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Behold – the Toto Mercer toilet.

It is, to your common Earthly toilets what the Space shuttle is to the oxcart.  And one is now gracing my first-floor bathroom.

Sure, the basic operation is the same as with toilets you may have used in the past: you push a lever on the side which triggers a mechanism that sends the contents elsewhere.  But with the Mercer, tapping that lever sends whatever is in the bowl into another dimension.  Instantly.

You could drop three bowling balls, a crate of hammers and a live civet cat into this thing, hit the lever, and it will blast the lot out of your life in a flash. And the Mercer will do so with hardly a whisper and while using next-to-nothing for water.  Best of all, just as quickly as it empties it is recharged and ready to go at it again.

This product is absolutely amazing. If you are ever in my neighborhood, stop by for a bran muffin and a test drive.

As of today, my son Ben is the proud holder of a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from The University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  Nicely done, Ben!Plans are in the works for graduate school in the fall. But for now, it’s time for some well deserved time off.

Across the street from my apartment building in Baltimore is a lovely old house with two bronze mermaids flanking the front door.  They are each about the size you would expect a real mermaid to be. Over the years, the metal of these sculptures has taken on a dusty patina from the salt air, except for those parts which – for whatever reason – seem to invite the tender touch and drunken caresses of passers-by. On those spots, the metal is bright and shiny. 

See if you can tell which portions of the statues garner the most attention.

We made an interesting discovery when we pulled up the old floor in the kitchen. On the underside of one of the oak thresholds between the rooms, we found the names and ages of the members of a family who lived in the house 90 years ago. It was signed by the mom and three children of the Nelson family on March 20 of 1916.

Their youngest was 8 years old at the time, which would make them 98 years old now if they are alive at all. Can you imagine how completely unfathomable what’s happening now – their note being photographed with a digital camera and posted to a website – would be to any of the signatories? One hundred years from now, I wonder if there will be any trace at all of my tenure here.

When shopping for a hotel room, they all sound wonderful. Most come with superlatives like “Super-ultra deluxe,” or “Triple-A First Class” but in reality they end up being – at best – pretty much average. God help you if the room you book is ever described by the hotel as “good” or “standard.” In that case, “good” means “not good.”

Misleading rating systems aren’t confined to hotel rooms by any means. Take the example of the “Five-Star Quality and Cleanliness Guarantee” that is proudly displayed at the entrance of service area restrooms on the New Jersey Turnpike. Sounds pretty promising, doesn’t it? After a few hours on the road with a Starbuck’s latte marching through your system the idea of a Five-Star facility is just what you need. Why, with five stars it isn’t hard to imagine them having an attendant in there to hand you a fresh towel after you wash your hands with a selection of fine scented soaps. This, of course, as you emerge, refreshed, from one of their sanitary and modern stalls. They may even have newspapers and magazines in there for you, what with that five star rating and all.

Ahh, but as you probably already suspect, the actual experience was another matter altogether.

Rather than describe the true environment that awaited me behind that deceptive sign when I drove the length of that fine highway last week (and believe me, it is nothing you ever want to experience first-hand) let me put it in some sort of perspective. I think it is fair to say that in order to consider those facilities as being of “Five Star Quality,” such an assessment would have to be based on a rating scale like this:

****** A slightly-dingy outhouse at a campground in the Appalachians, with a dead raccoon used to hold the door shut
***** “Five-Star Quality” N.J. Turnpike Service Area Restrooms
****    A prison toilet in Tijuana – the BAD part of Tijuana
***      The New Orleans Convention Center, five days post-Katrina
**        The inside of a monkey’s diaper, and not a cute monkey either
*          The fourth circle of Hell, with a stopped-up drain