Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh. There's Chuck. We've lost Jerry sometime ago, but
Speaker 1: this remains as always Stuff you should Know because Jerry's
Speaker 1: here in spirit. I can tell you that Jerry's a lie. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's very very ominous. It totally did know that you
Speaker 1: mentioned it. We lost Jerry. She's here in spirit. Jerry's
Speaker 1: may not, she may not have ever existed. Who knows.
Speaker 1: It's all one big weird dream, right, Yeah, did you
Speaker 1: see what I titled this episode? By the way, no,
Speaker 1: I haven't looked yet. Bidats colon now more than ever.
Speaker 1: That's great, good job, man, because that is true, like
Speaker 1: having a Biddat right now can really keep you out
Speaker 1: of the rat race to find toilet paper dude the first,
Speaker 1: because you know, I used to have one of the
Speaker 1: toilet attachments and it got lost in the in the
Speaker 1: renovation and move and I kind of forgot about it.
Speaker 1: And the very first thing I did when I heard
Speaker 1: about this toilet paper surge was get online and buy
Speaker 1: another one of those things. Yeah, yeah, we had had
Speaker 1: just happened to get one um for other bathroom right
Speaker 1: before all this happened, So we're all set on the
Speaker 1: rear situation with the water application clean bottoms. Yeah, I'm so.
Speaker 1: I was raised the toilet paper guy, of course, and
Speaker 1: I know how you feel about that. Every once in
Speaker 1: a while though, I'll remember in our toilet paper episode you,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna come out and say it wiping using
Speaker 1: paper to wipe your bottom with and that's it is
Speaker 1: just gross, gross gross, And like, like, seriously, I hear
Speaker 1: that in my head a lot. It's hilarious. But um,
Speaker 1: to me, that's that to me is like, okay, this
Speaker 1: this makes sense, feels normal, and I've gotten used to
Speaker 1: a bidday, but even still like I'm using a little
Speaker 1: bit of toilet paper there too. Also, we should probably
Speaker 1: say this episode is chuck full of t M I
Speaker 1: so just buckle in for that. But yes, I if
Speaker 1: I use a bid day, I still use a little
Speaker 1: bit of toilet paper. Um. And the thing that I
Speaker 1: think got me out of all of this chuck. I
Speaker 1: just want to stay up front is the science is
Speaker 1: still out on which one actually is more beneficial for
Speaker 1: you health wise. There are people saying toilet paper is yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen it, and I think this is what I suspect,
Speaker 1: because there's such a dearth of studies on this, and
Speaker 1: some of the studies that have been done are showing
Speaker 1: mixed results. That it basically depends on how your doctor
Speaker 1: or whoever you're asking um feels about toilet paper or
Speaker 1: bid days. That's that that that's what they're going to recommend,
Speaker 1: doctor or whoever likes the bus driver. Min doctor drives
Speaker 1: a bus too. Yes, but these are hard times, alright.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about bidets, which is if you don't
Speaker 1: know what this is, uh, you have been living under
Speaker 1: a rock. But for a lot of Americans, and we'll
Speaker 1: get to why Americans haven't been hip to them a
Speaker 1: bit later, but some Americans still might not be hip
Speaker 1: to these. A bidet is a little and they can
Speaker 1: be different things. But the kind of classic modern bidet
Speaker 1: looks like another little toilet installed beside your toilet or
Speaker 1: near your toilet. Not quite right though. There's something you
Speaker 1: can't put your finger on. It ain't quite right about
Speaker 1: that toilet. Yeah, Like if you walked into a room
Speaker 1: and you never see it seen one before, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be like, well, there's one for pooping and one for peeing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that definitely does cross your mind either that
Speaker 1: where else you go? Oh gool. But there are different
Speaker 1: ways that you can have these modern bidets. Some of
Speaker 1: them have little water streams that scored up, some of
Speaker 1: them have a little like a shower handle. Um. But
Speaker 1: the long and short of it is it's another appliance
Speaker 1: in your bathroom with water and a little basin that
Speaker 1: you straddle after you do your business and uh and
Speaker 1: clean yourself up with water instead of dry toilet paper.
