Don’t mind me, please go right ahead to your Super Bowl parties this weekend. Your humble correspondent is saving his energy for a bigger celebration coming as soon as later this year, when a Super Bowl may come to St Louis, courtesy of the federal government.
You see, for decades there have been federal regulations that have forced manufacturers to make toilets work using decreasing amounts of water. And by saying “work” I am being generous, attested to by the presence of a plunger next to just about every toilet Fix St Louis sees nowadays. I dunno, it’s pretty easy to imagine we’re dealing here with a bureaucracy run by know-it-all Ivy League elites, who think they know best about everything, including how to dispose of our waste — and also think theirs doesn’t stink. But, maybe they sincerely believe they’re on a noble mission rather than a power grab to control our every movement, if you’ll pardon the expression.
After all, there are some places in the country, like California, where voters might actually LIKE these blasted water-stingy toilets. Water seems to be scarce there, although it may be by choice. Many live in deserts, and voters have put in place lawmakers who have placed additional restrictions on water usage, halted construction of new reservoirs, and diverted fresh water into the ocean on behalf of fish no one has ever heard of, much less eaten.
But, there are other places, like St Louis, where people have a more water-friendly attitude, who even endure thunderstorms, tornadoes, and flooded basements to get the water they need. If I did my middle school math correctly, every INCH of rain we get in the greater St Louis area provides enough water to flush the toilet of every man, woman, and child 10x per day for 9 years.
If Californians really like these toilets, or even want to regulate them down to the point where they operate on their own SPIT, that’s fine with me. But if St Louis has the water to provide our toilets with enough to do the job without harming others, that should be fine with Californians and everyone else.
If we’re going to be stuck with these low water-capacity toilets, at least you can count on Fix St Louis to fix them. We can solve all the problems they come with by repairing, replacing, and adjusting all of a toilet’s components, whether it is leaking, suffocating from lack of water, or it’s running and won’t stop.
But, we’re excited by the prospect of a new “Super Bowl”, well-functioning toilet coming to town as early as this year. Maybe the type of toilet Americans enjoyed in the 1950’s, a 6-7 gallon tank that unleashes a gusher that takes everything down with it, except for an occasional ashtray the kids threw in – but nobody even has those things hanging around anymore. If America can send a man to the Moon, surely we can send a you-know-what to a sewer lateral.
The reason for our optimism here at Fix St Louis is that the President recently ordered the EPA to review relaxing water regulations on toilets, claiming “people are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once. They end up using more water.” Geez, I don’t know what happens in public rest rooms a billionaire might visit, but the ones I go to don’t have toilets that need to be primed like water well pumps. Nevertheless, I welcome the President’s initiative in what I hope blossoms into a growing “poop-ulist” movement.
Look, I’m just a humble handyman, who can’t match the soaring rhetoric of a Martin Luther King Jr. But I, too, have a dream, when an American can attend a cocktail party at Martha Stewart’s, use the hall bathroom, close the lid, flush, then walk away confidently without ever looking back. Some may say I’m a dreamer, but apparently I’m not the only one.
But until that glorious day arrives, we at Fix St Louis will proudly continue to fix your toilets. Don’t worry about us, we’ll still have plenty of other work to do.
Dr Steve
Fix St Louis
314-434-4100