J.F. Brondel invented the flush toilet in 1738. We didn’t get them in my little hometown until sometime around the early 1930s. They didn’t get them on the farms and in the country until the 1950s. Some people still don’t have them. Many people still don’t know how to use them. Even in nice places, people leave a large bowl of their excrement to be flushed by the next user of the toilet. I might expect that at a service station or a ball game where the use of the facility in these places is by lower than average intelligence folks. I have been to nice restaurants and even bookstores where people didn’t flush. It’s sad. Rednecks, terrorist and intellectuals don’t flush, but there are a lot more who just don’t care about others.

Flushing etiquette should be taught in school as early as kindergarten and repeated each year until graduation. It should be taught along with other things such as washing your hands after going to the toilet or before you eat. Flushing etiquette includes flushing just after the first dump hits the bowl to take the excrement and flatulence on down by the suction action from the magical pot. This helps eliminate odor and make it a little less nauseating for the next user. When you are completely through, a courtesy flush is helpful for complete cleansing and as an act of kindness and mercy for the next person in search of relief.
Most toilets used to have a little lever on the side of the bowl or an obvious metal rod which projects from the back of the apparatus that simply needs to be pushed to start the flushing. Many people don’t want to touch these things, thinking they are too filthy. Many times I do the pushing with my foot and it serves the purpose. I have found that a large number of folks are either too stupid or just don’t care and they don’t push the lever.
Another problem is the automatic flushing toilet. Over half of toilets in nice places have this feature. A magical light lets the toilet know when you are through and the flushing is done for you. Sometimes the sensor doesn’t do its sensing and there is no flush. At other times, it has a mind of it’s own and will flush while you are sitting on the pot. When this happens you get a cleansing spray while you try to keep from being sucked down with the other contents in the pot. At times, I have done all sorts of maneuvers in front of the toilet to get the thing to work. I will stand up and sit down several times or move away and even jump on the floor. With this dance someone might think it was some sort of signal to a US Senator for sex. Fortunately, there is usually a little inconspicuous button on top of the mechanism to activate the flush.

Anyway, I wish we had a law that required everyone to flush. It would sure make the world a nicer place. For now, I try to avoid going to a restroom in a restaurant before I eat, so as not to spoil my meal. Maybe I should go before eating and have my appetite spoiled; this would be a good way to lose weight. I am well trained in the art of flushing. My home training has paid off. If I failed to flush at home my partner would make sure I would never flush again; dead people don’t flush.