read about them [1] or seen pictures, but you can't fully appreciate their minimalist design until you've actually used one.
It seems like it ought to be easy when you first look down at one. There are these ceramic-tiled footprint outlines that fairly scream out, "Your feet go here, dumbass!" The dark, voracious-looking hole that accepts your droppings yawns just behind that.
You must, however, decide what to do with your pants -- both outer and under. One school of thought suggests you pull both down around your ankles and position your ass carefully over the hole. Another insists you need to expose only your brown hole to the black hole below, and that your pants can stay around mid-thigh.
It also helps if you are in good shape when you lower yourself for the big grunt and push. A gymnast would have no trouble crapping into one of these, but God help the overweight couch potato.
I was able to acquit myself admirably on these Italian squat toilets, but my youngest cousin Billy had no such luck. He was only five at the time, and when he and my other two male cousins accompanied me to the facilities during a trip we took to Venice and Florence, they were all perplexed and embarrassed by the prospect of trying to shit without a seat. Billy, in fact, went running out of the lineup of squat toilets in the men's room and back to my aunt, shouting almost in tears: "Mama, there's no seats in there. Just holes!" I came up behind him and said, "Aunt Dee, there is one with a seat on the end, but I'll have to help him use it."
But it was easier said than done. "The One With The Seat" consisted of a metal toilet seatz hanging from the ceiling by chains, suspended two or three feet above the squat toilet hole. I guess the management rigged this up to make us Western poopers feel more at home. It looked like something a trapeze artist would have designed. It was probably more terrifying to Billy than the impersonal holes that had disturbed him to begin with.
The logistical problem was getting Billy's pants down and then lifting him onto this swing set in one smooth move. As little boys are wont to do, he got the giggles, and we missed positioning his little bottom the first time. Then I got the giggles, and then his brothers, squatting nearby, started laughing insanely. The suspended seat had turned into a carnival ride -- it was swinging back and forth now, which meant I had to catch it with one hand and tuck Billy under my arm with the other. Billy decided that it was some sort of playground device, and he was not cooperating with me, kicking his legs and twitching his little rump so that I would miss again and again.
"This is fun!" he kept saying.
Finally, I said: "Do you want to doo-doo or not, Billy? We can't wait forever."
Eventually he settled down, and I positioned him precisely over Ground Zero. But I couldn't let go of him because he was so small -- his entire little body would have slipped through the metal ring, plummeting down to that awful hole ass first. Meanwhile, his brothers had finished their dirty work and had gathered around to cheer Billy on.
By this time, Billy was having the best time a little boy can have. His brothers were chanting, "Go, Billy, go!" I was holding onto his tiny shoulders for dear life, and we were all waiting for evidence of his need to drop so we could get this over with. Finally Billy let fly with #2, and I told him to tuck his little tallywhacker down firmly so his #1 wouldn't spray me and everybody else.
He didn't have much to do, being the tadpole that he was. I helped him off, he wiped himself standing up, and our ordeal was over.
Aunt Dee, meanwhile, had positioned herself just outside the door and was full of questions when we all emerged. "What were you all doing in there?"
"Swingin' on a trapeze," I told her. And Billy, delighted with the whole nine yards, filled her in with giggly details.
-- The Big Wiper [2]
