Saturday, May 7, 2011

WELL I'LL BE...!


Toilets are always evolving, with inventors looking to refine the form and the function. In our travels in Europe and Turkey, it was always a challenge to figure out how to flush the toilet we were using. We had no idea there were so many different ways to do it, and many of them not at all obvious.

Even here in the States, not all is easy when it comes to toiletry. In the main floor women’s restroom of the Embassy Suites Hotel in Anaheim, California there is a state of the art toilet that refuses to let you flush it. I shall try to be couth in describing what goes on.

The problem starts when you try to prepare it for use by placing a paper toilet seat cover on it, which we women always do. The paper goes on the seat easily, but before you can get your jeans unbuttoned or skirt lifted, the toilet flushes the paper down. It’s a little startling the first time, and when it happens a second time, you snicker a bit. A third try makes you laugh out loud and try to figure out how to beat the flush. After five tries you are –(excuse me here) laughing so hard you’re close to wetting your pants and STILL haven’t figured out the secret. Your choices are to use the toilet without the paper seat cover, or get yourself and your clothes ready for the big event and at that point, standing half naked, grab another seat cover, hold it to your rear end and then plop down on the toilet immediately. Deciding to use that option causes you to laugh the whole time you are tinkling.

But in today’s newspaper I discovered that Kohler had designed a new, streamlined toilet that will solve any problem one might be confronted with in taking a trip to the bathroom. The new toilet is called their “Numi.” It is not for hotels, but rather, I think, for the person who has everything already and needs something fresh and exciting in their life.


First of all, the Numi is the least commode-like piece of equipment you’ll ever see. It is called “Stylish”; it is rectangular and has corners rather than curves. Secondly, the back side of it is has ambient lighting! It senses when you come into the bathroom, and voila’ the lid magically opens up and the toilet seat slowly glides down into place – and presumably allows you enough time to sit on the seat before it goes back to it’s original conformation. The toilet base sits slightly off the floor which enables warm air to come out of the bottom and warm your feet. It has a nice bidet function which allows you to receive the cleansing waters in a pulsating form, a spray form or - well, who know what else.

Built-in speakers allow you to play a selection from the Numi toilet’s pre-programmed audio, FM radio or to connect your MP3 player through the audio input jack in the remote docking station.


Now I have to be honest with you; I will never own such a toilet and I doubt very much if a hotel like Embassy Suites would swap their old laughing (or laughable) commode for one of these, so it will be left to others to enjoy such an amazing toilet. However, I sure got tickled when I read this article and then went to Koehler’s website to see it in its virtual life! I think you all would enjoy seeing how the other half live (in their bathrooms), so do yourself a favor and use this URL to take a gander: http://kohler.com/numi/#

I can’t say as it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, what with its corners and all, but I do say that I’ve enjoyed every minute reading about it.

2 comments:

marciamayo said...

I loved your story about the self-flushing toilet.

Olga said...

I was fascinated with that toilet, too. Even posted about it a while back, but I did not have a picture. I don't really see one of those in my future.