Day Twenty Nine: Takaoka

A lot of the day was spent with me sleeping.

Marcelo went to work and left me all alone at his house, something that people dont usually do that know me too well. For all he knew, he could have come home and i might have turned everything upside down and created my own backwards world within his home. sometimes when youre sick, things like that have a way of just happening

but i didnt do that

i didnt really do much of anything until he came home from work, aside from sleeping and occasionally eating. i was like being back at byu all over again.

when he came back at about 6 that evening, he was kind enough to drive me around the town for a little bit. i get kinda crazy these days if i stay in one place for too long, so the opportunity to get out and do something was a real gem.

that evening, i saw something that i rarely see, but apparently its catching on in the country, and i dont know why.

you may or may not be familiar with the japanese bidet style toilets.

these are magical toilets that, prior to doing your business on the toilet, send a straight stream of warm water towards your nether-regions, giving a first-timer the most awkward feeling of their life.

now that i have become used to it, its no big deal, but let me give you a quick run down of one of our more basic models.

here is our toilet. its pretty normal, looks mostly like a toilet, not at all like a robot, except it does have an arm and a big pad behind it like you might see on the wall in gym class.

but when you sit on it, you notice something...the seat...its already warm. this cant be right, nobody has sat on this seat for the last three hours!? but its true, first of all, there is an automatic warming feature that keeps the seat at a warm temperature at any hour of the day.

so after you sit down, you notice some buttons on the panel to your right. what do they mean?


well anyone may know that the one on the far left means stop because of the little square and the word "stop" written in not just one but two languages, so it will stop the stream of water in its tracks. the next one over...hmmmm.

it looks like a curvy W with a dotten Y underneath, but that is only to the untrained eye. this image is actually a bottom with a stream of water being sprayed towards its cheeks. press this button with caution.

next button over, now this one is a doozy. it is a picture of a female with a stream of water sprayed towards her bottom, but no, this stream of water is aimed just a little bit further forward. what happens from there is left for you to piece together, but google "bidet" if you must, just dont include an image search.

this may be decent for females to use, but i would strongly not recommend it for males

all of these spray options have the thing underneath to change the amount of pressure exerted.

now the final button, which is the one i dont understand that seems to be catching on, even though it is popular already. it is the button you push that makes the sound of a toilet flushing, complete with a toggle underneath to decrease or increase the volume of the toilet flushing sound. if anyone knows the purpose behind the toilet flishing sound button, please tell me so one of the greatest mysteries and conflicts of my life can see some closure.

the toilet is armed with a sensor so it knows when someone is actually sitting on it, so when you sit down, all of the sudden all these gadgets and gizmos start going and you feel like youre using the toilet of the millenium falcon. unless the sensor is being triggered by someone sitting on the toilet, it wont squirt a single drop. its just smart like that.

now i may not be the most clever person in the whole world, but with my mischievious mind, i realized if you just cover the sensor with your hand...and touch the squirt button...water still comes out...

just please dont do this, expecially in the handicapped bathroom, or the old woman going in the bathroom after you will think you urinated all over the wall in front of the toilet and she will press the bathroom alarm button and have you arrested.


luckily nobody has this problem because of this sign above the toilet explaning how girls and boys have different parts, and therefore should conduct themselves differently when using the toilet.