Talking Shit

Two unrelated things, but they both fit under that title, and the political shenanigans in the USA are getting boring except for today’s revelation that Mitt Romney was a bully in High School, but I’ll wait a day or two before writing about that.

A throne for a 21st century king

The funniest headline I’ve seen for a long time came from Tucson’s KVOA.com yesterday: “Attempt to Remove Bees With Flaming Manure Backfires.”  When you read the story, it’s not quite as insane as it sounds.   I’m no expert of the apiary art but I’m pretty sure that smoke, applied properly, is one way to get rid of bees.

So, the owner of the building, which was like a storage shed or something, and some of his idiot friends started a fire using cow pies and then shoveled them into the building to fill it with smoke.  Trouble was, they thought their job was finished and they walked away.  High winds the next morning whipped up some sparks from the still smoldering cowturds and before you can say “Darwin Award Nominee” the whole building is on fire.  The Tucson Fire Department rushed to the scene and put it out, but as soon as the smoke started to clear swarms of seriously ticked off bees came out of hiding and attacked the firemen.   The firemen responded with foam, killing all the bees and putting out the fire once and for good.  Nobody was seriously injured but the building was destroyed and the owner is out a lot of money.

Next time call a professional, guys.

The other thing I want to talk about is a sign I saw this morning.  Everybody knows I am a big europhile.  Even though my blog obsesses over American politics, I love living here and can’t see myself ever moving back.

But there’s one thing about Europe I really don’t like – pay toilets.  They’re all over the fucking place.  Metro stations, of course, all make you pay to pee and even fast food restaurants, like McDonald’s and KFC, ding you for an extra 5 crowns if you need to bodily  dispose of their product before leaving the premises.

What makes things worse, adding injury to insult actually, is that they are often stinky, poorly maintained toilets.

Well, today, I was wandering around Old Town because I had a bit of time to kill between classes.   I turned off Celetna, just past the pub where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart used to get blind drunk (Prague has been fulfilling that function for visitors for centuries) and I saw a sign I have never seen before, anywhere – “Deluxe Toilets.”  I didn’t stop in to look because I was not in need of the service at that moment, but I thought “Well, that’s a step in the right direction.  If they’re going to charge you, at least they should offer nice toilets.”

But I wonder what “Deluxe Toilets” actually means.  Is the toilet paper made of velvet?  Are the seats warmed electronically?  Do they pipe in soft, relaxing, music to poop by?  Are the cabins individually scented? (I much prefer pine to peppermint, btw)  Do they have Wifi?  Have they replaced the horrible old Ježibaba who scowls at you from behind her plexiglass window with a hot, young, large breasted girl?  (honestly, I might find that a bit disturbing)

Unfortunately, though, what “deluxe” usually means in situations like this is that they’ve raised the price.  Fuckers.