It was an emotional moment. As the plumbers ripped out my old toilet, I too felt a part of me had just been brutally wrenched away. I brushed away a tear as my old friend was unceremoniously dumped in the garden awaiting disposal.  But, the old toilet had to go. The once proud surging flush was no more than a trickle and the inside rim was all cracked. I suppose I’ll be the same one day.

I fondly remembered all those long comfortable hours I’d spent on my old toilet, reading and  thinking. How many times had I changed the world whilst engaged in a good heavy detox? How many newspapers had I read whilst I sat there constipated waiting for something to finally plop out?

My good old toilet. Always there when I needed fast relief. Always there to take my all shit when it proved too much for family and friends. Ah, my good old loo, a true friend and confidante.

Now, I will have to get used to a brand new loo. I will have to wriggle around until I can find the best position – I suppose this is a bit like ranging your mattress or even your partner – you have to shuffle about and wriggle around until you feel “just right.”

This sanitary post reminds me of a couple of French metaphorical detox terms.

“Couler une bronze” – referring to that moment when sculptors pour hot bronze into a mould to make a statue.

“Démouler son cake” – a lovely culinary term referring to the moment when bakers remove a freshly baked cake from its mould.

As for the place itself, the English language has numerous terms for that place where e do our bodily doings, in French though, we don’t seem to have as many. I suppose that the humble toilet does not play such an important part in Gallic culture as it does in Anglo saxon culture. Most of British humor seems to be based around the toilet. In France there is nothing funny about that place where we go to read, think and empty our souls of unwanted and poisonous thoughts.

My favorite French term for the toilet – “le petit coin” – literally meaning “the little corner.”

So allow me to finish with a joke – it is an intelligence test, whereby you put a man in a round room and tell him to wee in the corner (LOL)

I’ll have to stop this post, I am just getting far too emotional about what is simply a functional, everyday object – my old friend.