I don’t like cleaning commodes. Then one evening, I came across an Internet ad that promoted something I would buy in a heartbeat. It was a new kind of toilet cleaner that worked better than anything yet devised. You simply lowered this electronic device into the toilet bowl, turned it on, and left it for one hour. Bingo! When you return, lift the lid and flush, the toilet is totally clean, looking brand new on the inside, and the electrical thingy just as clean, perhaps even cleaner than when you unwrapped it upon delivery.
“Buy it now,” the ad said. “Only $30, and that price is marked down from $60!”
I was getting out my credit card when this thought struck me: Wait a minute! First, I should see what my friend Sal has been up to.
We all called Sal the “Eight S’s and Even More Man.” This moniker was short for “Sly Sal the Silent but Sensational though Somewhat Secret Science Sucker”. (Being as how we all grew up and lived near Boston, when we talked among ourselves, we automatically swapped the last S with an F, forming that good old Anglo-Saxon word we probably learned from the Brits a couple of centuries ago when they discovered what we had done to their tea.)
Sal had always been quite the inventor. He put together things in his basement that had the potential to shake the world. Yet he never thought to tell anyone what he had done. He created one amazing product after another and then quietly moved on to the next.
His memory wasn’t too good either. I would bet the farm that this problem was due to his affinity for Dead Possum Scotch. Maybe that drink helped him to come up with all his ideas, who knows? He often would take his leave of us and all of humanity for several days when he began to imbibe.
Dead Possum Scotch: This splendid beverage tasted like the best bottle of red street wine for under a buck, expertly blended with overnight cold medicine. The medley was then reinforced with grain alcohol and molasses, contributing to a bouquet almost like the smell of autumn leaves, once they had dissolved through the winter into a grey, wet, mildewy mat.
Sal just adored the stuff.
Nevertheless, I tried my luck and called him early the next morning. He sounded sober.
I said, “You’ve got to see this amazing gadget that automatically cleans commodes.”
Sal said, “A toilet cleaner? Think I invented something like that last Wednesday. Can’t remember.”
That afternoon, a few pals and I went over to his place to ask him about what he’d invented to clean toilets. But we were about six hours too late. We found him out cold with his cheek flat on his kitchen table, smack dab on top of one of those miserable letters he always got from his estranged wife, and a big, happy smile on his face as he hugged an empty bottle of Dead Possum.
We had no choice but to go down to his dingy basement to see if we could find his toilet cleaner ourselves.
Mice scattered everywhere when we went down there.
The walls were lined with large pigeonholes containing every conceivable contrivance, or parts of the same, none labelled and none recognizable to any of us.
His workbench was hidden under a tangled heap that could almost be part of everything in the world and then some, with plenty of mechanics’ tools mixed in. I saw a loaded .38 snub-nosed revolver on top of the pile, but I couldn’t begin to name most of the rest.
Luckily, before we began delving into this enigmatic mound, one friend spotted a small corner of a clean envelope poking out from beneath one of the doohickies in the wall bins. Pulling it free, we saw scribbled the words “special toilet cleaner.”
Yes!
Inside the envelope were three pills, like aspirin tablets, and simple instructions: “Put one tablet into your toilet bowl and take a vacation.”
Another slip of paper in the envelope listed the pill ingredients and their itemized costs. The Internet outfit wanted $30. Hell, Sal’s pill costs less than a nickel!
We were all going to be millionaires!
Naturally, we were eager for a test run. We knew Sal wouldn’t mind our experimenting, his being in LaLa Land and not coming back soon. We rushed to his main bathroom on the first floor.
Now, stay with me on this because what happened next was totally amazing, no, almost terrifying would better describe what we witnessed.
Thoughts of Scrooge McDuck swimming in his money bin gave us the courage to stand by through it all. I think with less motivated individuals it would have been more like, “run away, run away,” to quote Monty Python’s medieval knights under a deluge of cows.
We dropped one of Sal’s pills into the toilet bowl, and the tablet quickly began to dissolve. A strange gurgling began. We bent down until everyone’s head hovered in a low ring over the bowl. The water lay calm. The gurgling came from somewhere deeper. The noise became more emphatic, like the accented growls of an angry alpha wolf. I thought that the toilet sounded just a tad irritated.
To our astonishment, the water supply valve on the wall began to turn all of its own until it had completely shut itself off.
“Look!” we said, standing up. “Look at that!”
Then we saw the inlet tube unscrew its coupling and fall away from the valve and dangle almost to the floor. The flush handle twisted, and the water in the bowl drained swiftly, dissolved pill and all. This left a few cups of fresh water in the tank, which continued to gurgle, or growl, every so often.
The entire toilet began to tremble, and the floor began to vibrate with increasing intensity, like the tremors of a mild earthquake. Everyone backed a bit to keep out of the way.
First, the inverted plastic cups that covered the floor bolts on each side of the toilet’s porcelain base popped off. “Poik. Poik.”
For a moment, the toilet shook so uncontrollably we thought the wall mirror was going to come crashing down. The brass nuts on the exposed floor bolts shook loose from the washers. The vibrations wound the nuts up to the top of the bolts, where they toppled off and bounced to the floor.
Suddenly, the vibration stopped. You could have heard a pin drop. It seemed as though the toilet was thinking about what it was about to do.
It suddenly gave an almighty heave to the right. We all darted out the bathroom door so we could stand in the hall and peek around the door jambs to see what happened next.
The left of the base had lifted off the floor until its lower surface cleared the top of the bolt. The brass washer slid away. The toilet pivoted on the right bolt and yanked the left side of its base several inches away from the wall. The bolt hole in the base moved ahead accordingly.
