Is There a Bidet in Your Future?

In 1999 my husband and I went to Paris to see the last total solar eclipse of the millennium.  We fell in love with this truly magical city of lights.  The food was great, all but one of the waiters were polite, the eclipse was rained out, but the clouds parted just as totality was achieved and I got me first view of, “Baily’s Beads.” [Those are the pearl shaped drops of light that shine between the mountains on the moon and ring the edges of the darkened orb as it blacks out the sun.] 

The trip was memorable for many reasons, not the least of which was my first experience with a bidet.  The French don’t get everything right, but they certainly pounced (crouched…squatted…straddled???) on a winner with this spiffy little invention.

          Aside from the ever popular, “foot bath” jokes, the bidet is a great addition to any bathroom.  The traditional bidet of the movies and many nice hotel rooms is a low, basin shaped fixture.  It is almost the size of the toilet, usually with sink type handles for managing water temperature and velocity.  In the ever-whimsical French fashion, the word, “bidet” means a pony, and probably comes from the approved form of straddling the bidet as one would a small horse.  For those who still need to be disabused of any confusion over the use and function of a bidet, let me simply (and not too clinically) tell you that it is designed to wash, “parts.”  Intimate, “parts.”  Waste removal, “parts.”  Any, “parts” on the human body usually associated with the sewage treatment plant or the red light district are fair game for the ablutions of the bidet. 

            Trust me, you will never have felt so fresh!

            It is true that the first time you use one of these it will make you jump.  But any intelligent person can figure out how to, “ease” into the flow.  After all, if the French can figure it out…well, you get my point.

After our Paris excursion I was so besotted of bidets that I frequently mentioned them.   Last fall my husband got me one for my 66^th birthday.  

            While a bidet is traditionally a porcelain fixture it can also, thanks to modern technology, be a toilet seat.  This 21^st century accommodation uses a heated seat that fits permanently over an existing toilet.  It has computer driven, retractable nozzles, an in-board water heater, a blow dryer (also heated), and a remote control device.  Using up no more space than your existing commode, you too can have a bidet!

            Now here is the interesting part:  My thinking was that it takes a bold man to get his wife plumbing for her birthday.  Not so.  It seems that bidets are a hot item.  In six months I have had three friends also get a bidet.  They sell them at Lowe’s and you don’t get more main stream than that!  Here is the American system of capitalism at its best.  There is a perceived need.  That need is met both in traditional (porcelain facility) and non-traditional (toilet seat variety) ways.  The market responds with a better product, competition drives the price down to a sustainable level, and we all end up with squeaky clean parts! 

            You have to love America.  By the way, do you have any idea what would have happened if the government had decided that bidets should be mandated for all bathrooms?  That, my friends, is the difference between having your junk clean and your mammary gland in a wringer.

            Keep clean and keep the faith.