Chas and I are becoming history buffs, of sorts. He really enjoys Seconds from Disaster, which is actually National Geographic, our other favorite channel. But it was Modern Marvels tonight. This episode was called Bathroom Tech. If they had taught this stuff in my college history classes, instead of all politics, governments, and wars, maybe I would have attended.
But tonight we learned the history of everything from showers, baths, and outhouses to toilets, toothbrushes and toilet paper. And we also learned that the word 'crapper' become a popular slang word for toilet during World War I. Soldiers saw the name Thomas Crapper on the tanks of toilets as they traveled throughout Europe. No lie, that is the poor guy's name. A little further research on the net yielded quite a few informative sites such as www.theplumber.com/crapper.html which attempts to separate myth and fact. It turns out, Mr. Crapper didn't invent the first toilet, but rather patented and manufactured several devices that improved it. Later I'll go over to switchboard and see if there are any living descendants.
That reminds me of a time when Tim and I were waiting for a table at OCharley's restaurant in Garner and we got bored. We took the white pages from the payphone in the lobby and looked up all sorts of odd names. I wish I could remember the names we eventually found. I only remember a lot of laughing out loud.
Okay. Here we go. Switchboard.com lists 31 Crappers nationwide. Interesting.
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