Show Some Love to the Throne this World Toilet Day

Maybe it’s because I still have the mind of a 13-year-old boy, but I think toilets are funny.  It’s a combination of them being so distinctive looking (it’s probably the only throne-esque item in your home), getting their own special room in which they are center stage and the taboo associated with what happens on the toilet. We just don’t talk about toilets in polite society, or really ever think about them. 

All jokes aside—if you want some good toilet jokes watch the latest “Rick and Morty”—toilets are arguably one of the most important inventions of all time. Not only do they make doing nature’s business way easier—instead of having to stay on the alert for predators and enemies we can do the crossword as we grind one out—but toilets have made our modern world exponentially more sanitary.  

Remember cholera? If you’re reading this, you probably only know of it as an old-timey disease that killed your character in Oregon Trail. But it used to be an enormous problem in cities due to a lack of sanitation. By “lack of sanitation” we mean that people used to shit and bathe in the same water that they would drink. The advent of sewage systems (which your toilet should be connected to) helped mitigate this danger in the bulk of the western world.

Unfortunately, not everybody has access to the clean water that goes hand-in-hand with a modern sanitation system. World Toilet Day was created to raise awareness and funds to bring sanitation to the 1 billion people who are living without ready access to clean water. If having a couple laughs about some pretty silly toilet tattoos helps the cause, then our work here is done. 

Toilets are funny only if you are lucky enough to have one. So once you’ve had your fill of juvenile laughs, go and check out the work being done by the United Nations Water initiative.