The Bidet Is Here To Stay
We recently installed a bidet in our bathroom. Now, I have to admit, even as a person who is content to live with just about anything no matter what condition it's in, I thought there were other appliance upgrades and changes we would have made to the house before a bidet made an appearance. You know, converting the electric stove to gas, replacing the 15-year-old microwave with the broken handle so I don't have to keep adding superglue every six months, or maybe even ductless AC.
But as the contented one, when Jenn suggests we replace something or get a new "something," I typically shrug, yank the handle of the microwave, and look for the superglue. Jenn carries the heavy burden of acquiring upgrades in our home. I'm more like Schneider or Bookman, here to fix and install.
So after speaking to some friends and hearing about the life-changing effects of life beyond toilet paper, Jenn wanted to give it a go. And it turns out, with modern advances in the toilet seat industry, even those with broken microwaves can enjoy a little sophisticated sphincter splash reminiscent of some of life's finer luxuries like champagne and caviar, warm towels and chocolate chip cookies in first-class, VIP parking, and being guests of the Underhills. It's relatively small change and requires no upgrades to your existing plumbing.
I've had some interesting relationships with a few toilet seats over the years. In high school, our downstairs bathroom had seat that was not only made of wood, but it even had a wood grain appearance. It was smooth, totally sanded, and finished, so there wasn't a worry of catching a splinter. But I remember it vividly because I spent a good portion of one evening, late at night, glued to it, clutching it for dear life as I spent what seemed like an eternity heaving up some excess Busch Light after apparently reaching my limit at a party. We all learn our limits the hard way.
Then there was "the guillotine" in the bathroom of a friend's house, which goes down as the most frustrating toilet seat I've ever dealt with. I don't know if it was installed at an odd angle or if the toilet tank cover on this particular model stuck out just a tad farther than normal, but it was near impossible to get the seat to stay up. Once I finally succeeded in getting it to stay and started peeing, without fail, the seat would come crashing down causing me to pee all over it, and most everything else in the general area, as I struggled to keep straight aim while desperately reaching to catch the fall of "the guillotine." To this day, I'm unaware if the guillotine ever successfully caused serious harm to any poor unsuspecting male, but it was always enough to cause a scare. I know this was never a problem for the women, but in a house with three men and one woman, I'm surprised the guillotine was never properly addressed and replaced. Maybe the men surrendered to sitting down to pee.
Another memorable seat at my childhood home, which only made an appearance around the holidays, was a Santa-themed seat cover. The top, visible when the seat was down, was a knit picture of Santa Claus. When you lifted the seat, the underside had the same image of Santa Claus, only now he was covering his eyes with his hands. I'm assuming he also covers his eyes for anyone getting violently ill from Busch Light.
The final toilet seat of note is one I had a love/hate relationship with and it actually covers an entire category; those soft padded seats. I always secretly wanted one but realized I never actually liked them. And because of this inner conflict, those always bothered me, and I associate them with houses where the owners kept plastic covers on the living room furniture. Plastic covers and cushy toilet seats seemed to coexist.
But these days, toilet seats include bidets. Outside of this all-in-one seat/bidet we just got, I've never actually seen a real bidet. One of my junior high school friends had one in his house, but it was in the master bathroom, so I never actually saw it. After hearing about the bidet, asking what it was, what it was for, and getting the details, I was completely perplexed on how this contraption was set up, at what angle a person would try to mount the device I had pictured in my head, which was probably way off base to an actual bidet, and what benefits it provided. It was like hearing how babies were made for the first time. What? People don't do that! There's no way that's enjoyable.
My long-time friend Kris claimed he and some buddies were able to convince a gullible classmate that a bidet was a modern water fountain. They got him to drink out of it, and from then on they referred to him as, "Wrong Way Bidet." I probably would have fallen for the same thing.
And here I am — 30 plus years after failing to accurately picture a logical bidet design in my mind, kids tricking other kids into drinking from one, and still trying to heal from the deep mental scars of "the guillotine" that keep me on constant high alert when peeing in an unfamiliar toilet — installing a toilet seat with a built-in bidet in my home.
Our friends who sold us on the idea (or at least sold Jenn on the idea) have what is called "The Tushy." I believe this is a stand-alone device that is placed under your existing toilet seat, hooked up to your existing toilet plumbing, and once you reattach the seat, you're free to spray away.
