Among the various forms of international cuisine, we've always pointed to Mexican and Indian as being the most likely source of an intestinal explosion. A recent article in the China Daily, however, suggests that we should add to this list Chinese food -- because in Beijing, the bathroom attacks are so bad that they've built a bulletproof public lavatory specifically to
"keep any explosion inside from harming the public".
Granted, they're worried about Al Qaeda, not Hezbowelah. But in association with the scare-the-populace, protect-the-populace mindset that has pervaded the world since you-know-when, Beijing recently spent $100,000 dollars constructing a fifteen-ton public amenity featuring thirty-centimeter thick blast walls. The idea is that it would contain any explosion set off inside the structure, protecting passers-by from the shrapnel and splatters that explosions in non-armored toilets would send flying into the crowd.
The fear is very real. A strategically-deposited bomb has the potential to turn any public bathroom into a explosive both conventional and biological. Though US first responders are prepared for such weapons of ass destruction, China seems to believe we're not taking any risks. "This kind of anti-explosion latrine was devised and widely used in the US after the 9/11 tragedy, " says Chinese legal expert Zuo Zhijin.
That statement, of course, is completely false -- if it had happened, we PoopReporters would know about it. I don't think Mr. Zuo is lying, however. Rather, I'll bet the company licensed to sell these toilet designs in China claimed they were all over America; and seeing America's paranoia in the face of terrorism, such claims were probably easily believed. Little do they know that America's per-capita consumption of cheese is so high as to preclude any bathroom explosion of the magnitude they worry about, say, on the streets of Calcutta. Unless the FDA loosens its regulations surrounding Olestra -- then cities may need to think about these explosion-proof bathrooms after all.
