To Bidet or Not To Bidet.....that is the question!

   I sit here this morning drinking my coffee. This morning's brew is German, one of my favorites! Now, I am thinking of and missing Italy. I can connect the dots on this one.  Back in June of 2004, we were on our way to our new home in Italy via military flight with a stop over in Germany.  Did not see much of the country that day. Just the tarmac and terminal. Oh.... and the restroom! Now, I know the women out there will understand the importance of the restroom, especially if you have kids. I remember the days when I would sit my kids on the toilet(with either the cut out paper or toilet paper on the seat) in the public restroom and tell them not to touch anything! They would either hold my hands or just sit and balance. They became quite good at it actually--sitting and balancing!

  To my pleasant surprise, the restroom was dare I say...immaculate. I would later come to realize this is a German trait. (My mother is German, but I never quite understood it until I visited Germany!) And what an amazing toilet! I was quite impressed with the European toilet—now here’s a toilet my Ms. Rose cannot pee out of! At the time, Rose was 5 years old. The way her pee flowed up and over toilets, you would think she was a boy! But no, this toilet was the one that could contain my Rose. Oh, the joy of not having to wipe up stray pee from this child anymore.  Oh and the way these toilets flush. The entire mechanism, you do not mind touching it. No more flushing with your foot. In any case, you would have to use a yoga asana in order to flush these toilets with your foot.

 After about 2 hours,  it was on to Italy where our first two months were spent in a pensione, which is like an apartment/hotel. Here was my first ever encounter with a bidet! Now, initially, I thought the bidet was a bidet; but being from the U.S., the only bidets I have ever seen were in the movies.  This one looked a little different.   I decided it had to be a urinal and told the kids thus.  Don’t laugh, the other American kids in the pensione insisted it was a sink in which to wash your feet! 

  I have to tell you after three years with a bidet, I find it to be the most amazing cannot live without invention! Really, besides being able to rinse certain areas clean, it is great as a bath tub for babies, and go ahead wash those feet while you are at it! 

  Once you have a bidet, you will wonder how you ever lived without one. Oh how I could not understand those Americans who used their bidets as a storage for their library reading material.  Did they still not know that this was a bidet? Did they not yet know the many fantastic uses of this beautiful invention?

   Oh how I have missed having a bidet for the past 4 years! I keep telling my husband that we really need to put one in our bathroom. He keeps mumbling  something about having to re-route the plumbing.