental proportions to demand the removal of every electronic eye aimed at every posterior in the nation. For this to happen, people would have to start discussing the intricate details of their bathroom visits with each other such as in this hypothetical conversation:

Woman A: Excuse me, but I couldn't help but overhear that your toilet flushed six times while you were in there. Was that intentional or do you believe, as I do, that these automatic flushing toilets should be outlawed?

Woman B: Sorry, I don't have time for a survey because I just had to dry off my blankety-blank (censored) six times and now I'm late for work. Bye.

See? It would just never gain steam.

Luckily, though, for every new technology a neutralizing technology is not too far behind. (No pun intended.) A wonderful new device, called the Flush Stopper, has come to the rescue of the overly-misted squatter. The product's website promises that Flush Stopper will allow the user to "gain back control over out of control flushing" and let them "go in peace."

Now that's what I call a great invention - something that makes something work the same as it did before some misguided chip-head got his monkey wrenches into it.

I truly feel that we can all play a part in honoring Mr. Crapper this month by doing something I think would make him very happy -- find the guy who invented the automatic flusher and give him a swirly he'll never forget.