I think I'll read their website just because I'm curious about what euphemisms you use when talking about bidets. Though secretly I am also bi-curious, if you will.
I have been curious, but I have a hard time believing that drying isn't an annoying issue. Don't you end up with a generally damp ass when you stand up? Do you have a dedicated towel for drying? Or does the warm air blast work better than hand-dryers do?
The product description for that is quite lacking- do they leave it to the imagination or do you have to be part of the secret society who already know the ways of the washlet?
You know what I hate, speaking of that? Those new hand dryers where you have to put your hands into the narrow drying crevice. It's hard not to touch the sides. And REALLY hard to get your ass in there.
People Use a Bidet for the First Time
What if you just peed on your butt?
LB, you can dry with a bit of toilet paper or pony up for the fancy models that have a built-in butt dryer.
what euphemisms you use when talking about bidets
The "syndrome" described in the first amazon review at the second OP link is clearly meant to be a euphemism but I don't think it's working.
" '[B]utt dryer' was the worst summer job I ever had."
The Amazon link says that thing was made in Andorra. Now we know what they make there.
You're just lucky you weren't the washer.
Sounds great, but: "If you have... a nearby electrical outlet" HAHAHAHAHAH, no, I do not. Bathroom outlets are always too few and too inconveniently placed already. Definitely I have never had one next to the toilet.
Those new hand dryers where you have to put your hands into the narrow drying crevice. It's hard not to touch the sides. And REALLY hard to get your ass in there.
They're great. Admittedly less because of the narrow crevice aspect than because they seem to be have been the first dryers to realise that maybe a pressurised blast would be more effective at drying your hands than a warm breeze.
Is there a showroom for these Toto things? I'm dying to try it.
13: Yeah, no kidding! I don't even have an outlet at all in the upstairs bathroom I share with the girls. That's why last time I shaved my head I just did it outside and didn't look in a mirror, which turns out not to be a great choice for me.
15: If so, it better be called "I bless the rain."
Anyway, if hot baths destroyed the British Empire, comfortable butt washing will doom America.
13 is right, but a handyman can put one in easily. We had it done at our previous and current place.
I had access to a bidet for ten weeks in Greece and never used it, an omission I now regret.
This has been on the to-do list for a long time, but I am genuinely worried about spoiling myself for... you know, the entire rest of the world. We even got an electrical outlet installed in the right place when we remodeled the bathroom.
At this point (tying in with the previous thread) it's probably wise to get potty training done before making the bathroom world more complicated.
Does it have to be linked to the toilet? What if you had an in-pants micro-bidet to freshen things up while you're on the move?
The first time I encountered a bidet I thought it was just a urinal and peed in it. Then it peed on me when I tried to flush. Very upsetting.
I totally want the fancy Japanese wash-rinse-tumble-dry toilet, but I live in an apartment so I can't really install one. My ideal bathroom would have the fancy toilet with an option to squat instead of sit, and those disabled access hand bars everywhere.
20: Actually, alas, my house is in a situation where the wiring (knob and tube) is only considered code if you don't mess with it -- so doing anything instantly means spending LOADS of money to have to rewire the whole room/set of rooms -- though maybe the bathrooms have been updated by previous owners recently enough that they've already been through that process. That would be nice.
My parents got one, probably due to evangelism like you, years ago. I found the heating annoying, and for better or for worse I never tried the bidet attachment. I have yet to feel inclined to follow their example.
I recall reading (about 20 years ago, so probably a false memory) about a study done by a toilet paper manufacturer to better understand their customers. Apparently there's a wide range of ways people use TP, wadding vs. folding, wiping vs. dabbing, standing vs. sitting, multiple passes vs. single pass, etc. Personally I don't understand how one wipes standing, but apparently it's a relatively common thing.
There's a "misunderstood bidet" episode in Tropic of Cancer, which I can't be the only person to have thought of.
In his new book Being Mortal Atul Gawande wrote about how his father got some kind of spraying/drying toilet the year before his death. When I'm old and frail I'd really prefer that to having somebody wipe my ass for me.
23: Are you suggesting you'd tap that?
