I'd be willing to bet that there thousands, maybe millions of people who would buy this toilet in a hot minute. That it's not a shrieking success can only be due to lousy marketing.
In fact, I can think of one person right now who would kill to own it.
In fact, I can think of one person right now who would kill to own it.
Back in Iowa, when my then-husband was a reporter and I was a penniless grad student, we were invited to a Christmas party at a local mogul's house. This being Iowa, the reigning moguls had created their vast fortunes from either agribusiness (aka a giant farm, underwritten by Cargill), or some money-maker that also fed the hungry hordes. Our mogul-host happened to own a bunch of supermarkets.
I don't remember much about that night. My husband and I were so out of place, we looked like a cockroaches on a wedding dress. That didn't bother me since it wasn't the kind of gathering I was whimpering to join. And after all, we were only there because my husband had written a story on the guy's supermarkets. However, I do recall that the carpet was so deep you could barely walk upright, and all the inside doors were smoothly automated. You opened and closed them with keypads embedded in the walls, which still seems strange to me. I also remember that the hostess's toy poodles wore Christmassy corsages on their heads and their toenails were lacquered a bright red. But most of all, I remember the toilet.
On my lone visit to the bathroom, I saw that it was immense and intensely pink, with pink fluffy things arrayed on cold pink fixtures, and little bowls of pink soap. But when I looked over at the john, I saw a big bucket next to it, which seemed peculiar and out of place. When I peered inside, I saw that it was a bucket full of single gardenia flowers. Then I glanced down at the toilet bowl, saw a gardenia blossom placidly floating there in ultra-bright blue water and everything became clear. After you used the toilet, you flushed the floating gardenia, and then replaced it with one from the bucket stash. I wish now I'd emerged from the bathroom wearing several gardenias, but the thought didn't occur to me then. What did occur to me was that I could not use that toilet. Not then, not ever. Instead, I came out of the john, found my husband and whispered cryptically, Just make sure you replace the gardenia.
Today, if I'd been rude enough to give it, I imagine my true reaction to her floral toilet would have infuriated the hostess.
In fact, I know it would have. It's the usual reaction from someone with a bad idea, a rejected bad idea. My art students behaved the same way. When faced with an imaginary portrait, say, stickily rendered in green acrylic, featuring huge staring eyeballs, snakes coming out of the head etc., I'd critique it honestly. I was generally met with rage and the hot rejoinder, So? It's just your opinion. I'd then explain that it wasn't my opinion but a reasoned, educated assessment. The student would hear me out, scowling and impatiently fidgeting, before delivering his parting shot, Who cares? It's all revelant anyhow. Revelant, I decided, was a student portmanteau word, cobbled together from relevant and relative. (I loved that word.)
I know my Iowa hostess would have snapped up the Aquarium Toilet without thinking twice. Of course, like most terrible ideas, it poses more questions than it answers: how can you enjoy the fish if you're sitting in the opposite direction? Besides, cleaning the john, now you gotta clean the aquarium too? What's all the steam going to do to those fish? But none of that would have given her a moment's pause.
She'd have thought the Aquarium Toilet was totally, totally revelant.
I don't remember much about that night. My husband and I were so out of place, we looked like a cockroaches on a wedding dress. That didn't bother me since it wasn't the kind of gathering I was whimpering to join. And after all, we were only there because my husband had written a story on the guy's supermarkets. However, I do recall that the carpet was so deep you could barely walk upright, and all the inside doors were smoothly automated. You opened and closed them with keypads embedded in the walls, which still seems strange to me. I also remember that the hostess's toy poodles wore Christmassy corsages on their heads and their toenails were lacquered a bright red. But most of all, I remember the toilet.
On my lone visit to the bathroom, I saw that it was immense and intensely pink, with pink fluffy things arrayed on cold pink fixtures, and little bowls of pink soap. But when I looked over at the john, I saw a big bucket next to it, which seemed peculiar and out of place. When I peered inside, I saw that it was a bucket full of single gardenia flowers. Then I glanced down at the toilet bowl, saw a gardenia blossom placidly floating there in ultra-bright blue water and everything became clear. After you used the toilet, you flushed the floating gardenia, and then replaced it with one from the bucket stash. I wish now I'd emerged from the bathroom wearing several gardenias, but the thought didn't occur to me then. What did occur to me was that I could not use that toilet. Not then, not ever. Instead, I came out of the john, found my husband and whispered cryptically, Just make sure you replace the gardenia.
Today, if I'd been rude enough to give it, I imagine my true reaction to her floral toilet would have infuriated the hostess.
In fact, I know it would have. It's the usual reaction from someone with a bad idea, a rejected bad idea. My art students behaved the same way. When faced with an imaginary portrait, say, stickily rendered in green acrylic, featuring huge staring eyeballs, snakes coming out of the head etc., I'd critique it honestly. I was generally met with rage and the hot rejoinder, So? It's just your opinion. I'd then explain that it wasn't my opinion but a reasoned, educated assessment. The student would hear me out, scowling and impatiently fidgeting, before delivering his parting shot, Who cares? It's all revelant anyhow. Revelant, I decided, was a student portmanteau word, cobbled together from relevant and relative. (I loved that word.)
I know my Iowa hostess would have snapped up the Aquarium Toilet without thinking twice. Of course, like most terrible ideas, it poses more questions than it answers: how can you enjoy the fish if you're sitting in the opposite direction? Besides, cleaning the john, now you gotta clean the aquarium too? What's all the steam going to do to those fish? But none of that would have given her a moment's pause.
She'd have thought the Aquarium Toilet was totally, totally revelant.
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