Jenn went to check out the options at Home Depot. The seat on the toilet in our upstairs bathroom recently broke, so we were doing some toilet repair anyway. Plus, I was out of superglue. So, why not upgrade with a bidet?
We didn't even need to buy separate components. She came home with a seat by Brondell that includes a built-in bidet.
Unfortunately, she picked out the wrong sized seat for our upstairs bathroom, which required a circular toilet seat. The seat/bidet combo she bought was one of those oval/egg-shaped seats. However, that was the correct fit for our downstairs bathroom, so we decided to install it there. Now all of our guests will have access to this new bidet.
When visitors use our bathroom, I used to wonder, do they notice the dust in the corners? Are they looking through the medicine cabinet? Now, I will ask myself all of those things, along with, did they try the bidet?
Perhaps we should hang a sign in the bathroom that says something like,
"It's okay to use the bidet, and give your crack a spray..."
The installation process was quite simple. Once you attach the seat with the built-in bidet, you add a diverter to the water intake and a new water supply connects to the seat. Operation is just as easy. There's a sliver knob on the righthand side, and according to the directions, turning the knob backward provides a cleansing spray to the rear. And for her, there's a refreshing sprinkle option if you turn the knob forward.
Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not a huge fan of the unknown, and I definitely don't categorize myself as a "thrill-seeker." So before I tried this thing, I wanted to get a look at how it worked prior to sitting down. Like dipping a toe in the water, or reaching a hand in the shower before fully stepping in.
Standing to the right of the toilet, I slowly started to turn the knob backward to check out the butt-flush action. I could feel water pressure easing into the control as I turned the knob — it was a little exciting, like the feeling you get when a fish tugs on your line — and out of a small opening near the rear of the seat, a gentle spray of water started to appear. I'd compare it to opening a bottle of tonic water that had just been shaken up. Ok, I thought, that doesn't look too painful. Not that I thought a bidet would be painful. It's not like it's getting a wedgie. But I'm 48, I'm cautious, and I've never seen a bidet in real life.
My mind starts to ease.
Then I decided to check out the frontal action made exclusively for "her", or for anyone that mistakenly turns the knob forward. I believe this would be the correct use of the word douche. I'm 48, I'm immature, and up until this point in my life, the word douche has only been used to describe a person I don't like.
I begin to slowly turn the knob forward. There's a little more in terms of mechanics required to cleanse the right area here, so as I turn the knob, out from under the seat a long, slender rod appears and sort of extends itself at a 90 degree angle from the back of the seat. Not up, just out straight towards the front of the seat where, you know, the female stuff is. The rod is about as long and similar thickness as an unsharpened #2 pencil, including the eraser, and the action on this reminded me of how R2D2 would stick out this tool from a hidden compartment within his robot body to deactivate the tractor beam in the Death Star or something.
So with the douche pencil in the ready position, I felt the similar pressure of water in the control — another rise of excitement — when out of nowhere, a stream of water with the force of a Hasbro super-soaker shot out of the pencil, clearing the front of the toilet and hitting the opposite wall, still on an upward trajectory.
Analyzing the launch angle of the douche stream, where it made impact with the wall, and estimating the speed of travel, I'm guessing that if that wall had not been there, the stream of water would have cleared the entire room next door and made contact with our record collection on the opposite wall of the adjacent room, meaning, based on how the records are currently alphabetized, Tom Petty's "Full Moon Fever" would have been in the line of fire.
It's a good thing I wasn't standing directly over the toilet, I could've lost an eye. Or worse yet, a testicle if I'd been seated!
We may need to add a disclaimer to our sign authorizing permission to use the bidet, "Gentlemen, we are not responsible for bruised or damaged testicles if you turn the knob forward by accident or due to your own curiosity."
Now that I had a general idea, or at least a vision of what was going on, unlike the dentist where I feel like I'm always just staring up into the lights and have no idea what the tools they're jabbing my teeth and gums with actually look like, I felt like I could give it a test drive. In reverse only, of course. I didn't even really have to go, but anytime we buy something new, everyone's a little excited and wants to try it out, like the iPad, the Sonos speakers, our new car, and of course, the bidet.