This is one of those issues where we in North America get it from both sides. I am both a savage for not having spraying and drying facilities in the toilet, and a coddled first-worlder for not knowing what to do at those squat toilets (China to Japan, that must be the real culture shock). We don't have high-speed trains? Feh! We aren't comfortable hanging off the back of a 4-wheel jitney with 30 passengers? Also feh!
15: I visited the Toto showroom in Tokyo. Yes, you can try the toilets.
I personally find that the Toto butt wash doesn't really do much to wash my butt. I end up wiping my wet butt about the same amount anyway. The heated seats, I highly recommend.
2 of the last Ogged threads have been about pooping. Just saying.
I wish I could do this story the justice it deserves. My undergrad prof in Islamic studies spent about a dozen years in Iran and was going to put this in one of his many books but took it out. I saw the draft. I've forgotten the names of the principals involved, I don't think they were named in the story as told but I remember sussing them out at the time.
Mid 20th century in Iran one of the great old school style European Orientalists/Iranologists lived and worked for many years. One of his best friends was one of the most renowned Iranian scholars of his generation. One day they set to arguing about the superior qualities of their respective civilizations. Eventually the Orientalist relented and said he agreed, he actually found Iranian culture and civilization most congenial and even superior to the European one he'd grown up in. After all, he'd spent the last few decades of his life devoted to it and living there and would have it no other way. Everything, that is, with the sole exception of Muslim toilet habits which he found disgusting. How can you not wipe your ass with paper? Using your hand with water is foul and unclean, he said. Gesturing at the full beard of his European friend and then his own the Iranian scholar said: I'll tell you what. I'll shit in your beard and you shit in mine. I'll use water and you use paper and we'll see who gets clean.
(Ogged will surely correct me but I'm told in Persian that "I'll shit in your beard" "be rish-e-to ridam"" used to be a serious insult.)
23: Are you suggesting you'd tap that?
Weirdly the pun her word choice enabled completely escaped me.
Now, Manjoo and I come from water-washing cultures
I knew a guy named Manoj, up in Austin, and Texans constantly called him Manjo, which struck me as one of the best mispronunciations ever.
I'm torn between diving into a complicated discussion of the intricacies and being too embarrassed to write anything of this nature.
When I was a teen-ager, I stayed with a family in France, and they had a stand-alone biddet. I don't think it tried, just sprayed. When did the combo units come out?
35: Take home point: Iranians have really hairy butts.
Over 20 years ago a friend was invited by Toto on an all-expenses-paid weekend trip for foreigners to a hot spring resort outside Tokyo during which they were asked to try out a range of Washlets and rate their functions, with the aim of finding out why Western markets were (at that time) so resistant to the idea. The general consensus was apparently that rather than the washing and drying functions they were put off by the warm seat, which felt icky, as if it had just been vacated by someone else.
(Trust the Japanese to automate what in England had been a bespoke service, as described by Roald Dahl in Boy.)
A manjo is like a banjo, but for men.
Come to think, while I don't think I'd actually mind a warmed seat, I've certainly never noticed a cold seat as an unpleasantness. Cold bathroom floor on bare feet, yes, cold toilet seat? Not a problem at all.
35 is a good example of why analogies are banned. Some people are hairier than others down there, but I'd be surprised if anyone anywhere actually has a full beard. If they did, I can see how that might change the equation.
41/43/44: A cold seat isn't fun, no. This is related to the season, the climate where you live, and how warm you keep your house. But I'd prefer the seat mildly cool to being warm or hot. I don't think of it as imagining someone there right before me, at least not consciously. It's just... why would I want it heated? My desk isn't heated to warm my wrists, I generally try to avoid the heat when I'm outside in the sun...
Note that ogged is studiously avoiding the butt-beard question.
The is a bidet in my apartment. I've never thought to use it.
I remember a conversation with an Asian friend who said, completely incredulous, "Can you imagine having hair on your ass?" I told him I didn't have to imagine. It was like I'd told him that I in fact am the Yeti.
Never tried a washlet, or a heated seat, but as far as toilet innovations go I will say that the non-slamming seat/lid is the greatest invention ever. Only problem is having one spoils you for all other toilets.
I just looked at some models on amazon, and I think the issue inhibiting widespread adoption is that people don't believe the stream is necessarily clean. You have these nozzles in there where people are depositing waste, and they make claims of "self cleaning" but how can you be sure you're not being sprayed with residue left by a previous user?
