Toilets

Growing up in America, it’s easy to assume that the rest of the world operates like our own.  We think what we have and do is normal.  Take toilets, for instance.  Who would think there could be many variations on that theme?  Yet even just in Norway alone, I’ve seen more varieties of toilets than I ever dreamed possible.

The differences aren’t just limited to where the handles are located or which way they must move for a flush.  There are totally different designs in the bowl and seat as well.  Who would think people could be so creative about such things.

When one of Kory’s cousins remodeled his bathroom, the first thing I commented on was that the bowl was sticking out from the wall, with no visible water tank.  “It’s in the wall,” he told me, which was tiled over very professional like.  I asked what happens when it breaks, since it seems a common occurrence in our household.  “It’s made in Norway.  It won’t break.”  I’m still trying to wrap my brain around that one.

Some mountain cabins have indoor pit toilets, but sitting next to them are big containers of a type of sawdust that’s used in place of the flush.  It helps break things down and keeps the smell to a minimum.  That’s something I’ve never seen in America.

Many boat houses in Norway that sit right at the edge of the water, also have small apartments in the attic.  I equate this to sleeping in the garage with a beloved car, but the Norwegians don’t see it that way.  Since there is no place for even a pit toilet, they use a highly pressurized system that sounds an awful lot like an airplane toilet when it’s flushed.  It has an indoor septic system with four different chambers.  When one is full, it goes on to the next one, and by the time the fourth one is full, the first one has magically decomposed enough that there’s room for more.  A few times a year the septic truck comes around and cleans out the whole works, but it’s still a clever system, nonetheless. 

Kory’s cousin lives on the farm where my father-in-law grew up in Southern Norway.  He told me when he visited there in the 1960s, they were still using the outhouse in the barn, as the old house didn’t have any plumbing.

When we visited that same farm in the 1990s, the cousin was anxious to show us around the new house he’d built next to the old one.  I found it more than a little odd that the only bathroom in the new house just had a sink and a shower, but no toilet.  I asked him where the toilet was and he pointed out toward the barn.  I asked him why, when he built the new house, didn’t he put a toilet in the bathroom. 

I realized he wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box when his response was, “Some things you think about when it’s just too late.”