An Open Mind. A Bidet.

For the first time in a long while, I stayed in a hotel this past weekend. Upon first inspection, my hotel room was fairly standard. But as I went into the bathroom to ransack my free toiletries, I spotted this contraption screwed to my toilet.




















I've heard of the legendary bidet, but I've never seen one in real life. I thought it was a myth—an ostentatious invention rumored but never implemented. Well, the bidet is not a rumor: I came face to face with this Bigfoot, and I used it.

I decided to try out this machine in a controlled setting. I planned to use the bidet right before I was going to take a shower. That way, if the bidet did something crazy, like spray poo water on the small of my back, it wouldn't matter since the trusty shower would rectify the situation.

So I did my business and hit the WASH function.

I heard the mechanical whirling and whizzing below. I started to panic. How would this tiny, nonadjustable nozzle hit its fairly small target? Aren't all people's posteriors different sizes and shapes? What is one man's "sweet spot" might be my left buttock.

But the calming lukewarm water hit its mark. The water was warm. The water pressure was just right. It was quite refreshing. And it was a little weird. Overall though, I was excited that such a silly machine worked so well.

I stood up, and I turned on the shower water. But in my excitement, I hadn't dried myself sufficiently. I felt a small trickle of bidet water run from my butt and to my right ankle like muddy water streaking the windows of a car on the freeway. I guess I still have a lot to learn about the bidet procedures.

Despite one small hiccup that was my own fault, the bidet worked perfectly. I thought the bidet would be stubbornly discriminating forcing me to squirm to meet the stream of water. But I was wrong.

The bidet knows. The bidet knows that all people's backsides are generally the same. Despite race, gender, religion, or nationality, everyone's buttocks and anuses are essentially the same proportions once they orient themselves on the almighty bidet toilet seat. The bidet knows that deep down, all of us are the same. But we can't rely on the bidet; we must finish the bidet's job and remember to wipe. We must remember that if our bidets can see past the differences, so can we.

Only then can we achieve a true celebration of human diversity.