So...I don't know about you all, but I have recurring dreams that disturb me. These chronic dreams never repeat themselves identically, but the "themes" of the dreams are always the same. There are basically three such dreams in my life. The first is a school-related nightmare that I will share some other time. The second involves some dental problems...I probably won't ever blog about that dream genre. The third one, the one I will describe to you today, is toilet-related.
This is not a joke. This is a very real occurrence. Not just something to blog about since I haven't blogged lately.
So, in my dreams/nightmares about toilets, I always seem to encounter (in the most urgent of circumstances) a very poorly-designed toilet. Usually, it is a toilet (or a series of toilets) that I absolutely can not bring myself to use. Oftentimes, these toilets are found in huge mansions owned by very rich people. And...they can't seem to install a plumbing system that works for me.
Anyway...let's talk about the root of this problem.
Some of you may know that I went on a mission trip to Kenya in 1999. These are the types of toilets I encountered there:
The seat-less toilet:
This is the type of toilet I most commonly used while on my trip. There were 4 of them for us girls at the "resort" we were at for the majority of the time. These were ok...obviously, you can't actually sit (or shouldn't) when you "go"...and also, the plumbing couldn't handle any toilet paper in the system, so there were trash cans in each stall for toilet paper disposal. Inevitably, people DID try to flush toilet paper, and the darn things would get clogged...no plumbers to come fix it. Yucky. Oh, and the toilet paper in Kenya:
This is only one of the many shades available. It was fun toilet paper! :)
The throne-less toilet:
I was presented with the opportunity to use a toilet like this on a couple occasions while we were traveling about the country. Basically, a nice, porcelain, flushing hole in the ground. No toilet paper here either. You boys/men might thing this looks like a piece of cake...but it's a little harder for us girls.
The seemingly normal toilet:
This one seems, to the passerby, to be much more normal...and safe. It resembles a toilet at a travel agency we stayed the night at. There were about 13 girls in one bedroom. We shared one bathroom, one toilet. It is also a flushing toilet...and, we were told, we could even flush toilet paper! Woo hoo! Well...I'd say only the first 3 girls actually were able to flush their toilet paper. Then for the rest of our stay...no more flushing...period. This toilet experience is much more traumatizing than either of the above ones. The only toilet option: Clogged toilet. Eww...
The bidet:
This looks mighty fancy, yes...but I really think this may be the main source of my toilet nightmares. On my trip to (and from) Kenya, we had layovers in Milan, Italy. This is the kind of toilet they had there: a bidet. What in the world am I suppose to do with this??? It just freaks me out. I think this is why I dream about crazy rich-people toilets that I can't handle.
So...do you think I need therapy? Do they "make" therapy for people like me??? Help! I need more restful sleep!!
I took this a few months ago. There was a football game going on against Air Force, and they had some cool planes/jets/bombers (I truly don't know the difference...but they were cool, loud planes that the boys got excited about). This is the view out of our back door.
