'Great John' my @ss!

I know I'm gonna get flamed (not to mention go straight to hell) for this post, but I just couldn't hold myself back. 

Chalk it up to the unusual living conditions here at Chez Treppenwitz.  I'm over-tired and my defenses are down.  Let me start by saying that if someone reading along has a serious glandular/metabolic condition that makes this post seem insensitive or hurtful, I sincerely apologize in advance.  This obviously isn't directed at you.  It is directed at the people who've made a lifetime of bad eating decisions... and then compounded them by making silly accessory choices to try to minimize the damage.

It was only a matter of time... I mean, how did I not seen this coming?

Super-sized people have been shoveling super-sized meals into their collective maw for so long now that it has given rise to an entire set of sub-industries;  super-sized clothing... super-sized furniture... and now even super-sized cars. 

I'm not trying to be indelicate or mean to any of my readers who (like me) are 'gravitationally gifted'.   But when your entire business wardrobe comes from Big & Tall (psh'yeah, no denial in that name!) and your leisure-wear consists exclusively of velour track suits and mu-mus, it seems the only thing left to do is just give in and super-size the rest of your life.

Enter a company called Great John [pause while I clean coffee off the computer screen after reading that name!] which has super-sized the end-game of gluttonous consumption; the toilet. 

The folks at Great John have designed ("from the floor up!") a throne fit for the likes of Idi Amin... and are trying to explain away its raison d'être as the standard toilet's poorly-designed "small seat".  [emphasis mine]

Uh huh... the design flaw is in the standard toilet, not in the butt that has to interface with this essential piece of plumbing.  Let me put it this way; I own a pair of Levi 501s with a 32" waist that I haven't been able to wear since college.  The problem is not with the jeans.   I wear larger sizes now because of me... not because I discovered some essential design flaw in the old clothes I used to buy!  'Nuff said.

I know I must sound horribly mean pontificating from my low 200s (pounds, not kilos!), but when the Great John website says stuff like:

"A regular toilet... creates very uncomfortable pressure points, consequently producing numbness in the legs and thighs from lack of proper blood flow"

... it makes me wonder if maybe there isn't some unmentioned other problem at work here besides the toilet... like the inexorable forces of gravity exerted on the ginormous person perched daintily on the seat!

Look, everyone occasionally gets numb legs from spending a little too long on the crapper.  I don't know one person who hasn't gotten engrossed in a little bathroom reading and ended up doing the stiff-legged 'monster walk' afterward until feeling returned to their lower extremities.  But that's simply nature's way of gently reminding us to spend less time in there... not turn it into a porcelain Barcalounger!

Of course, there was one memorable Purim seuda (festive meal) Zahava and I attended at a close friend's house where I would have been deeply appreciative of a comfy toilet such as the ones advertised at Great John:

Strictly speaking, I had imbibed a little beyond the required amount that Purim... and what with all that good food I'd packed away at the meal I excused myself from the table in order to go 'sit a spell' in the smallest room in our host's beautiful home. 

The selection of reading material was rather sparse (mostly old Jewish Press') and I was a little drowsy... so within seconds I, er, drifted off.

Zahava must have missed me after 15 or 20 minutes (or so she later told me) because she sent someone to make sure I was OK.  I eventually answered the urgent banging on the bathroom door with much embarrassed throat clearing and promises to 'be right out', but the horrible truth was that my legs were so numb that I couldn't even stand up.  I was essentially paralyzed from the waist down!

After several minutes of really heroic effort I was able to put myself back together and exit the bathroom... but I would have dearly loved to have waited until even a little tingling sensation returned to my nether-regions before attempting any ambulatory movement.  Unfortunately, I had no idea at that point how long I'd been M.I.A. from the table and didn't want to be any more rude to our hosts than I'd already been.

As I did my stiff-legged stagger into the dining room... nonchalantly using the wall and nearby chairs for support... everyone at the crowded table politely ignored my dilemma. 

But one person - one of my closest friends in the world - just couldn't look the other way.  Instead he quickly picked up a shot glass... made a fist... and pressed the rim of the shot glass deep into the fleshy spot where thumb and index finger converge.  After a few moments he removed the shot glass and held up his fist (now bearing a deep red semi-circular indentation) for the assembled guests to see and gleefully exclaimed, "Hey Dave... does this look familiar?!"

The place just fell apart. 

All pretense of decorum went out the window, and long after the shrieks of laughter had died down, people were still dabbing at teary eyes and emitting little residual giggles and sighs.

OK, so yeah... I'll admit that under very narrow and specific circumstances I can see how one of these super-sized commodes might actually come in handy.  But please don't make it seem like the reason you designed the thing with "150% more contact surface area than a standard elongated seat" is because of idiots like me or because there is something flawed in the basic design of a standard toilet.  We all know the score here.

Oh, and the blurb towards the bottom of the web page where they casually mention that the "toilets are tested to 2000 lb... and to eliminate the problem of the SEAT SLIDING, we provide "Anti-Slide" fins for safety" sort of gives the game away.    Let's face it, if you're subjecting your commode to those kinds of G's, and you routinely find yourself in need of structural appendages to keep your, um, seat centered on the can, you don't need a new toilet... you need an intervention.

I am soooo back on my diet!