Have you ever thought, as you gratefully wallowed in the luscious fruits of progress, that the day would come when society, including you, yourself, would become so dependent on vast hierarchies of bureaucracy and dense webs of technology that you would become unable to perform the simple function of relieving yourself without powered assistance, a collective outlay of millions, and the recording, on however small a scale, of the fact that you had actually #1-ed or #2-ed in a certain spot and at a certain time?

No. No, you did not.

You would be wrong.

It’s not all-pervasive yet, it is true, but the creeping automation of our nation’s washrooms is a menace to freedom that cannot any longer be gainsaid. The threat is undeniable.

Picture yourself, if you will, in Toronto. I’m sorry to be so cruel, but we have to go right to the source of the rot and examine it boldly, unsqueamishly.

You don’t have to touch it.

So you, poor sod, are stuck in Toronto. And you are unable to make your escape before Nature, in Her irresistable way, makes a call.

A collect call, if certain Torontonians have their way.

Long ago in the Dark Ages when I was a child, Toronto had something no small town or sprawling Prairie metropolis could boast: it had pay toilets. There was a lock on the outside as well as on the inside, but the one on the outside was operated by inserting a dime. Brought in as a fundraising scheme by some superficially shrewd politician who thought that by doing this he could essentially oppose taxes without having to do without all the pork barrel funding, they were quite resoundingly unsuccessful.

Allow me to clarify: they received what they were given, they flushed, they dispensed toilet paper, they didn’t complain even when paranoiacs peed on their seats. They performed perfectly as toilets, for the most part, because this was back when toilets worked mostly mechanically, as opposed to now where they operate by photocell, hydraulics, and some camera-op perv in the back room who flips a coin to determine whether or not you get enough water to actually remove what you’ve just deposited.

They failed as fundraisers. And why? A very simple answer, my friend. They failed because not only were they in Toronto, spiritual home of all grey-suited, poly-blend souls, but they were in Canada, spiritual home of the quietly courteous everyman/woman. We hold doors for people, even un-pregnant ones. And we did so when exiting these pay toilets, much to the relief of the people entering said toilets, who now not only didn’t have to touch the filthy door, but who also just saved ten cents because we were so polite to them. This, naturally, put everyone in a good mood, and the wee-wee-ers and doo-doo-ers of the city were no exception, so when they exited the stalls, they tended to hold the doors for the next person, who was always standing right there, for lo, Toronto‘s citizens are generally full of shit, as any good Westerner knows.

So Toronto is going to be putting pay toilets back, but only in the airport.

Look, have you been to Asia? Hell, have you been to Metrotown? Have you any idea how much difficulty regular old flush toilets present to tourists and to far too many people who live here, presumably use them every day, and therefore have no excuse for not knowing how to work the damn things? But all that aside, plus the discombobulation which will result from the newfangled, old-fashioned pay locks, the worst thing of all is the thing I haven’t told you about yet.

Now, have you heard of Global Warming? Mayhap you’ve clicked on the tv news and there it is, Stanley Park turned into Stanley Plains by a windstorm, BC Place Stadium‘s roof turning hang-glider all of a sudden, tens of thousands of people without electricity, etc, etc. Focus, if you will, on that last item.

Power.

They propose that these new locks be operated not mechanically, which is, in fact, the only part of the old system not to have failed in use, but rather by electricity. And why? Because electricity costs money and cannot be provided except though a monopoly, which I am sure never for a moment crossed the minds of the good men and women who are Toronto‘s public servants. Nor the minds of their career coaches.

Now, let’s look at what happens to the ladies’ room at Pearson International Airport when the power goes out.

First of all, it’s dark. And why is it dark? Because the washrooms don’t have any windows for fear of pervy peekers. Fair enough, everyone and her Chihuahua has a cellphone nowadays, and we can presumably find our way to the stalls by the glowing light of their screens.

There, however, we come to a dead halt.

Not only are the locks electrical, meaning, in this context, frozen solid, but, to prevent over-the-door purse snatches, the doors themselves go up to the ceiling and down to the floor. You cannot even crawl into the stall.

Hmmm.

One is desperate, one is (one is in Toronto, after all). One thinks about holding it. One realizes that the doors to the outside world are electrical as well. One realizes that one has about five more minutes before one does something very, very undignified, and so one crouches in a dark corner, waiting for the moment when everyone else, less intrepid, less creative, perhaps less desperate (maybe they’re used to it because they were born in Scarborough or something) gives up and leaves the ladies’ room. The moment comes at last. One creeps over to the sinks as quiet as a mouse, the biological kind, not the electrical kind, which are actually noisier and I’m sure you’re quieter than that or One is, that is. One de-pantses, quickly. One does what one must in the sink, silently giving thanks that it is at least liquid and nothing … uh … sturdier.

One re-pantses and turns, eager to wash away the evidence.

The tap is photosensitive. Electric.

One feels powerless, one does.

Of course, it could be worse: how would you like to be in the stall when the power goes out? No escape, no food, no water except what’s in the toilet bowl, and that you have just sullied with your own bodily wastes. I expect by Day Eight or so, you won’t be so picky, but god help you if it goes longer. At least the people who died in Pompeii had some kind of dignity. “Starved to Death in a Toronto Toilet” is not the kind of epitaph anyone could live down.

So to speak.

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