OTOH maybe this would be a good mother's day present.
And it looks like washing + heating is $250-350 but add drying and you jump to $800? Just buy a goddamn hair dryer and keep it next to the toilet.
On introspection, I find I'd be inhibited about guests using the bathroom -- having a weird and interesting toilet would make me vaguely socially uncomfortable.
how can you be sure you're not being sprayed with residue left by a previous user?
Close. Tab.
I am both a savage for not having spraying and drying facilities in the toilet, and a coddled first-worlder for not knowing what to do at those squat toilets
As far as the second problem goes, here's your answer.
55- Wait, there are models that come with an integrated web browser too?
Now that oudemia is gone we can talk about her.
the non-slamming seat/lid is the greatest invention ever
I am weird, but I don't like these! I feel like OH FOR GOD'S SAKE, JUST CLOSE ALREADY.
43: LB, you were never at an English boarding school. My first one, the lavatories were well ventilated and completely unheated. In winter I would have to sit on my hands to shit. This was clearly a thing that marked out a certain kind of school -- not just the Roald Dahl thing, but I remember Mic/hael Ru\se asking professor Denn\et whether he would like his bog seat warmed, sir, in the course of one of their theological discussions.
43: LB, you were never at an English boarding school. My first one, the lavatories were well ventilated and completely unheated. In winter I would have to sit on my hands to shit. This was clearly a thing that marked out a certain kind of school -- not just the Roald Dahl thing, but I remember Mic/hael Ru/se asking professor Denn/et whether he would like his bog seat warmed, sir, in the course of one of their theological discussions.
The phrase "non-slamming seat/lid" just makes me think of the scene with the non-slamming door at the expo in Tati's Play Time.
50.last gets it right.
We keep our house pretty cool in the winter, and I can't say that I love a cold seat. Actually heated, though? No. I don't even use the heated driver's seat unless ambient is below 20° (and even then it's off once the heater is blowing warmth).
Eh. Indoor water use is pretty much a closed system (no evaporative losses). Additional water loads will go to the wastewater treatment plant and get re-used somehow. I'm not going to lose sleep over this one.
I finally understand why the halal market/grill has those strange plaster pitchers/watering cans in the bathrooms.
My only experience with a bidet was in a hotel in Buenos Aires, and I was not satisfied with the water temperature. I don't really have that kind of time to fiddle with the knobs.
Indoor water use is pretty much a closed system (no evaporative losses).
Wait, really? Can I quote you on that? It'll come in handy elsewhere!
Eh. Indoor water use is pretty much a closed system (no evaporative losses). Additional water loads will go to the wastewater treatment plant and get re-used somehow.
Does that mean letting it mellow is largely pointless?
There are costs in treating the water after, but unless pipes leak, water going into a house comes back out of the house, dirtier and warmer.
The only time I've used a bidet was when staying in a fancy hotel in India, after having not been particularly careful and drinking the local water. I don't know that I used it correctly, but it was immensely helpful.
Huh. Looks as though previous washlet-related comments on the blog have disproportionately been made by me. I guess I really want one.
I'm with foxytail on the non-slamming seat lid. Hurry the fuck up! Fine, I'll just leave you up, see if I care.
You guys know that it doesn't, like, break if you push it down, right?
I love the non-slamming lid. No more jumping a mile out of my skin, in the shower, because the kid used the bathroom and I didn't know they were in there until BANG!
You guys know that it doesn't, like, break if you push it down, right?
And that you can leave the bathroom while it dallies?
Come on, Heebie, we know you're dying to ask about the washlet. Suddenly you have a sense of decorum?
First off how hard is it just to not slam the fucking toilet lid? But second, the problem I've heard from the one friend I have who does own one of those things, is that you do eventually get used to just casually dropping it shut, and then whenever you use the bathroom anywhere else it's easy to forget and damn near break the toilet.
78: I happen to be an extraordinarily tidy in my movements. I could get away without wiping altogether but for the ceremony.