The whole thing hovered like that for a moment. Then the solid portion of the base fell onto the top of the bolt. “Ga clunk!”
It seemed that the thing was staring at us, willing us to get out of the way. We tried to stare back, but soon decided that we were no match for its tremendous will. We stepped back to watch from the far wall of the hallway.
The toilet rocked to the left, turned towards us, and came down on the right bolt. “Clunk!”
Balancing itself on the tops of both floor bolts, the toilet stopped again and glared at us. We were all ready to break into a sprint if that was required.
Tilting and pivoting back and forth, the toilet stomped out into the hall. We kept clear of the thing and followed. It led us to the other two bathrooms in Sal’s house, one after the next.
At each of the other bathrooms, the original commode stopped and leaned gently against the toilets there and gurgled to them with the slight amount of water left in its tank. Evidently, it was passing the necessary information along. The other toilets gurgled back then went through the same actions as the first one had.
Keeping abreast of everything that was going on, simultaneously having to step out of the way while you wondered whether or not you had gone insane, it was clear now why Sal had suggested his customers take a vacation. Brilliant, Sal, we thought, absolutely brilliant.
The second and third toilets got free much faster than the first one had. This was because we had learned our lesson — no staring contests and keep our distance.
Now that the three of these porcelain beasts were loose, the miracle of cleaning began. Nobody saw where the brushes had come from, but the toilets furiously scrubbed one another using nothing but vinegar, Ajax, and plenty of porcelain grease… Or so one of us theorized since toilets don’t have elbows.
Soon, the commodes gleamed like diamonds inside and out.
In the full bathrooms, the toilets now addressed the tubs and shower stalls.
(These were in a sorry state under Sal’s care. His wife had left him several years earlier, which was understandable, given that she had become second fiddle to Sal’s devotions. Dead Possum had taken over as numero uno in that department, as it usually does with its aficionados.)
The purification work continued with such industry that the tubs and shower stalls were soon cleaner than when they had come from the factory. They seemed much happier, too.
The toilets bumped the lavatory sinks, which came alive and broke free. It wasn’t long before most of the appliances in the home were twisting on their bases and moving about, the clothes washer and dryer, the dish washer, the refrigerator, and the chest freezer, and, yes, even the kitchen sink. The place was so busy that we had to hop one way, then the other, and sometimes back again to avoid getting in the way.
We had never seen such faithful and undaunted commodes. They continued to work until every fixture and appliance was spotless.
Struth! All of these items were not done yet. Far from it. Over the next few days, they commenced to clean the rest of the house. They worked in dazzling coordination, all for the good of the team.
They cleaned the laundry room and kitchen, cabinets included. Bare floors and rugs were next, followed by doors, woodwork, and all beds and furniture. They cleaned the closets and put away summer clothes for the winter.
(In fact, it was springtime, so the winter clothes should have been stored. This error had gone right over our heads, but Sal caught it on his first run through a few days later. He made a quick adjustment of his ingredients to fix the problem.)
Just when we thought that there was no more work to do, all these animated items surprised us again. Why, they had just built up their momentum!
They threw open the front door and marched outside to commence sprucing up the yard. They raked leaves and mowed the grass, pulled weeds in the flower gardens, washed the house walls and cleaned out the gutters. They replaced roof shingles that had gone bad. (Sal had later maximized his ingredients so the entire roof would be replaced if needed.) They pruned trees and shrubs and chipped up the cuttings to use as mulch.
Wow, Sal! What’ll you think of next?
Passing motorists began to stop and gawk, as if they couldn’t believe their eyes. We knew this would not happen by the time we were all rich. Toilets and all the rest out working themselves to the bone would become a common sight. Drivers wouldn’t even slow down.
Sal had thought of everything. One toilet and a lavatory sink momentarily left the pack to knock on nearby doors. This was to inform baffled neighbors what was going on. Obviously, no words were spoken. (Toilets and sinks don’t know how to talk!) Instead, the homeowners received a pamphlet to assure them that the work was almost done and soon things would be back to normal, everything clean, orderly, and germ-free!
We thought that this was a great touch. Because we weren’t sure how long the work in Sal’s yard could go on before the police began to arrive, or the National Guard armed with live rounds.
And having done all these chores, the fixtures marched dutifully back into the house, thoughtfully locked the door, and commenced to reinstall themselves in their original positions.
When we checked that all was well in the first bathroom, that is the one where the first toilet responded to Sal’s pill, we found a note on the floor we had apparently missed when we were first there. It was a polite warning to anyone who might have happened to be sitting there doing their business before the startling movements began. We thought this an extremely considerate touch.
The entire operation took several days. The house and grounds were now ready for their owners’ return from their vacation.
Sal had sobered up, and we all congratulated him and wanted to begin the marketing of his astounding invention right away. He was happy for us to get started, so long as we left him free of the business end of things. He was busy with his next project.
“What’s that?” We all wanted to know.
“An elephant call,” he said. “It’s silent like a dog whistle, but the sound converts to an extremely low pitch that can carry for miles. If I get it right, elephants will begin to arrive even if there weren’t any around to begin with.”
“Why would anyone want to call an elephant?” we asked.
His eyes lit up. “A really convincing watchdog. Think about it!”
I quietly asked Sal about the pistol in his basement.
“Well, if you’ve been down, you would have seen the rodent problem I have,” he said. “But I can’t figure out how to make a better mousetrap.”
Well, maybe a gun was a bit of overkill. No one said Sal was perfect.
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