I drilled it into my head "turn it backward, towards the rear, rear is for the rear..." and I began to slowly turn the knob until I started to feel the cool gentle spray of water on my cheeks.
And I immediately stopped. I didn't get it. Who would want this? You know when you poop and it makes a big splash and gets your butt cheeks wet? That's what it felt like. And I have no shame admitting that's happened to me because I know it's happened to everyone. In fact, it's so common that when you poop and it splashes your cheeks, it's been dubbed "Neptune's Kiss" or "Poseiden's Kiss" by people who have named other particular types of defecation, including "The Ghost Poop" aka "The Houdini," "The Titanic" aka "The Breached Whale," " The Clean Poop" aka "The Ghost Wipe," "Second Wave Poop," and so on.
And apparently, a bidet is supposed to cut down on toilet paper use. But you still have to initially wipe, and then you rinse, and of course, you have to wipe again to dry it, because who would want to pull their pants up with a wet bottom and walk around for the next 20 minutes feeling like they have a sweaty ass? Do people really yearn for an at-home experience of swamp ass like they've been walking around Disney World in Orlando on a 90-degree day, waiting to get on Pirates of the Caribbean, which also may have a wet seat?
And if your butt is wet after a bidet spray, is toilet paper what we really should be reaching for? No toilet paper, not two-ply, not three-ply, not even ten-ply holds up well to moisture. Everyone knows what it's like to work with wet toilet paper. It rips, it tears, fingers end up touching stuff they shouldn't, it's Neptune's Kiss rearing its ugly head. It's a bad scene.
I've contemplated abstaining from using the bidet. But now there's pressure in the house from Jenn about bidet use. Her excitement has her lingering just outside the closed bathroom door whenever I go, and as soon as I exit, she's right there with a giddy expression, "Did you use the bidet?"
"Um, no."
"Why not?" She's disappointed.
I hate letting her down. I've started to develop a little anxiety about it to the point where it's throwing off my bathroom routine. And there's no real cut and dry answer to why I've been skipping the bidet, but much of it has to do with the fact that I don't fully trust it. At least not yet.
There are some other home appliances I don't necessarily need to use, but I use them because I trust them. Like my Hampton Bay electric knife to cut the roast beef on Christmas. Or the voice-activated remote control for our TV when I want to put on the Sox game. And my remote car starter on cold days in the winter.
But then it occurred to me, as a person who works from home five days a week and doesn't have to prepare for meetings, log into video conferences, or even leave the house, showers don't always make it into my regular routine. So maybe the bidet could find a way into my life on those days a shower has not. Like my Hampton Bay electric knife yet with more regularity than once a year on December the 25th.
And with this eureka moment, I decided to get back in the batter's box and take another swing. I'll let the bidet have another shot at me.
Maybe it was nerves, my fear of the unknown, shell shock from the first-hand look at the power of the douche, my disdain for having a wet bum, or the possibility of an awkward trip to the Dr.'s office ("You see Doc, we got this bidet....") but I realized, in my initial walk-through, I didn't turn the knob to the rear quite enough. It was like that first time, I took it as far as I felt comfortable going, and as soon as I was grazed by the morning dew, that was enough for me, and I returned to port for protection from the storm.
But this time, with a little more courage, I increased the throttle, and what started as an ocean spray mist covering a wide swath of undercarriage eventually formed into a steady stream with a clear path to a final destination. It was like the opposite of the Red Sea parting, it was all coming together into one focused beam with a purpose. I felt like Lando flying with The Rebel Alliance, completely caught off-guard, "That blast came from the Death Star. That thing's operational!"
It wasn't exactly Old Faithful at Yellowstone, but if you crank that thing to 11, there's no telling what all will get cleaned.
So the bidet is here, and if you ever visit, you are welcome to use it. It is operational and should be treated with the same respect, caution, and care that you would use with a loaded gun.
I'm still not yet a frequent flyer but my comfort level has picked up. I feel like we're slowly getting to know each other. And I feel that I am familiar enough with the controls of the bidet that I am safely out of harm's way.
That is, as long as I don't have an evening of an excessive amount of Busch Light and accidentally roll over the knob while my face is buried in the bidet while driving the porcelain bus.
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