James On ‘The Toilet’

There are many arbitrary calendar dates that have been requisitioned for commercial or charitable reasons dotted throughout the calendar.

There’s someone at my place of work who likes to email everyone on a quotidian basis to let us all know which particular ‘day’ it is.

It’s annoying.

I genuinely wish she would stop doing it.

On the other hand, no-one enjoys lampooning such ‘dates’ more than me. I’ve already ridiculed (in the most affectionate of ways) World Sandwich Day and World Kindness Day already this month and I plan to mock many more in the future.

So, when I discovered that today is officially ‘World Toilet Day’ I thought all my Christmases had come at once.

After all, what is funnier than a toilet?

Nothing, that’s what.

If you need proof of the comedy of the commode, read this brilliant piece I wrote about the time I got locked in a toilet.

Or this witty parable about how I once needed the toilet quite badly but couldn’t go because of a fire alarm.

Hilarious, aren’t they?

But on closer inspection, World Toilet Day is nothing to be made fun of. The whole purpose of it is to raise awareness of the fact that there are many places in the world where people don’t have access to adequate toilet facilities.

Which, I suppose I knew if I really thought about it, but then again that’s the point – it isn’t something I think about.

That’s partly because the media is saturated with horrible things. Things I want to pretend aren’t happening, because if I really stop and think about just how many dreadful things are occurring daily, the world over, then I’d probably go crazy.

Still, the idea that, in 2017, there are so many people who have to survive without adequate sanitation is quite a sobering thought.

And, actually, something I should be more aware of.