Also there was actually a bidet in the house I grew up in. Being of clean drop, constitutionally, I knew what it was for only in the academic sense.
|| I know this is the boringest of all possible boring comments, but dear christ why can't I force myself to do this stupid project that's been sitting on my desk for weeks? It's not going to be difficult. It's not even going to take all that long, if I can even just make myself do it. But I've been "working" on it for weeks now, and I probably have about ninety minutes of actual work put into it. Why can't I make myself focus? SO frustrating.
Just start the damn thing and don't focus on the end of it. Seriously just put five minutes in and then let yourself off the hook.
DCWCIFMTDTSPTBSOMDFW is probably too long, but WCIMMF works.
I've got one that's over six months now. I brought it on Xmas vacation planning to work on it.
Why can't I make myself focus? SO frustrating.
In my experience that can mean one of a couple of things (your mileage almost certainly varies)
1) You just don't want to do it.
2) You're tired, and don't really have the energy to focus on anything. You keep picking up that project because it looks easy and you think you should be able to knock it out, but you just don't have the attention right now.
3) There's some hidden complication to the project that you have noticed subconsciously and that makes you avoiding it.
4) At some point you thought your way through the entire project (but didn't put it on paper) and now it feels like stale work -- rather than starting with a blank slate it feels like re-writing, and re-writing is never fun.
My only experience with a bidet was in a hotel in Buenos Aires
JRoth, mi hermano!
Related to seat warmers, my girlfriend's car has them, and it kinda makes me feel like I've peed my pants.
The procrastination (anti-procrastination) book I read recently suggested, perhaps not obviously helpfully, "just get started." That is, no preparation or thinking is going to provide as much momentum as starting. So don't think about the project, just force yourself to start working on it, and it'll take care of itself.
I know, I know, if you could force yourself to start, you wouldn't be you. I think I have a blog-based solution. Most of us have revealed things here that we'd rather our real life friends or partners not know about. So we each need at least one other commenter who knows our real-life identity, and can use that knowledge to threaten us into action. You could call it in, almost like an air strike on yourself: I can't get started, someone threaten me. But we'd have to take a solemn oath to totally rat each other out if our blackmail buddy didn't finish their work.
4 is correct, it's reworking a white paper into a publication (which has been pre-accepted based on the white paper- free paper!) but I can't make myself add the references, do the reformatting, etc.
Let me be the first to suggest drugs.
87.last: a very, very mature joke that I have grown out of is to surreptitiously set somebody's seat warmer to the highest setting on a warm day. It warms up gradually and it takes a surprisingly (and if I may, hilariously) long time for somebody to resolve "I feel really weird for some reason" into "my ass is really weirdly hot" into "hey, why is the seat warmer on?"
86: I think in my case it's all 4 (3 and 4 might seem incompatible but they're not--there is a big complication that I don't know how I'm going to resolve, but I can't even really wrestle with it until I've done a lot of work that I've already thought through and that it this point is just tedium), plus, as much or perhaps more than any of those four, my knowledge that at some point (soon) there's going to be some deadline attached to this thing, at which point I'll suddenly have motivation, so trying to manufacture motivation now feels pointless. But! I don't have much else to work on now, and in a few weeks when this gets a deadline attached to it, there will be a bunch of other stuff on my plate, so if I don't have this mostly done I'll be swamped.
One thing that I have occasionally had success with is starting something by saying "okay, I'm just going to do an intentionally bad job on this".
I'll confess that 79.last is true, but 79.first presumes that I actively desire to spend more time handling toilet seats.
I'm assuming that 94 refers to the OP.
78: I happen to be an extraordinarily tidy in my movements. I could get away without wiping altogether but for the ceremony.
Heebie's real name was thereby revealed.
Just buy a goddamn hair dryer and keep it next to the toilet.
Or, like, a roll of paper that you could tear sheets off of--perhaps small squares, for convenience.
93: Remember how I was being really embarrassed about how well that stupid productivity app was working for me? One of the things that's working is requiring a daily (very low) number of timed fifteen minute periods of uninterrupted work on anything. The thing is, that it's possible to run out of tasks that are teed up well enough to put in a focused chunk of time on (without having to go talk to someone first, or go find something, or whatever) and so you (or I) end up making a surprising amount of progress on important but not urgent tasks.
