By Ricc Bieber
The fun SCNA members had experiencing Al’s new bidet at the January poker party reminded me of the first time I ever saw one of those peculiar devices.
In 1967, my parents decided that we needed to move to a bigger place. I think it was more my mom, actually. We lived in South-Central Los Angeles, on the western edge near Western Ave., in the Watts riot zone and just north of Gardena.
Our parents dragged the four of us (I was fifteen at the time and the oldest) around looking at houses in Beverly Hills, West LA, Pacific Palisades, and generally the west side of town. On one occasion, we were going to see a house in Beverly Hills that was owned by Gig Young, the actor. It was quite a place. The entire house was done in white, the marble floors, carpets, walls, ceilings, the entry colonnade —you name it— it was very, very white. In other words, it looked fairly intimidating, at least to us kids.
In the course of our investigation of the house, unfettered by the real estate agent or our parents, we got to poke around and check things out. When we got to the master bathroom, we were amazed! It was huge, with a lot of space and, of course, done in white marble. It had a sunken oversized tub and a large glassed-in shower, but most interesting, the toilet, and the funny toilet without the seat next to it.
We all went over to this unknown porcelain convenience to check it out. I noticed a chrome button on the floor, and, with little trepidation, tapped it with my foot. A stream of water shot up to the ceiling! We all looked at each other, and decided no one would mention a thing until we were out of the house and probably some distance away, as well. When we left, the water was still dripping off of the ceiling, just a light rain.
We asked, later on, what the thing was in the master bath, that toilet without the seat, and our parents started to laugh. Mom explained what it was, and then we told her what happened.
My parents were laughing so hard that they had to pull over, and it was apparently funny enough that there were no repercussions.
We didn't buy that house.
