Monday, July 03, 2006

Paska juttu

The toilet in my new apartment completely broke down. I am dreaming of a knight on a white horse with a full set on plumbing devices.

Mind you, I am an American. We might be a great nation, but a nation of great plumbers we definitely aren't. I am accustommed to having to use the plunger almost every time I shit, because in the United States of America the toilets are designed for the lesser need only.

In Finland usually the toilets are better. So much better, in fact, that I hardly need to use the plunger even once a year. So much better that in 1994, when my parents first came to visit Finland it took all the strength Benka and I had to detach Oska from the toilet bowl that he saw in K-Rauta and grabbed with intent to purchase it and carry it back home on a plane.

A shitty toilet in Finland is a rarity. When I noticed that my new toilet was not quite as good as others here I was a bit upset, because even though I feel a bit homesick after not having visited the US for almost 2 years, the toilet design is not on the list of the American things I would like to see in Finland. But then I figured I can always use the plunger like in my younger years.

Well, it turned out I can't. I mean, it worked for a week, but then, sorry for the details, the Sunday morning shit apparently turned out to be a bit bigger than the weekday ones, and the toilet got plugged completely. Well, almost completely: if you pour water in it in 3 or 4 hours the water has seeped away somewhere.

After pumping the damn thing with the plunger failed to produce results I went to Stockmann and bought all the toxic chemicals that had any chance to dissolve the shit. I poured some kind of a green bottle in the toilet bowl. It utterly and completely failed to dissolve the shit, but gave the whole mess a poisonous green color and the smell of raspberry essence mixed with shit.

I stared at the whole undogly mess for a while, and decided that this might be the time to call talonmies.

Talonmies turned out to be a smiling youngish man reminiscent of the plumbers in the Russian comedies of the 1970s, and he carried a long and thick thingie with which he tried to pump the toilet, with no success whatsoever.

The plumber is coming today. Till then, no shitting.

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