Save the Whales!, er, I mean Water

WARNING: This post directly relates to bowel movements, or at least my personal experience with them. So if you fancy any romantic attraction to me, are easily grossed out, or just generally have a life policy not to talk about your poop (or mine for that matter) then stop reading now.

No really, I'm not kidding, this gets graphic.

Last chance...

Ok, here goes it:

In Australia (and this might be true in countries outside the US, however my experience is limited to comparing US and AU) water conservation is a really big deal. The tree hugging hippies of Austin pale in comparison to the thirst driven rain drop worshipping drought asylum seekers from down under. Understandably, we're talking about a continent that's 80% uninhabitable because water becomes a scarce resource more than 80 miles inland (that's probably a gross exaggeration, but I don't have time to research the real statistics).

Now, due to said arid wasteland, water conservation extends into a very real part of my everyday life (and yours too I would hope).

The Toilet.

Yes folks, it's time for potty talk. Enter any Aussie banos (and no, most people here don't know what the word banos means) and you will see signs reminding you to clean the toilet or leave it in the same cleanliness that you found it. I'm all for this - granted, I can't imagine why some adults need a reminder to flush, but A + to the guy creating those lovely reminders. There's a catch...

In the spirit of saving water, toilets have as little water in the toilet as possible. I hope you know where this is going...so low water, big porcelain bowl, poop doesn't have a water beacon calling it into a clean little pile in the center of the bowl. As you can imagine, on any given day, there are varieties of poops. And yes, some of those suckers stick like glue on impact. Hence, this lovely sign isn't a polite reminder to flush, it's to let all of us water wasting foreigners know that we are expected to brush the toilet clean after taking a dump.

Personally, it takes away the satisfaction of having dropped the kids off at the pool. With the fear of being hung out to dry (haha no pun intended), I try to flush a couple of times, hoping the tides of water spilling from the sides of the bowl take mercy on my distaste for household poop related chores and wash away the remnants of my dinner from the night before. But inevitably, I often surrender, and participate in this Australian public clean potty ritual. I find I've used a toilet brush more in the last 3 months that probably the last 5 years of my adult life.