http://www.spies.com/~scott/misc/toilet.htm

German Toilets (June 3, 1997)

Somehow or other Annette and I got to talking about German toilets last night, so I thought it was time that I wrote a short essay on the subject.

German toilets are quite extraordinary. Other European toilets - or at least the ones that aren't merely holes in the floor - work much like the North American variety. They are shaped a little differently, but the basic principle is the same: the excrement either lands directly in the water or it slides down a steep slope into the water, before being flushed away. Simple, effective and clean. See?

"Normal" toilet

Not so the German toilet. The excrement lands on a bone-dry horizontal shelf, mere inches beneath one's posterior. Repeated flushings are required to slide the ordure off the shelf into a small water-filled hole, from which it hopefully disappears. See?

German toilet

I do not understand the purpose of this toilet. It does not save water - you must flush it eight or ten times to remove every last scrape and smear. It is not hygienic - the smell is ungodly. The only conceivable explanation is that Germans love to examine their stool, so the German toilet of necessity features a built-in stool inspection shelf. I wouldn't be surprised if the more expensive models include a digital scale. "Mein Gott, zwei kilogram!" exclaims Günter, joyful and relieved.

Germans see nothing amiss. They actually like their toilets. Some even dislike North American toilets. You splash yourself, they claim. I don't think this is possible. I've never splashed myself sitting on the toilet. For the wave to reach one's bottom, one would need to eject a hefty pellet at tremendous velocity. I think they're making that up.

We've had innumerable bad experiences with German toilets. In Berlin, we lived on an upper floor and the water pressure was too weak to push a healthy-sized log off the shelf. After a few minutes' fruitless flushing you'd be forced to grab a wad of toilet paper and give the horrid thing an encouraging nudge. Then followed a lengthy bout of brushing and cleaning to remove the skid marks from the porcelain. At the other extreme, in Munich we lived in a basement suite where the water pressure was too high. Worse, the shelf was actually slightly concave, forming a shallow bowl. The first time I flushed the toilet the water came rushing through so forcefully that a small chunk of poo launched off the lip and shot out over the floor. After that we always held the lid down when we flushed. I swore you could feel a kick as the turd ricoched off the underside.

Occasionally I try to convince Annette to write an article on the history of the German toilet. Instant tenure if she could explain the purpose of that shelf.