so. the toilet.

Let me start by saying that the Netherlands is, unquestionably, a nation of designers. More design hours have been invested in the average Dutch child’s sock than are spent in the design of a typical American art museum.

This reality makes the Dutch toilet even more of an enigma. Why, for God’s sake why?, I ask myself each time I use one.

Toilets in America and in much of the free world, as you may be aware, have a deep, rounded basin with a hole in the back. Dutch toilets have a shallow, flat basin with (here’s the kicker) a deep hole in the front. This has two main consequences, neither of which have any apparent design advantage.

The first consequence is that pee entering a Dutch toilet from someone in a sitting position shoots down a deep abyss, finally splashing into a pool of water at the base of a ceramic cylinder. It is shockingly loud. This is a small country, and from my room I can tell when someone in it is peeing.

The second consequence is that solid matter deposited in a toilet does not disappear anonymously down a secret escape hatch, but instead remains there, displayed as if on a plate, until the toilet is flushed and a jet of water struggles to send it all the way across the flat surface and down the front pipe. It is a long and rarely successful journey. The subsequent re-flushing negates any sort of water conservation that I can only hope was the impetus for mass-producing such an irritating appliance.

Ah, the glamorous life of a student abroad in Europe.