Friday, October 22, 2010

The Toilets of Appleton, Wisconsin

I have been in Appleton, Wisconsin for about 36 hours. On Wednesday night, not long after my arrival, my friend Alison took me to a sushi restaurant. Yes, it was delicious. And I drank sake. But that's not what I want to discuss here. What I want to discuss here is the apparent preference of Appletonians for odd Japanese/European toilets.
Let me explain. After eating sushi and drinking sake and about five glasses of water, I had to pee (it happens to the best of us). So I went into the bathroom at the sushi restaurant. The toilet had a heated seat which, in a public place, is a bit unnerving. Also, it had all these tubes and hoses affixed to the toilet, for various purposes (you can imagine), which made me afraid to sit on it, lest my nether regions were suddenly bathed in warm water. This did not happen.
Well, that was strange, but then last night we went to a fancy non-Japanese restaurant and they too had a crazy/fancy toilet, with a warmed seat and a control panel on the wall for how you wanted the water to spray out and whether you wanted it on your rear or forward parts.
Holy cow, Appleton! What's the deal? Even though I am not a fan of said toilet I can somewhat understand how there could be a Japanese toilet in a Japanese restaurant. I do not, however, understand the presence of a strange, perhaps European, toilet in a regular old fancy restaurant. The only plausible explanation is that Appletonians love their heated toilet seats and fancy bidet style cleansing mechanisms and somehow the restaurantuers of the Fox City region somehow discovered this information (how? diner comment cards?) and have implemented these toilets because, for some reason, the toilets affect how much the diners like their food.
Discuss.

3 comments:

Lisa B. said...

See, this is why it's so valuable to send and intelligent and curious person out into the wild(s of Wisconsin)--for useful intelligence reports such as this.

As for my opinion on the toilets of Appleton, WI: I suppose there is a call for innovation re toilets, and I applaud the toilet engineers who do it. R&D must be mind-blowing. However, when faced with an actual versus a theoretical toilet, my two priorities are (a) working, and (b) clean. The end. Nothing fancy, just working and clean. When you think about it, that's enough.

Nik said...

It's possible that I've lived in nonfancy land for too long but I can't even imagine this toilet. I'm not sure my fragile psyche could handle being confounded by a toilet. I really like to pee.
Still, I'm happy to hear Appleton is so fancy in its toilets and that the restaurants were also fancy and less, I presume, confounding.

Aligates said...

I'm fairly sure that if you'd used the toilet at Cleo's it would have been a plain, old-fashioned (no pun intended) regulation Kohler. Also, at my house, we only have the low-flow contractor models as well. But I'm glad our plumbing made such an impression. Never let it be said that Appleton ain't klassy.