I had a complete draft of a venue motion done before the pre-trial conference a couple of weeks ago, which I've never done before in my life. Then the judge strongly signaled he was going to decide in my favor, and opposing counsel stipulated to the transfer I wanted, so the draft wasn't any use, which is pretty much why I've never done that before. But it was a startlingly forward-thinking thing of me to have done, which is my point!
A guy at my summer camp claimed he had that power- the term for it was, "shooting an ace."
I have found that aging has had a deleterious effect on the tidiness of my movements. Until sometime in the last five years, I could have said what Heebie does, but now, it feels as if I'm using half a roll of toilet papers every time. I have no idea what's changed, exactly, but I'm not happy about it.
I feel an odd combination of smugness and terror reading 99.
Smugness in that I have mostly ended up being fairly good at the work equivalent of study-skills (far better than I was as a student), without having to fight too hard. At some point* I just internalized the knowledge that if I'm trying to have task X done at time T, that means that X-1 has to be complete by T-1 (and, really, by T-2 because things always take longer than you expect).
On the other hand, I feel sort of terrified by what the idea of a fully-productive LizardBreath would be like. Comment 99 feels a little bit like watching the Death Star start to power up.
* My theory is that this got beaten into me during a period when I was working way too hard all the time, and I didn't have any spare energy to make an extra push at the deadline -- if I didn't have my work done on schedule then the deliverables just had to be pushed back, I couldn't make make up time.
IIRC, you were the one with the disturbing associations for my third child's pseudonym.
99 sells me on the app. I'm sure I'll be asking about it in a few weeks.
82 Have you tried reading the wolf magazine?
88.1 Possibly the same book, but that's one of the things mentioned in The No/w Hab/it as a possible solution, but it mostly takes procrastination of a symptom of other issues you might be having.
99: What's the name of the app?
Now that I think about it, The No/w Hab/it is exactly where I got 83 from. Why are we google-proofing?
99: What's the name of the app?
I think LB is using HabitRPG.
I hate the car seat warmers, but love the toilet seat warmers.
Two differences: 1. The toilet seat only contacts the edge of your bum, not the center. 2. Car seat warmers are much warmer (too warm, usually).
Net effect: Car seat warmers make me think something wrong is about to happen down there. The toilet seat warmers I encountered in Japan were perfectly set so that they were not noticably cold, but not noticably warm either.
102: Don't worry, I'm sure I'll backslide into my customary sloth sometime soon.
My hands do, in fact, resemble the flippers of a seal.
Remember how I was being really embarrassed about how well that stupid productivity app was working for me?
No. I haven't actually been reading much here recently.
That HabitRPG looks interesting but seems like something that would inevitably be either (a) boring and therefore not helpful or (b) fun and therefore something that would cause me to waste more time, not less. I'm having trouble even imagining a middle ground.
It's hard to fritter away time on it. You check things off as you do them, maybe hatch or feed a pet or two a day on average.
Can anyone point me to the thread where LB was being really embarrassed about how well that stupid productivity app was working for her? I'd like to read more about her experience.
Okay, wait, I'm playing with this thing now--I have to set up all my own goals? That seems like a crazy amount of work.
There's not all that much to the discussion. Here: http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_14558.html#1801444 .
I have actually done things like "put stuff on my to do list" as a habit to be reinforced. So every time I remember to set up a goal, I get to click on the "just did a good habit" button. This is circular, I admit, but it's keeping me going.
Last night I tried using a personal trimmer for the first time, perhaps because I don't have a bidet. I don't think I did it right or didn't buy the appropriate equipment, it was a serious pain in the ass today IYKWIM. Also today without thinking about it I was at an Asian supermarket and got some snacks of wasabi peas and kimchi. If a regular commenter disappears over the next couple days it means I have spontaneously combusted ass-first.
33 China to Japan, that must be the real culture shock
I know someone who spins this into a whole extended metaphor for the differences in the two cultures. He claims to have encountered toilets in Japan that not only wash you but sing comforting songs to you.
122: Not songs per se, but lots of domestic appliances in Japan do play you soothing music. My rice cooker and dishwasher both had different little electronic ditties when they were starting or finished, and the bath played Pachabel's Canon to let you know it was full and at the right temperature.
