OPINION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, August 30, 1993
5
You never know what you'll find in your toilet
As you are aware if you follow international events, over the past year I have written a number (two) of columns about the worldwide epidemic of snakes in toilets. As a result, I have received many letters from people who have had personal toilet-snake encounters, to the point where I now consider it newsworthy when somebody reports NOT finding a snake in a toilet.
But now I am getting nervous. I say this because of a recent alarming incident wherein a woman, attempting to use her commode, was attacked in an intimate place — specifically, Gwinnett County, Ga., — by a SQUIRREL I have an article from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, written by Gail Hagans and sent in by a number
of alert readers. The headline — a textbook example of clear journalism — states: "Squirrel somehow makes way into commode, scratches Gwinnett woman's behind."
The woman is quoted as follows: "I went to the bathroom and lifted the lid and sat down. That's when I felt something scratching my behind." So, following the recommended "Jump, Slam, Call and Tell" emergency procedure, she jumped up,
stimmed the up down, called her husband at work and told him to come home immediately, which he of course did. But she had a gender identity, but男 have a protective instinct that dates back millions of years to when they would
Unfortunately, by the time the husband got home, the squirrel had drowned, forcing us to once again ask WHEN the failed Clinton administration will demand that ALL commodes be equipped with tiny life preservers. But that is not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is that the squirrel apparently got into the plumbing system via a roof vent, which means that if you, like so many people, have a roof, your toilet is vulnerable to ANY organism with a long narrow body, including (but not limited to) otters, weasels, dachshunds, squids and international fashion models with only one name, such as "iman."
have to defend their mates from such vicious predators as the sabertoothed tiger and the mastodon (toilets were much bigger in those days).
But that is by no means the only major toilet development. There is also the Mystery Toilet in Texas that produces ballpoint pens. I am not making this up, either. According to a story in the Witchita Falls (Texas)
Times/Record Neus, written by Steve Clements and sent in several alert readers, a man named David Garza of Henrietta, Texas, has fished 75 Papermate ballpoint pens out of his toilet over the past two years, sometimes as many as five pens per day. Garza has no idea where they're coming from, and neither do the local sewer authorities.
The story was accompanied by a photograph of Garza sitting on the bathtub next to the Mystery Toilet, holding a pen, looking like a successful anger. I called him immediately.
"What's the status of the toilet?" I asked.
"It's still a mystery," he said. He said he hadn't found any new pens since the newspaper story, but that he has become something of a celebrity. This is understandable. People naturally gravitate to a man who has a Mystery Toilet.
"Everywhere I go," he said, "people say to me, 'Hey, you got a pen?'
I asked him if the pens still write,
and he said they do.
"Papermate ought to make a commercial out of this," he said. "The slogan could be, 'We come from all over and write anywhere.' You know, like Coca-Cola, It's there when you need it."
Actually, I don't think that's Coca-Cola's slogan. But Garza's statement got me to thinking about a possible breakthrough TV commercial wherein an athlete is standing in the locker room, sweating, thirsty as heck, and the toilet gurgles, and up pops a nice refreshing can of Coke. Yum! A commercial like that might be exactly what Coca-Cola needs to counteract all the free media attention Pepsi got recently with the syringe thing.
But the question is: Why are Papermate pens showing up in this toilet? There's only one logical explanation — I'm sure you thought of it — ALIEN BEINGS. David Garza's toilet is apparently connected to some kind of intergalactic sewage warp, through which aliens are trying to establish communication by sending Papermate pens (which are for sale everywhere).
Speaking of toilets and communication, you need to know about a TV-view column from *The Daily Yomiuru*, an English-language newspaper published in Japan. The column, sent in by alert reader Chris Grallat, states that there's a children's TV show in Japan called "Ugo Ugo Ruga," which features "an animated character with heavy eyebrows called Dr. Puri Puri (Dr. Stinky), a piece of talking excrement that keeps popping up from the toilet bowl to express strange platitudes only an adult can fathom."
You're thinking: "Hey! Sounds like Henry Kissinger!"
Dave Berry is a syndicated columnist from the Miami Herald.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Lack of tables hurts Jayhawker
A recent article in the Kansan explains that facilities operations will no longer provide free tables for organized groups on campus. The article should have stated no tables, not free tables. That's right, facilities operations has all these tables collecting dust, and organizations can not even rent them.
Organized groups are part of the lifeblood of the campus. Without these tables, the effectiveness of group communication with students will be dramatically reduced.
Here is an example of what the Jayhawker must go through now that someone made a decision without thinking of the consequences. The Jayhawker needs two tables, Sept. 7 through Oct. 1, for yearbook portraits. Instead of getting the tables through facilities operations, the Jayhawker must go off campus and rent the tables.
Sounds easy enough, but here's the kicker. First, the Jahwacker must get permission from the Parking Department to allow the rental company on campus. Second, the rental company must deliver and pick up the tables daily since the Jahwaker has no
place to store the tables overnight. I doubt the rental company will do this.
Come on, facilities operations.
While the easiest answer seems to be no, it is not always the best.
David Gunderson
Lawrence senior
Damage to vehicle angers its driver
I am writing to express my absolute displeasure with an unknown individual who broad-sided my car in lot 91 on the evening of Aug. 4. Between
At this juncture, I have two words of advice to whoever did this and decided to run and hide in the masses. First, take some driving lessons. Second and more importantly, take some responsibility for your actions. Your cowardly response to this incident is truly pathetic.
7 and 10 p.m., as I attended night class, someone had a little difficulty getting out of his/her parking spot. In the process of backing up, the unknown assailant produced several hundred dollars worth of damage to the driver's door of my car.
Randall Griffey Norton graduate student
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