Speaker 1: That's the classic bidet, right, Yes, the classic bidet, not
Speaker 1: the biday of olden days? No, no, Um, should we
Speaker 1: talk about the other types or go back to the
Speaker 1: olden days? Now, let's go back to the olden days
Speaker 1: and we'll catch up again. All right, that's a little
Speaker 1: tease everybody. We're gonna talk about other types of the
Speaker 1: days eventually. Yeah. And I didn't see exactly. I saw
Speaker 1: anywhere from lateteen sixteen hundreds to early seventeen hundreds, but
Speaker 1: definitely European and the first bid days. Uh. The word
Speaker 1: means pony or cob, which is a kind of a short, little,
Speaker 1: short legged, strong horse. Yeah. And at the time the
Speaker 1: frends were crazy about those kinds of horses. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: apparently that has something to do with how you're supposed
Speaker 1: to use it. I still don't fully follow that. So,
Speaker 1: like these original days, it looked like a little kind
Speaker 1: of mini bathtub, but it also had something like a
Speaker 1: saddle shape and you squatted over it like you would,
Speaker 1: almost like you were riding like a little cob horse.
Speaker 1: All right, Well that makes a little bit of sense,
Speaker 1: I guess. And it also had like four legs coming
Speaker 1: out of the body. Did you know, if you think
Speaker 1: about it, kind of makes sense that it looks like
Speaker 1: a little tiny horse without the top half or a
Speaker 1: head or a neck, or ears or a main or
Speaker 1: tail or hoofs. But other than that all that, it's
Speaker 1: the spitting image of a cob horse. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it looked They looked a little more like Ottomans with
Speaker 1: a little chamber pot in the center. Yes, but Ottomans
Speaker 1: came from the Turks, and the French probably hated the
Speaker 1: Turks at the time because that was geopolitics, so they
Speaker 1: would never made that comparison, even though it was like
Speaker 1: this great elephant in the room's right, but these things
Speaker 1: were in the bedroom in France in the early seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: next to the chamber pot and the very idea of
Speaker 1: uh of pooping and peeing in your bedroom, it was
Speaker 1: pretty new, like the outhouse was like that, you still
Speaker 1: had an outhouse, but from what I saw, chamber pots
Speaker 1: and bid days were for nighttime business. Like when so
Speaker 1: you don't have to leave your bedroom, right? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's really kind of sweet if you think about
Speaker 1: It's like poop and pee in you your bedroom, especially
Speaker 1: on a cold night. But eventually people were like, well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of collar around, there's a lot of typhoid.
Speaker 1: We should probably move these two a separate room. And
Speaker 1: eventually they did, and they called those bathrooms, yeah, or
Speaker 1: restrooms or toilets or w c's or poop station bills
Speaker 1: or lose. Oh I've got one for you. I wanted
Speaker 1: to say this in the last episode we recorded, the
Speaker 1: wastewater episode. All right, let's hear it. So you know,
Speaker 1: the word lou means bathroom or toilet in the UK
Speaker 1: at least, if not more. And they think so when
Speaker 1: we were in Edinburgh doing those shows, remember you took
Speaker 1: a nap and I got all bored, so I went
Speaker 1: and walked around the city by myself. Well, I went
Speaker 1: to old time Edinburgh like old time. I must have
Speaker 1: been napping when you went, because I don't know why
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have just gone with me when I tried
Speaker 1: to wake you up. But regardless, on this tour, maybe
Speaker 1: you'll remember this. The the the tour guide said that
Speaker 1: they think the word lou came from the Scotch people,
Speaker 1: the Scottish people saying guardiloo when they threw their waste
Speaker 1: water out into the streets, like they would shout guardilou.
Speaker 1: And they think that guardi lou came from guard de lee,
Speaker 1: which means watch the water in French. And so they
Speaker 1: think that um, guardi lou came from wash the water,
Speaker 1: and then lou came from guardi loo. And then that's
Speaker 1: where we got that term for the toilet in the UK.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's that's one for your next dinner party.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, I cannot tell you how many dinner parties
Speaker 1: I busted that out at so b days. Uh back
Speaker 1: to the Biday. They are or were more of a
Speaker 1: high society thing, like you know you were using an
Speaker 1: outhouse if you weren't, I don't know necessarily aristocracy, but
Speaker 1: you had to be like middle and upper class to
Speaker 1: have a bidat in your bedroom or in your house. Uh,
Speaker 1: and probably a chamberpot even for that matter. Well, for
Speaker 1: a couple of reasons too. I think one, you typically
Speaker 1: had servants who were going to take it away for you.
