I saw a newlywed couple eying a toilet at Home Depot today and I leaned in and said, “Don’t even get one.” They looked at me as if I were crazy. Little did they know, they had just encountered a man of great wisdom and insight.

When I was a single man, a toilet was used for the usual things; going to the bathroom and throwing up after having too much to drink. Today, however, I have been enlightened. My 5 children have brought me into an entirely new level of toilet usage.

In our home, we use the pool for a toilet and when we throw up, we do it on the carpet, the bed, the couch, daddy’s pillow and on each other. Toilets are used to send unwanted toys to less fortunate children in China. They are watering holes for the dog and great sinks for small children to wash their hands in. That little silver lever on the upper left-hand side is really nothing at all. It’s just for looks. It’s only real use is to bring an answer to the question, “How far will the jump-rope go down?” Perhaps a sad Chinese kid might grab the other end and play tug-a-war with us.

Toilet paper, in my house, isn’t used for what other people use it for. Our kids don’t use it for that at all. They’d rather sit in a warm bath several times a day because their butts burn from not using it. My five-year-old informed me the other day that, “It doesn’t matter because it’s summer and we just go swimming now.”

The toilet paper I buy is used as napkins, wash cloths and as the main ingredient in cast making. Occasionally it will actually end up in the toilet, but only if it’s done for a learning experience bringing answers to life’s deep questions like, “How big will an entire roll grow if deposited in the toilet.”

I suppose it’s better that our children don’t use toilet paper for what other people use it for. Their mother has taught them that an eight-year-old girl needs sixteen feet of paper to wipe a dime sized space on her body. The entire hand and half the arm must be mummified before proceeding. Some of the kids skip the mummy process altogether and go straight to the terry-cloth shower curtain. We got rid of that because we had company coming over.

I have found that with five children, a toilet makes a great ab builder. Once the seat has been stripped and loosened enough after having endured its proper use as a stool to get into the cabinet above (oddly enough, for more toilet paper), it takes every muscle in the lower abdomen to stay on without sliding off.

A little piece of advise here; don’t store medications like Aspirin, Tylenol, or Tums in that little cabinet above the toilet! Our family is on perhaps the slowest learning curve in the world. In spite of past experience, we still insist on storing our tooth brushes, dental floss and nasal spray up there. Everything from ear drops to Neosporin have taken a dunk at least once in the Hufford house.

The little trash can behind the toilet should have a sign on it that says “optional.” It’s really just a Purgatory for items to spend time in before they end up being flushed to China. My youngest daughter thinks that China is were all the fish go when they die. One day she threw a tampon in, and to this day she swears that “Jelly Fish” are made in toilets. She’s the only one who actually uses the toilet paper for what it was made for. We know this because she’s nice enough to throw it in (or by) that little trash can before she leaves the bathroom.

When I was a single man, the bathroom was a place of privacy. Today however, it’s a place where family board meetings are held. It’s an amusement park with free door rides and a disco with a built in strobe light operated by a four-year-old. It’s been ten years since I’ve sat in a bathroom alone in peace. On those occasions when I travel, I find myself sitting in an airport bathroom wondering whether or not it would be appropriate to ask the guy in the stall next to me to come over for a visit so I will feel more comfortable. Perhaps he could put his fingers under the stall and say “Daddy, can you see my fingers?” I always wonder what the other men are thinking when the words “bye-bye” slip out of my mouth just after I flush.

By now you’re asking, what the spiritual point of all this is.

There isn’t really one. Just thought I’d bring you into my world.

(by the way, the young couple at Home Depot left without a toilet. I know because I watched)