I spent the past week traipsing around Europe and, luckily, I’d not brushed up against the poop shelf until last night. For those of you not in the know, the poop shelf toilet is a toilet that offers an unobstructed view of your waste, both solid and liquid, before it is whisked away into the darkness. As this guy states,, it’s found in many German-influenced countries including Poland and some former Soviet Central European destination spots. The poop shelf is a diabolical invention created, I believe, by the Stasi as a method to break down the mental resilience of the populace.
Imagine, if you will, my surprise when I sat down quite calmly and began the steady evacuation of a week’s worth of processed reindeer. An odd scent wafted up over me and I was sadded to find that I was mere inches away from a very unpleasant evening. The poop shelf had struck again. While I can laugh all I want, why in God’s holy name would these madmen invent the poop shelf? Was it to suss out contraband? To examine the waste in private before disposing of it? Was it a game, a la Three Kings Day, where the child who pulled a kewpie doll from a pile would win that evening’s orange? Answers, people, and fast.
I was not aware of the poop shelf. Now I know of this communist scourge, a remnant of the Nazi party perhaps still trying futilely to infiltrate the modern western world to destroy our minds.
Still I think the poop shelf is safer than the squat toilet. My legs just are not strong enough for the marathons I go through in there.
We must rally together and bring the joy of the modern flush to the world. Take a crow bar to that row beast and free these people!
Actually squat toilets are supposed to be beneficial – places where there are squat toilets have an extremely low % of people with hemorrhoids and other rectal ailments
Thank you very much, boss, for this fascinating take on European culture, poop culture (of all things), to be more exact. I especially enjoyed your including of my home country of Germany as the origin of poop shelves.
To answer your question:
Even though I am far from calling myself an expert on relaxing one’s bowels, I think poop shelves are there to avoid those nasty splashes that can be observed when you do the bad thing in toilets without shelves.
if you’re splashing, dude, you have other problems.
Yeah… who knows?
Great post! This is a question that even us Germans have trouble answering satisfactorily.
So far the explanations that have been put forward by my countrymen are:
* Avoidance of splash-back. (Previous poster john biggs seems to think that splash-back is an unnatural phenommenon — maybe his bowel-movements are liquid rather than solid. Fact: Solids dropping into water cause a splash.)
* The shelf allows for easier collection of stool samples
* The most convincing explanation is that the poop-shelf was introduced by the Prussians and allowed the stool to be inspected for signs of disease or other disorders.
The disadvantages of the poop-shelf are:
* The olfactory load is significantly increased.
* Traces of poop are often left on the shelf requiring use of a toilet brush. A prevantive measure is to prepare a “landing strip” of toilet paper on the shelf before getting down to business.
That will be all for now.
I believe this is another product of the “church of fudge” look it up if you dare but remember you can’t unsee something.
A “landing strip”, LOL. Superb Saturday morning reading.
You know, three weeks ago I went on from Bucharest to Paris by car and had to stop for eating or sleeping in Hungary, Austria and Germany and I’ve been troubled by the same thought. Why would they use those kinds of toilets? And yes, it’s only in the German influenced countries. I didn’t see anything like that in France.
talkin’ bout france? then go to any old fashioned pub in paris and look what they got. u have to shit in standing position. no fun – i tell ya!!
Still better than the Turkish toilets where you have to squat. You don’t want to miss, the splashback will get you. Especially if you are tall.
A great read with a cup of morning coffee!!!! Maybe “The Poop Shelf” should replace “The Dead Pool”. It’s stickier, smells bad, and could make a splash back!!!!
My old Chemistry Professor told us on several occasions that if you’re mixing two liquids you should always pour the more dangerous one into the other (i.e. you pour an acidic solution INTO a basic one). The main reason, she stated, was that through simply physics a “splash” consists of the liquid that is being poured into.
I’d rather deal with the possibility of getting toilet water on me when I take the browns to the Superbowl as opposed to ending up with a possible tetris tragedy on my hands.
i lamented this same problem in my own blog a while back. the answer that i was given was that it was from the “olden days” when people got lots of food and water-borne infections. by having your poop on a shelf, you could more closely examine it, helping to determine what the exact problem was, and thereby fixing it.
that’s the only credible reason i’ve heard, other than the stinky torture chamber.
believe me. its just a medical thing.
just like caspar said.
it’s for the easer inspection of stool samples. not any weired nazi or stasi stuff… :-)
T…M…I
The answer is simple. It is answer for shit floating in the water, that is not willing to leave toilet.
The splash of water from upside gets any floating shit away. You do not have to try several times
BTW – we Europeans hate the american style, where balls are drowning in the water while sitting