~JcZw

Often I've heard people talk about hating the toilets in hall, how they're too hot, too cold, too stinky, too flooded, how people miss to the front, miss to the rear (what the..), don't wash hands when using the handle etc.

Fortunately for the past year and a half, I've had pretty good toilets with pretty good toilet users. All of us are more or less civilised in the use of the commodes and are quite clued up about hygiene. Thankfully, I haven't had any close encounters since I left my company line in BMT, besides once when the F1 toilet released sewage across itself (though AHS had me used to that before). Unfortunately sometimes it's just the hardware that lets us down.

So there I was on Saturday afternon sitting on the toilet contemplating lunch and the upcoming PHS. The particular bowl which I was using wasn't exactly popular, as it had a sticky flush. That is, when depressed, the flush would go down and not come up again, causing a continuous flow of water into the bowl. A noise pollutor and, to any Singaporean, a total waste of water. But as I said, nothing worrying. At the moment there was the sound of water pouring into the cistern, cos somehow the balls (the floats) and springs and levers which control the water level did not provide negative feedback. Pretty much normal for the F2 toilet.

Then suddenly there was a ROAR of released water and fluid sprayed all over my feet. One of the worst things is to get cold fluid on my feet, and if there hadn't been someone in the next [working] cubicle (which was why I was using this slightly not so operable one) I would have screamed blue murder. As it was, my mind was going "WTHeck!" as I launched myself uncerimoniously through the cubicle door and out from the rapidly flooding cubicle. A few sniffs did allow me to ascertain that the fluid was, in fact, water, and not sewage as I had first feared. I could not see the source of the leak, but opening the cistern, I could see it was draining really fast.

With visions of Glen dismantling the toilet in Kyoto, and determined to be equally good with my hands, as well as to save F1 from drowning, I was determined to turn off the flow of water into the cistern, even though I didn't really appreciate having to go back into the thing. Locating the main faucet and turning it just took a little while and a lot of strength.

So ends one of my more significant encounters with the KE toilet. Still, not as bad as FM's one, where one pull of the chain and the cover of the overhead cistern would come crashing down towards your head