Speaker 1: This number one, you got to change the number number two, right,
Speaker 1: and the number two. You know, if if this bidat
Speaker 1: is basically just a wash basin with water, they didn't
Speaker 1: have running water at the time, which meant you had
Speaker 1: to haul water, so you probably had a servant hauling
Speaker 1: water for you as well. So yeah, you were probably
Speaker 1: this thing that's that that was like a luxury to
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, was just nothing to you
Speaker 1: because you didn't have to do anything. You just used it.
Speaker 1: You didn't have to do any prepper takeaway or anything
Speaker 1: like that. That's right. And they don't know for sure
Speaker 1: who invented it, but this dude, Christophe de Rosier UH
Speaker 1: made one for the French royal family in seventeen. A
Speaker 1: lot of people point to him as being the inventor
Speaker 1: of the bidet. Uh didn't take long, you know, within
Speaker 1: the next thirty or forty years or so, they started
Speaker 1: having things like things like little hand pumps, so you
Speaker 1: could kind of have a little rudimentary spraying device to
Speaker 1: help herself out. That's nice. It is nice. It is
Speaker 1: I mean because prior to this, it was just again
Speaker 1: a wash basin that you would straddle and just kind
Speaker 1: of flip it up onto your underside, your fanny as
Speaker 1: it were, your hand, right with your hand, and eventually
Speaker 1: that that water comes back down and mixes with the
Speaker 1: water you're flipping up and you reach some critical point
Speaker 1: tipping point is Malcolm Gladbo would put it, and now
Speaker 1: you're just flipping poop water up onto your nether regions
Speaker 1: and it's no longer helpful. So the idea that you
Speaker 1: could just sit there and and spray a pump a
Speaker 1: stream of water on there and have to just flick
Speaker 1: the stuff out of the basin onto you. UM, that's
Speaker 1: an enormous advancement. And they came along pretty early. I
Speaker 1: think the seventeen fifties, right, Yeah, that's about when the
Speaker 1: little spray spray thing came along. That's beautiful. And chuck
Speaker 1: one other thing too. I think about the same time
Speaker 1: that that pump handle came along. They also UM installed
Speaker 1: like a refillable tank, so you fill the water with
Speaker 1: tank and the everything that was in the basin was
Speaker 1: all just wastewater, So you were good to go by
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty as far as bidats were concerned, Yes, everything
Speaker 1: was totally clean and totally safe by seventeen fifty. Nothing
Speaker 1: could possibly go wrong. So these were big. Obviously in
Speaker 1: Europe they spread. Italy and Portugal were really big on
Speaker 1: the bidets still are. I saw Italy may have been
Speaker 1: the actual inventors of them, and that the French possibly
Speaker 1: just popularized it. I could see that. Yeah, French and
Speaker 1: they steal everything they did. But at the same time
Speaker 1: they were also they were a superpower at the time,
Speaker 1: and they were also basically global taste makers. So once
Speaker 1: they became into it, got into bidets, the rest of
Speaker 1: the world followed suit pretty quickly, or most of the
Speaker 1: rest of the world. Not if you were England or America,
Speaker 1: you probably went no, thank you frenchman. Yeah, Uh, South America, UM, Argentina, Venezuela.
Speaker 1: They're pretty popular. Uh, in the Middle East, and of
Speaker 1: course Asia and Japan very much leads the way in
Speaker 1: not only bidet use but bidet technology these days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's a classic example of what I've talked about before.
Speaker 1: The Japanese say, oh, I really like this invention. We
Speaker 1: can improve it by a hundred and thirty pc. So
Speaker 1: let's do that, And that's exactly what they did. That's
Speaker 1: a good Japanese accent. Thanks. I added a little vocal
Speaker 1: fry there at the end to make it particularly confusing.
Speaker 1: So maybe let's take a quick break, go cleaner uh
Speaker 1: bombits as my daughter says, and we will talk about
Speaker 1: what's the deal with America and why we hate cleaning
Speaker 1: our butt holes the right way? Right after this, to
Speaker 1: check you, we're talking about butth holes, I believe before
Speaker 1: the break, let's pick up. Let's pick up where you
Speaker 1: left off. Yeah, what's up, America? Why don't you clean
Speaker 1: your butt hole the right way? I thought this was
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. There's a guy who I guess is a
Speaker 1: bidet expert um who was speaking with the New York Times,
Speaker 1: and we happened to overhear it. He had some theories
Speaker 1: about why America didn't like bidets, and one you kind
Speaker 1: of touched on before, which was that England hated France
Speaker 1: at the time. They were I have a world superpowers,
Speaker 1: much akin to America and the United States during the
Speaker 1: Cold War. I mean in the USS are America, USSR
Speaker 1: Draco versus Rocky during the Cold War? Right, Um, so
Speaker 1: the English hated everything associated with the French and they
Speaker 1: would just have never gone from bidays. But that seems
Speaker 1: to have carried over into the colonies like America, which
Speaker 1: is a pretty good theory for why Americans have never
Speaker 1: adopted bidays. Yeah, and those were you know, in the
Speaker 1: early days of non adoption. Uh, World War two happened
Speaker 1: and and this is uh, this sounded kind of like
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure I believed this at first, but then
Speaker 1: I saw it in a different way in a bunch
Speaker 1: of different places, So I do believe it. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: apparently American soldiers would go to brothels in Europe and
Speaker 1: in Japan, and depending on what theater of war you
Speaker 1: were stationed at, and you would see these bays and
Speaker 1: you would associate it and there were a few different
Speaker 1: things going on. You might associate it with sex work.
