“How’s that damn three seashell thing work?” ~ Sylvester Stallone as John Spartan in Demolition Man

I am always thinking about how to do things smarter and easier.  When things irritate me, I think, “how can I avoid this irritation?”  That’s why, for instance, I created a whole series of ranting articles on my Pet Peeves.

But one I failed to document in my rant on bathrooms is the whole process of using toilet paper.  Why aren’t they entirely replaced by bidets?  I dunno, maybe there’s an issue with getting dry that takes longer, but why reach in there if you don’t have to?  Why waste paper when you can waste water, and be all the cleaner?

Demolition Man is one of my favorite movies, for a lot of reasons, even though Larry is incredulous every time I mention it (he can’t imagine that any Sylvester Stallone movie might be in someone’s top 10, so I won’t mention my love for Rocky III).  Anyway, in Demo Man, Stallone’s character is re-awakened from cryogenic sleep in the future, and toilet paper is replaced by “the three sea shells.” He doesn’t know how to use them, and is mocked by a fellow police officer.  The movie never tells you how the shells work, so it’s left up to your imagination.  If it’s a bidet, it’s probably temperature, water on/off, and dry on/off.

Another observation about toilet paper – my company must buy the Costco brand – the paper I purposely do NOT use at home because it is impossible to get a new roll started – the combination of the cheap paper and the adhesive they use forces me to mangle the damned thing trying to get it started.  So we buy the more expensive branded kind.

I betcha there are all kind of toilet paper and toilet innovations that are yet to be created, or have been created and haven’t reached the mainstream populace yet.  I mean, the implementation of waterless urinals at my local movie theater, purported to save 44,000 gallons of water EACH a year, was cool.

If you have the money, you can always buy the TOTO Neorest 600, a high tech toilet with a 6-button remote control (I guess you need more than three sea shells) which can be yours for a mere $3600.  It does just what I propose – has a built in bidet and dryer, so no tp needed.  Now, if they could get the price down under $500, it might take off.