The Piddle Papers

I realize I am talked about behind my back. I understand that I am vilified in the parking lot and blistered around the coffee maker. I am aware that even my own family holds me in some scorn. Since it is so apparent I am reviled in the market place and in my own home, just how did I become such a social pariah? What bounds of etiquette and human decency do I breech? Of what crime am I guilty? What unpardonable sin? Why, a crime of omission. I refuse to flush after I pee.

To the rest of the world, it is apparently quite shameful, a cultural faux pas against which laws may soon be passed. It is assumed that I am forgetful, lazy, rude and contrary. Well, I confess to the latter. And it’s true enough that I do forget, often and quite well. But the real truth is that refusing to flush is an act of social disobedience and political defiance. It is done without malice, but with full intent and forethought.

As a rule, I do not take stands idly. Contrary to what my wife might tell you, I do not thumb my nose at the world for its own sake. But I do have difficulty following accepted practice when accepted practice is illogical and ill-advised. And I hold that flushing your own water down with more water is a practice that just does not make sense, certainly not from a conservation standpoint, nor even from a health standpoint

The short history of this civil disobedience is that I grew up with a septic tank. And the physical nature of septic tanks is that they have leach fields which work best the less water they have to deal with. My father, the caretaker of said tank and aforementioned field, was a man who did not like to make extra work for himself, nor for any of his systems. Consequently, it was a short leap of logic to the house rule: “IF IT’S BROWN, FLUSH IT DOWN; IF IT’S YELLOW, LET IT MELLOW”, a rule which he assiduously enforced.

Now times have changed, I recognize. Sewer districts reach way out into the hinterland and serve some of the most rural areas. I haven’t been on a septic tank for years. And I don’t particularly yearn for that golden bit of yesteryear. But I don’t see that being on city plumbing should necessarily change rules that make perfectly good sense. Regardless of where you live, it is still a horrible waste of energy and resources.

Let’s do the numbers. Let’s say you take a leak six times a day. I haven’t done much in the way of bathroom exit polling, but I’d say this is way conservative. And let’s say you have one of those new low-flow flush toilets, the ones that use only 1.6 gallons per flush, not the old 3.5 gallon kind. I doubt it, but let’s assume that. And, just for conjecture’s sake, let’s say everybody in the United States flushes each and every time they pee. So you take roughly 283,631,668 people (as of last Tuesday), and you deduct 5% for those who aren’t potty trained yet and maybe 1% for those that forgot theirs. You deduct maybe another .1% for guys like myself who like to pee outdoors and maybe another .1% for those that can’t make it to sanctioned facilities. Now you got 269,166,453 people flushing 6 times a day. By my calculations, that’s about 2.5 billion gallons per day. Quantitatively, that’s a lot of water. Trust me. I’m an Engineer.

But we’re not done yet. Just how does that water get to your toilet? Mostly it’s pumped there by dozens of gigantic, energy consuming pumps. But before that, it’s chemically and mechanically treated to make it the purest and safest public water in the history of the world. And where does it go when it leaves there? Why to big waste treatment facilities where it is mixed with truly serious toxic wastes and again chemically and mechanically treated at great energy and infrastructure costs. The way I figure it, California wouldn’t be having those black-out problems if half their population would just let it mellow.

And why do we insist on flushing each and every time we go inky-tinky? One word-GERMS. Americans in particular are obsessed with germs. Oh, there’s some aesthetics involved. We don’t like to look at a yellow toilet bowl. Blue is OK somehow. But yellow disgusts us. We fear that our personal environment will become contaminated or unsanitary should we allow our piddle to stay in the house. We fear that nasty water will leap out of the bowl and grab us by the whatzit.

Well, do I have some medical science for you. You are probably not aware of such a thing as Urine Therapy. Urine Therapy is a recognized treatment modality of using your own urine, externally or internally, in a way to promote and maintain health. Indian Yogis have been drinking their own urine for about 5000 years---and living to tell about it. They began the practice for the positive effects it had on their meditation. However, there was then and there continues to be now, mounting evidence that urine is a powerful healing resource. The Greeks and Romans were practitioners. Hippocrates, the Father of Modern Medicine himself, mentions its efficacy.

It turns out that urine is not in any way a toxic product. The physical process is that toxic substances are being removed from the blood through the liver and intestines and excreted from the body in the form of solid waste. This now very purified blood makes its way to the kidneys where a terribly complex and intricate filtering process removes excess amounts of water, salt and other elements that the body does not need at the time. These excess elements are collected in the bladder in the form of a purified, sterile watery solution called urine. Your urine is actually purer than distilled water. Strange but True.

Not only that but urine constituents are a rich source of nutrients and new drugs. Pharmaceutical companies yearly gross billions of dollars from the sale of drugs made from urine constituents. Allergy medicines, blood clot dissolvers, fertility drugs and others are made from your pee. Urea, medically proven to be one of the best moisturizers in the world, is packaged in expensive creams and lotions. Take the M out of Murine, what do you have? Bingo! It’s made from carbamide---another name for synthetic urea. Who knew? We’re walking around with a veritable pharmaceutical cornucopia sloshing around inside us. I hear it’s great for acne and dandruff. We produce compounds that are antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, anticonvulsive, antispasmodic. Abundant! Free! Outside the bounds of the FDA! Yahoo!! Skip the middleman!

Actually, I haven’t taken the cure yet. But I’m thinking about it. The point is though that urine is not the fearsome toxic waste product we had imagined. And the process of instantaneously getting rid of it is both energy intensive and illogical. The time has come in our history where we should not be led by superstition and groundless fear. As a culture we may not be ready to drink it down. But surely, we can let it mellow.