Bubble, bubble, toilet trouble
Wasting My Youth in Prague part 2
I learned how to use a toilet at three or four years of age. I assumed, from my lifetime of toilet use, that I could handle any toilet that came at me. After all, what could be more basic than a toilet? Are they not simplicity in itself?
Well, I have now learned that that assumption was pure arrogance. Some of the toilets here in Prague are indecipherable! I have been stymied by no less than three toilets since I got here (note: a stymieing toilet is defined as any toilet for which the user takes upwards of two minutes to locate and trigger the flushing mechanism).
Sometimes the flushing mechanism hangs overhead. Other times, it is foot operated. It could be anywhere. Or anything. Sometimes you push, sometimes you pull, and sometimes you turn.
Once, in a restaurant restroom where there would be no rest, I was just on the point of giving up. It must flush automatically, I thought to myself.
Then, just as I turned to leave, I saw the flush-switch thingie, located between the wall and the toilet tank in the most non-intuitive location imaginable. And so, our hero was saved from making a decidedly bad impression on the next patron. Whew!
* * *
Last week the Czech Republic took on Finland in the World Cup hockey final. I didn’t know about the game at first, but I knew something was up. That day, Prague was full of half-soused, half-naked youths with painted faces who wore the Czech flag as a cape.
I watched the last half-hour of the game on TV in my residence. When the Czechs scored the winning goal, the city went nuts.
Then, the next day, when the team arrived in Prague with the cup, the city went nuts again. In one of the evening’s highlights, a terrified drunk had to be removed from high atop a famous statue in Wenceslas Square.
It seems the Czechs take their hockey seriously. Kind of like another country I know.
* * *
Last Friday I had a rare opportunity to observe and photograph a bone chandelier at close range. We visited an ossuary at Kutna Hora (a small medieval village near Prague) which contained the remains of several thousand dedicated churchgoers. But these bones were not simply stored—they had been transformed into haunting works of art by their mad caretaker, who took his instruction to “make a nice ossuary” a bit too seriously.
In each of the four corners there is a huge, dusty pyramid of carefully stacked skulls and bones. The walls are ornamented with ornate crosses and crests, all human bone. The ceiling is draped with long skull-and-bone chains. And finally, the tour de force, a large hanging chandelier made from every bone in the human body.
As you would expect, this place got quite a range of reactions from my classmates. I was considered mad when I said I would be perfectly comfortable sleeping there. And why not? Personally, I would be much more afraid to sleep in a chilly basement crypt with several thousand living people. With the dead, you know where you stand.
* * *
You may recall that I live in an outrageous fire trap. As it happens, I nearly started a fire myself the other night.
I bought some candles at the supermarket, you see. They were really cheap (like, ten for a dollar), and the plastic holders looked a bit dodgy, but I bought them anyway. After all, no civilized nation would permit the sale of candles with flammable holders, right?
So there I was, dozing on my bed, lit candles placed around the room. In my slumber I heard the oddest sound, like the snap, crackle and pop of Rice Krispies superimposed over the sound of cooking fat. I looked up, and was shocked to see not a happily flickering candle on my desk, but instead a black, bubbling, flaming puddle!
Naturally, I extinguished it right away. Then I discovered the candle on top of my bookshelf had done the same thing!
Yeesh. This just goes to show that when you come to the Czech Republic, you walk with death.
* * *
Every day in Prague, I learn something new. Take this morning, for example. There I was, walking down a stone staircase with a bright, lime-green railing. I saw a nice, little, hand-lettered sign. “POZOR NATŘENO,” it said.
What a lovely sign, I thought. Pozor natřeno. How lovely.
Then I put my hand on the railing, and recoiled at its strangely sticky touch. I looked at the palm of my hand, now covered with fresh, bright, lime-green paint.
And that’s how our hero learned what “POZOR NATŘENO” means.
Next week: Oops! I did it again! •
Originally published in The Peak, May 28 2001.
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