The Random Yak

…and I have apparently discovered mine.

When I ceased blogging shortly before major surgery last summer (yes, it was a great success, and yes, those who know me say the last-minute lobotomy The Random Spouse approved after they put me under has made me infinitely easier to live with) I wondered whether my time had run.  Whether The Random Father’s death, combined with the pressures of work and other (read: un-named) factors had finally put an end to The Random Blogging Adventure.

I thought about it.

I prayed about it.

I considered whether I wanted to reinvest so much of myself in it.

I read and listened to the comments of The Random Readers, and pondered whether, in the end, anyone would care if this website went quietly into that good night.

And in the end, I decided not to decide.  Sooner or later, I would just know the truth, and I could accept it, wherever it lay.

Well, the end has come - but I confess, it is not the end I had grown to expect.  The blog will not die.  It will continue, as will I.  Today is the first day of the rest of my blogging life…

And we owe it all to toilets.

Thanks to The Random Cousin, I now know that today is World Toilet Day, and that the powers that flush would rather we didn’t.  After years of bemoaning the “thousands of litres of wasted drinking water each year” that we waste in flushing … the same, toilet “experts” now inform us that flushing toilets represent an “unsustainable” concept.

Now, I don’t know how things go down in your home, but none of The Random Family (with the possible probable exception of Smallest Cat) actually consider the toilet bowl a significant source of drinking water.  I can’t recall the last time I shook my head sorrowfully after a flush in mourning for anything but the lost opportunity to watch the water swirl the other way.  And as for sustainability, I’m willing to bet that most residents of first-and-second world countries would consider a return to the open latrine a far more *cough* unsustainable situation.  (Yes, I know what it’s like in China.  But even there, a flush is considered a beautiful thing.)

I understand concern over wasted water.  I appreciate the need to act as good stewards over the earth and its resources.  I share a definite desire to improve the efficiency of water reclamation efforts and the functionality of the loo.  I even installed “low flush” toilets in The Random House, despite their somewhat irritating tendency to choke at inopportune moments.

But to those who say it’s time to revisit the “flush and forget attitude” that accompanies the use of the modern commode, let me say this: you’re welcome to come over and share the revisitation after The Random Niece tries to flush a tinkertoy airplane, or when a Random Guest disobeys the old Native American saw and leaves more than just footprints in the Random Room of Repose.  But – as anyone who has ever ‘revisited’ the issue understands only too well – “flush and forget” represents one of the greatest achievements of modern times, and those who would have us return to the outhouse might be surprised how fast they end up in the doghouse instead.

That said, it seems clear that the Yak…is back.  It only took potty humor to make it so.  Great thanks to the Random Cousin for helping to make it so.  (But no, this doesn’t mean I’ll pay his toilet tax if they impose one.  Some things, a guy has to do for himself.) 

Open Trackbacks on this post to celebrate the return of the voices in my head.  
Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, and Faultline USA, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.