To get to Heaven

We all know where cleanliness gets us. Here is an unsolicited comment that was posted to me recently by someone named "Jeff":

“You need to get a hand held bathroom bidet sprayer and you will be in Heaven. For those of us who really like to be clean it is the best invention since the toilet. It is so much better than a stand alone bidet..."

And he goes on to enumerate the reasons that a hand-held sprayer is so much better than a bidet.

One thing I didn't know was that if I cleaned myself off with water every time I used the bathroom, I would be in Heaven. You learn something new every day. And maybe it's true. I never tried.

Well, almost never. While I do have limited experience with bidets, there was one in my apartment in Italy where I lived while studying abroad in college. I can't remember using it for much more than a receptacle to place a make-up bag when we were getting ready to go out to the bars (it was very clean). But I did kind of check it out once to see if the plumbing worked. That kind of thing. I can't say that the idea of having water come UP out of the toilet-looking apparatus, rather than down, was something I felt particularly good about.

Usually, when I think of water spraying out of a toilet, it's not a good thing. I remember a Dave Barry column, from I think around 2004, where he talked about how invisible toilet spray from a normal flush toilet has a radius of something like 3 feet. (Hide your toothbrushes.) That was also the piece in which he described lighting his toilet on fire. After reading that column, I now have a regular habit of closing the toilet lid while flushing. Even if it's nowhere near my toothbrush.

But getting back to bathroom sprayers, I don't know that a back-end sprayer would improve my quality of life. But maybe Jeff has a point. "Moistened towelettes" for bathroom use have become more popular in recent years. Perhaps the old toilet paper just isn't doing all we need it to do. Perhaps the public is crying out for a better solution. Maybe this is it.

And the best reason to get a hand-held bathroom sprayer? "You don’t have to get up and move from the toilet to the bidet which can be rather awkward at times to say the least."

Thanks, Jeff. You might just be our TP messiah.