When clew said something about using emacs org mode as a productivity tool, I thought this was a joke I wasn't getting. But there are people who swear by it, so I'm thinking about trying it out.
Maybe the Vietnam War would have taken a different turn if one of these appliances had been available on the US Market 50 years ago.
And LBJ ... harassed residence staff for years to construct him a specialized shower to replicate the one he had at his private Washington home, with "water charging out of multiple nozzles in every direction with needlelike intensity and a hugely powerful force."
"One nozzle was pointed directly at the president's penis, which he nicknamed 'Jumbo.' Another shot right up his rear," Brower writes. Johnson, who traveled with his own special shower nozzle, wanted the water pressure at the White House to be "the equivalent of a fire hose, and he wanted a simple switch to change the temperature from hot to cold immediately. Never warm."
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/hillary-clintons-darkest-days-detailed-in-new-114783331311.html
LBJ was a strange, strange cat.
he wanted a simple switch to change the temperature from hot to cold immediately. Never warm.
So... a toilet?
lots of domestic appliances in Japan do play you soothing music.
From a historical perspective, effort spent soothing the people of Japan is seldom wasted.
So I guess we'd better watch out when they finally run out of kawaii.
toilets in Japan that not only wash you but sing comforting songs to you.
In (some) public toilets (in the early 1990s), they had buttons you could press to play a recording of a toilet flushing, in order to mask other noises without needing to actually flush.
131: Toto now makes mobile ones, for those embarrassing occasions when you can't find a properly equipped bathroom. And of course there's an phone app, though that may not be altogether satisfactory: "a person with the louder toilet sound than flood sound cannot be guaranteed."
Actually, searching in Japanese brings up a lot of similar phone apps, with names like EcoLady (because you don't have to waste water by flushing to mask your own sounds).
Are men allowed to shit with volume and vigor?
A guy just called brain scans "contemporary phrenology."
So I guess we'd better watch out when they finally run out of kawaii.
Kawaii too cheap to meter!
They aren't supposed to give a shit whether or not anyone hears them taking one.
As for procrastination, I'd say that three styles of productivity work for me, and over the past few months I've had the dubious luck to use them all at various times.
1. Have so many tasks, with concrete results expected on short deadlines, that I just always have to be working on them and it's immediately obvious if I'm not. It works. It sucks, but it works.
2. Do it at the last minute. This requires caution and/or frenzied slipshod work, because it's hard to tell when the last minute really is. But in the end, done on time is done on time.
3. Just do one small chunk of a task at a time and try to ignore how big the task is. This is the closest thing here to helpful advice. If I sit and think about how big a certain task is, especially a boring one, it's daunting. But I can definitely do just one line or paragraph or page, and hey, that was surprisingly easy and quick, I might as well go on to just one more while I'm at it, and so on.
136: Sounds accurate to me. How meaningful you think it is depends on what you're trying to get out of brain scans.
"lots of domestic appliances in Japan do play you soothing music. My rice cooker and dishwasher both had different little electronic ditties when they were starting or finished, and the bath played Pachabel's Canon to let you know it was full and at the right temperature."
ULTIMATE personal nightmare situation. Racing pulse just thinking about it.
How meaningful you think it is depends on what you're trying to get out of brain scans.
I just want to know what the dead Atlantic salmon is thinking about, OK?
ULTIMATE personal nightmare situation.
You must have a pretty pleasant life.
OT: Time and reality have not been kind to this Krugman essay, via saiselgY subbing for Kevin Drum, defending the (unearned, unjustified) arrogance of the economics profession.
No, just an extreme aversion to "pleasant" music.
143:
Nor to the one from the same era where he defends model-building, however crude and reductionist as against the practice of someone like Albert Hirschman whom he says has no descendants in the profession because his students wouldn't have been able to get jobs, or some such.
I'm reading the biography of Hirschman now, as a fan and collector for many decades of his books.
If you're a person who "hears" music, then "background music" is torture. Both my parents and I always hear and identify the music in grocery stores, etc., that you're not even supposed to notice. Glenn Gould wrote an essay referring to this experience, IIRC.
145: This is essentially a complaint that public debates over economic policy aren't conducted within the terms of their reductionist models, where they could more easily introduce false assumptions.