Speaker 1: I think you gross um. At the time, the there
Speaker 1: were people that thought using a bid day after sex
Speaker 1: uh could be a contraceptive practice. Not true at all. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: they thought that douching was a reliable contraceptive practice, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't until like the twenties or thirties where it
Speaker 1: was proven basically indisputable that no, it basically does absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1: But the idea that you would use the bid day
Speaker 1: to do that, um, kind of further associated it with
Speaker 1: sex work as well. Yeah. And then the other thing,
Speaker 1: which is incredibly sexist, uh and maybe throw in just
Speaker 1: a dash of misogyny, is that uh, women on their period.
Speaker 1: It was it hasn't been that long that women have
Speaker 1: been able to get products to deal with that and
Speaker 1: to talk about it as if it were just a
Speaker 1: normal thing that happens to the human body. It was
Speaker 1: very much under the table. Um, I think we should
Speaker 1: do something, man, if we if we dare go down
Speaker 1: that road on Springtime Flower Blossom episode, well, I was
Speaker 1: thinking maybe a shorty just on um like tampons and
Speaker 1: maxi pads and the development of of those things, because
Speaker 1: it took way too long, uh for the for the
Speaker 1: awful awful reason that manufacturers just didn't want anything to
Speaker 1: do with that. Right, Yeah, for sure, Um, I'm down,
Speaker 1: all right, Well let's do it. But menstruation had a
Speaker 1: lot to do with uh BI days not being used
Speaker 1: in America because no one wanted to talk about menstruation
Speaker 1: for a long long time. So you've got g i's
Speaker 1: returning from uh overseas where they visited brothels and aren't
Speaker 1: particularly looking forward to introducing their wives to bidays because
Speaker 1: they associated them with sex work. They're also really useful
Speaker 1: for menstruation, which wasn't talked about at the time. Um,
Speaker 1: and then they remind everybody the King of France, who
Speaker 1: everybody hated. And you put those three things together, that
Speaker 1: makes it really difficult to market in America. And so
Speaker 1: they think that one or all of those reasons are
Speaker 1: why Americans never really got into bid day's not until
Speaker 1: the Japanese said, hey, everybody, UM, check this out. But
Speaker 1: we'll get to that, not quite yet. Yeah. Another reason,
Speaker 1: and this was mentioned as a chicken or the egg thing,
Speaker 1: I personally think because the idea is that American bathrooms
Speaker 1: aren't big enough for this extra thing in there. But
Speaker 1: I think had we adopted it to begin with, we
Speaker 1: would have made our bathrooms a little bigger to fit
Speaker 1: these things personally totally, because I mean, our bathrooms are
Speaker 1: enormous now and they could totally fit a bid at.
Speaker 1: But if you if you look at most bathrooms, they're
Speaker 1: like a master bath in the suburban house. Like the
Speaker 1: bathrooms big, but the toilet is still small the little
Speaker 1: toilet area. So yeah, I think we totally would have
Speaker 1: expanded our bathrooms to allow it. I think we just
Speaker 1: didn't need to have bigger bathrooms because we didn't have it.
Speaker 1: So I say, disdaining for biddat lead to smaller bathrooms
Speaker 1: rather than vice versa. Where do you fall? Yeah? I agree. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of mad because this this was my chance
Speaker 1: when we renovated our house to put a real deal
Speaker 1: biday in there, and you want one. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: even think about it. Um, But like you know, like
Speaker 1: you said, our our toilet is wedged in a little
Speaker 1: zone like all toilets. We could have made our shower
Speaker 1: smaller and stuck a Bidday next to it. I guess uh.
