Luxury Shitter

Richard and I went back to Sentosa today to finish up the rest of the Lolita school-girl perving, and I must say, we got some pretty racy shots done, given that this is Singapore. But the truth is, people here are more concerned with leaving you alone if they don’t really like what you’re doing, than with bothering you. Unless they’re really, seriously bored. And the good thing about going down to the beach to get your kitty photographed right after the rain probably means that who ever that’s there would be damn serious about enjoying the man-made madness rather than your madness.

Before I digress into more utter craziness that the both of us have been getting into, I must say something about disabled toilets, firstly because it’s not enough that they are everywhere physically, they also have to be everywhere in the news. But of course, nothing like a story everyone can understand while trying to concentrate on taking a shit.

After all, if there’s space in a paper that has to scrimp to be filled up, why not fill’er up. Otherwise, if there’s nothing in it, no one will want to advertise in ; And here’s the thing, more press freedom has not been proven to result in further economic prosperity anyway. But that’s okay, there;s nothing quite like killing trees for slimming ads.

"The media is free to put across a range of worthy different viewpoints to encourage constructive social and political discourse," Goh stressed.

Of Course. Talking about disabled shitters in the National Paper is constructive discourse. After all, everyone has to take a shit at some point in their lives, so it must be an important social issue. As such, I must talk about it, so bear with me.

At school, we have a number of disabled toilets, although I have not seen one single permanently disabled person attending the course as of yet. I have no problem with that of course, nothing like being able to have a shit in a large spacious toilet with handle-bars to grab on for that extra oomph in your gut. I quite like using the disabled toilets, and I’m not the only one there that does. But no one ever fights over their usage.

The first time Luna and I took a toilet break together (we’re not one of those girls that feel the need to take toilet breaks together so I remember it quite well) she hesitated before the handicapped toilet before making as if to go on with me into the general one. I told her I used it all the time too and that she should use it anyway if she wanted to, because its there and it just seems quite pointless that she shouldn’t enjoy it just because I couldn’t –not unless she wanted me to watch her take a piss of course, which I don’t suppose I’d mind- really.

So my point is, handicapped toilets are one of life’s pleasures and shouldn’t be denied normal people if it didn’t inconvenience anyone else. Its one thing for wheelchair ramps to be used as skate ramps –that’s just annoying- and another for normal people to want to take a shit in a handicap toilet.

If you think about it, what are the chances of a disabled person on a wheelchair coming by to your handicapped toilet cubical in the 10 minutes you are taking a shit in it (possibly while reading an article in the local paper about other people wanting to take a shit in that same cubical) in some shopping mall on a floor full of retail shops selling shoes that don’t have wheelchair friendly entrances anyway; Duh, because people who have just suffered a major accident and are temporarily bound onto a chair with wheels will not feel like going out to buy crap, Besides people who have a disability normally have better things to do then go shopping (why bother when you can get someone else to do it for you).

So really, why deprived normal people of this little bit of luxury. We are the majority that buy the crap in the malls anyway, and the toilet space allotted for disabled people is just disproportionate to the amount of wheelchair bound persons that actually turn up in these places.

Anyway, Singaporean people are like that la. Luna didn’t even want to use the disabled toilet because only one person could use it at any one time, and she felt awkward that she should have it while I couldn’t. And I’m not even disabled.

Look. If I were taking a shit in a disabled toilet and I saw a pair of wheel chair wheels waiting outside, my self-consciousness would will the shit away and I will come out with my pants up to my knees, apologizing profusely about the bad smell while attempting to kindly ease the wheelchair bound individual in. All while remembering to Flush After Use, of course. I suggest making the air-vents below the doors in the disabled toilets a little higher so we can be sure whoever is using the cubical can see if the cubicle’s appropriate patron is waiting their turn.

***
I couldn’t help it. I like talking about shit, and it was with much joy that I found out the Local paper liked talking about shit too.

The truth is, does it really make much of a difference to the disabled and the wheelchair bound whether or not some healthy girl is having a shit in a toilet that was built for its own sake? How many people in wheelchairs do you actually see out in public. If you were wheelchair bound, taking a piss might be a hassle for a while, but for heaven’s sake, some people in wheelchairs can slam dunk from the other side of the court, hike up mountains and swim in the Pacific.

Disabled people also have better bladder control. You would develop one if you couldn’t get to the bathroom as easily as an individual with working legs and thus without the hassle of a wheeler. The physical limitations for these people are under their control, and sooner or later, they will adapt to it. Their bodies are as useful to them as our bodies are to us, and isn’t the primary reason why we don’t see more of them in society.

Like it or not, people are uncomfortable dealing with the disabled. We’re not used to them, and we have all these assumptions about them that make no sense. The fact that we really think it matters whether or not they have immediate access to a toilet as the thing most worthy of discussion pertaining to the disabled last week proves that well enough.

The disabled don’t want or need more unoccupied ‘special’ toilets then there already are. All our buildings are over-specified when it comes to that component of interior architecture. So over specified it seems like we really do care for the disabled. We care so much we’re concerned about them to even the littlest detail, like them taking a shit.

The reality of it is that, that’s what we think of when we think about people that cannot walk.

‘Must be difficult for them to have a shit… are you sure they can do the job properly? They need special toilets to do something that normal people do so easily… wah lau. So simple thing also so mah fan… better hire a normal person that can make coffee for me without hitting over the flower vase.’

xoxox