Toilet Trees

Over the weekend I went to Greece with Trevor. Upon arriving at our hostel in Athens--Hostel Zeus, named after the king of Olympus--I found myself needing to use the facilities. I made the trek down to the end of the hall and encountered a toilet with a most unsettling message: DON'T THROW PAPERS IN THE TOILET. Had the sign not depicted a hand throwing a medicine bottle--presumably empty though I'm going to assume this doesn't matter--and what appeared to be a crumpled up piece of computer paper into the gaping mouth of a toilet, I would have immediately interpreted the sign as being a warning against the disposal of your toilet paper in the actual toilet. But because to me the image seemed to warn against throwing garbage into the toilet, I thought I'd be safe flushing it all down together. After all, toilet paper is made for toilets (it's all in the name) and therefore has been designed to be flushed. If a toilet can't handle toilet paper, what else can't it handle? Other things that it, by virtue of it being a toilet, should be able to handle?

This concerned me deeply, so I promptly thrust if far from my mind and thus decided that the answer to my confusion lie in the word "papers." I do not call toilet paper "toilet papers." Rather I call it "squares of toilet paper." Perhaps they would be called "papers" if they were not all strung together in one "toilet paper roll." But they are. So I decided the "papers" to which the sign was referred were papers of a bureaucratic sort.

"Don't worry," I assured the toilet as I settled down on the seat, shifting my body weight to my right side to avoid the discomfort of the pinching that came about as a result of tiny hairline cracks in the toilet seat. "Don't worry, Toilet. I'll keep my documents to myself." I knew that I had to get home somehow and therefore had no plans to throw my passport into this Greek toilet.

The incorrectness of my interpretation of the sign rapidly became clear, though, when I attempted to flush my economical amount of toilet paper (I had still been a bit hesitant to fully trust my original interpretation). The bowl emptied, the water refilled, and there, floating, lurking in the depths was a lonely square of toilet paper.

It was then that I looked in the garbage can, searching out where my toilet square should have gone. I peeked in through the swinging lid and saw a garbage can much fuller than I usually see in bathrooms. I couldn't tell in what manner the toilet paper had been used--for all I knew, someone could have been using all those toilet "papers" to blow their nose. Swine flu, you know. Choosing not to take a whiff, however, I decided to trust my instinct and believe that this was the rightful place of my toilet paper. At that moment, I was very happy that I was not the janitor at this hostel.

I was, however, distraught over this discovery. This toilet paper goes into the trash, not down the drain into the sewage system. From the short amount of time I had spent in Athens, I had seen a great deal of garbage, though no sewage. Piecing these two together, I could only hope that this was one bit of garbage that would not end up coming back to haunt me.

On Saturday night, Trevor and I decided to go out for a "nice" meal. To us, this means going to a place where you sit down and actually have to tip. It means nothing more. But the restaurant we went to was a pretty nice restaurant--very clean, very modern, and very tasty food. When the meal was done, I decided I would go to the bathroom, just so I could experience what it was like to flush toilet paper in Greece (and actually have it disappear). So I went down to the bathroom and was pleased with everything I saw--motion detector lights, a nice basin for the sink, and a very sleek, frosted glass door to the stall. Getting into the stall, though, I discovered a sign on the toilet that said, DON'T THROW PAPER INTO TOILET. This sign featured a drawing as well, though this time the artist kindly made the paper actually look like toilet paper--rather than having it look like a crumpled up piece of notebook paper, the artist drew a banner of toilet paper, with dotted lines crossing it to indicate the perforated edges for easy separation.

I was disgruntled, being forced to not throw my "paper" into the toilet, but rather proud of myself for being able to instantly decipher the meaning of this sign. I suppose it's easier to interpret when the drawing doesn't suggest garbage and the slogan doesn't suggest documents.

That night when we got back to the hostel, I went to use the bathroom again. There was a piece of toilet paper floating at the bottom (not mine). I had to smile at the poor person who had made this mistake. Sitting on the toilet, leaning to the right, I had to say to myself about the poor confused soul who had done this, "Silly, silly. Can't you read the sign?"