The Throne

From the ongoing The Bathroom saga: I went toilet shopping.

I wasn't originally going to replace the toilet in The Bathroom, but after slavishly working to replace every inch of everything in there, it felt somehow sacrilege to put an old crapper back in.

I go to Lowe's, my new Mecca. (Can you get a frequent shopper's discount?) I start looking at toilets.

Holy crap.

Truth be told, even I, who notice crooked grout lines, did not know there were so many freaking toilets to choose from. Low ones, high ones, oval seats, round seats, one piece, two piece (the bikini model), tall tanks, stout tanks, toilets that look like Roman columns, toilets that look like Grecian Urns. There were cream ones, bisque ones, bright white ones, regular white ones, pink ones, ones with seats that looked like seashells, ones that looked like some sort of bizarre recliners. TOO MANY CHOICES.

So, I start to narrow down the selections. First, I look at price. There are $100 toilets. $300 toilets. $700 toilets. $700 for a toilet? Does it shpritz my tush when I'm done? For $700, it had better. Does it scrub itself? For $700, it should. For $700, it should pleasure my lady bits when I sit on it. $700 for a toilet, when at least half the world is still crapping in a hole. (Not one, collective hole, mind you. Gross.)

Next, I look at features. Appropriately, when it comes to ranking features, the basic comparison is a flush rating. One star flush? That's not going to cut the mustard around here. Three star flush? That's going to probably handle a kiddie pooh, but not the I-Just-Ate-A-Chili-Dog-And-Hope-I-Make-It-Home turd. Five star flush? Now we're talking! Per the box, the Champion Toilet can flush a bucket of golf balls. Who the hell tests that? Is that going to be the flush power I need? The toilets in our house in Columbia could handle Hot Wheels, but not cell phones. So, that's probably, what...four star flush? Also, is there any kid in the universe who uses the appropriate amount of toilet paper? I mean, either they are wiping massive diarrhea with ONE single ply square OR they use a half-roll wad to kill a silverfish in the tub. Will a five star flush handle that?

In the end, I did buy the Champion toilet. It's going to be installed Monday. It had better live up to its name, that's all I have to say.