Daley Travels

Strange how one of the defining marks of a culture is the design of their bathroom, or water closet, or loo, or privy, or outhouse,…. See what I mean. do you squat, stand, sit or straddle? I am pretty sure that as adventurous as my wife is , I will never get her to a country that has you squatting over a hole in the floor, no matter how nicely tiled the room is, or how clean it is..

On a construction site in the states you’d find the portable chemical john. Self contained, and hopefully, pumped and cleaned on a regular basis. Here in Hungary, at least at this work site, we had the good old school pit toilet. AKA outhouse. Smelly, yes, fly ridden, yes. Breathe through your mouth and you won’t smell it. Sure…. I find tasting the air just as disgusting. At least there was two sides, Noi and Ferfi, girl and boy.

The indoor public restrooms are much better, or course. In our hotel in Budapest I found two buttons to flush, by room mate with some European travel experience pointed out that it is a mini-flush and a maxi-flush feature. (There is a great water saving feature that could be used stateside.)

Here they also separate the the toilet from the wash basin with a solid door. Even in the houses we are building that is so. In the public restrooms there will be a couple of closets with the toilet set in these. Quite different from the US model made of flimsy partitions and the foot high gap on the sides and door.

Now here is a strange feature I found on the water closet at the bath in hajduboszormeny, it had no door knob. In retrospect I should have inspected that anomaly. I just assumed that the latch that locks the door is the same latch that will unlock the door. Yes, it was odd that it took as good hard slam to get the door to close, but maybe it was not built so well. Trust me now, it was built well.

When I stood to leave, I turned the latch to open the door. I pushed. I pushed harder. It was definitely more than stuck, it was still latched.

Did you get that description of this. It is a closet with a toilet in it. There is no gap tol crawl under, no partition to climb over. There is a small window, but I am not that desperate, yet. I am at a public pool, with only my swimming trunks on, and I have not idea how to yell, “Help, I am stuck in the water closet”, in Hungarian. (I doubt that if I had my handly little phrase book it would have helped me).

Perhaps if I start babbling in English they will go get the other Americans to come to my aid. There has to be some alternatives here. The A-Ha moment comes to me. I have my room key. If I can somehow jam it into the turning mechanism I can turn the latch enough to open the door.

Key in, too loose, All the way in, not enough leverage to twist. Next idea. Not a good one.

Get a running start and bust the door open with my shoulder. I’ve seen enough cop shows to know a door can give when rammed with enough speed and bulk. Key word here, speed. There simply is not enough room in there to gain any kind of ramming speed. The little I did hit it with made me think that it would not work anyway. It I hit it with enough force to break it, my shoulder would bust and certainly that scream of agony would bring some attention. Time to use the small room to some advantage.

Sitting now on the closed lid of the toilet I brace my back against the wall, and my feet on the door. I will power push that puppy open.. I think for a minute about my escape, I’ll just walk past the splintered door and calmly head back into the water. No one knows me here, and they will forever wonder what happened to that door. Ok, push…….flush……I succeed in pushing the flush botton on the wall behind me with my back.

Sit, think, try that key again. This time I have better luck and make my break.