Speaker 1: I can see you like dropping your highlighter while you
Speaker 1: were researching this article, like when it struck you like um. Interestingly, though,
Speaker 1: the um kind of one of the bigger bidet models
Speaker 1: that was popularized around the world, was invented by an
Speaker 1: American named Arnold Cohen. In the nineteen sixties. Yes, dude,
Speaker 1: So I had no idea about this, but the bid
Speaker 1: day seat that you use, that I use that basically
Speaker 1: all Americans are starting to be like, hey, this is
Speaker 1: kind of awesome that everybody in Japan uses, that a
Speaker 1: lot of people around the world used today was invented
Speaker 1: by a guy named Arnold Cohen in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: in the United States. Yeah. I also saw him referred
Speaker 1: to as the bid At King. Yeah, man, and God
Speaker 1: bless this guy. He tried his best. Uh. He created
Speaker 1: this thing for his dad who was older and not
Speaker 1: doing too well. And we'll talk about medical benefits here
Speaker 1: in a minute, but um, if you have a rash
Speaker 1: back there, if you have a hemorrhoid or an anal
Speaker 1: fissure or something like that. Um, there is some research,
Speaker 1: like you said, not enough, but some research that shows
Speaker 1: that a biday can really be helpful if you have
Speaker 1: one of those conditions. And his dad did so. He
Speaker 1: was a former ad guy. He tried his best and
Speaker 1: it just didn't quite work out. In America for Arnold Cohen, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he aided a model called the American Sits Bath s
Speaker 1: I t Z Bath, which is weird because it's not
Speaker 1: a Sitz bath. No, and there are six baths now
Speaker 1: and I don't know if they predated it or and
Speaker 1: he just kind of adopted that or what. But he
Speaker 1: basically took a toilet seat and modified it, added a
Speaker 1: foot pump to pump water under your bum with um
Speaker 1: he uh. He went to trade shows, he tried to
Speaker 1: market it as much as he could, and he also
Speaker 1: was very much ahead of his time. And then again,
Speaker 1: this is the nineteen sixties and he was still a
Speaker 1: young man at the time. Um that that he was
Speaker 1: trying to He saw that it was a problem how
Speaker 1: much toilet paper Americans use. That was one of his
Speaker 1: driving forces, in addition to trying to come up with
Speaker 1: something that could help people like his dad who are
Speaker 1: suffering from rectial issues. Um. And he said, I think
Speaker 1: one of his quotes is nobody wants to hear about
Speaker 1: tushy washing one oh one. It was just too difficult
Speaker 1: to market and so he kind of he gave up.
Speaker 1: I guess to an extent, and I guess sometime in
Speaker 1: the seventies he either approached a company called TOTO, which
Speaker 1: stands for Toyo Tokei or Oriental ceramics and Japanese um
Speaker 1: Or they approached him and they licensed his concept and
Speaker 1: kind of tinkered with it, made it better, made it
Speaker 1: much more automated, made it electronic, and um they deybuwed
Speaker 1: the washlet in in Japan, and it took a little
Speaker 1: like getting used to over there as well, but in
Speaker 1: very short order, the Japanese kind of clumped onto it
Speaker 1: and it became like part of their culture as much
Speaker 1: as like sushi. Sure, Sure, we did a great episode
Speaker 1: on sushi. We did. I was also gonna say chopsticks anime,
Speaker 1: um cuteness who knows a lot of stuff. You could say,
Speaker 1: Sure maple Japanese maples. A couple of those, M Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're beautiful. Man. Do you have the kind of like sweeping,
Speaker 1: spreading kind or the upright kind? I have. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite ones are the small low spreaders, and I
Speaker 1: got a couple of those. I don't think they're gonna
Speaker 1: be huge, but the way I have them in our
Speaker 1: garden and it's just very lovely. It's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite trees. Yeah, you don't want them to be huge
Speaker 1: when they're like that, because they're supposed to be kind
Speaker 1: of subtle, understated and like low growing. You know. Yeah, boy,
Speaker 1: there's one around the corner for me that I just
Speaker 1: I have Japanese maple envy in a big way. It's
Speaker 1: it looks like a it looks like a twelve foot
Speaker 1: umbrella that's about four ft off the ground. It's just gorgeous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll bet it's old. Yeah, it's got to be. I
Speaker 1: just want to sit in it every time I go
Speaker 1: by their yard. You you probably lay under it and
Speaker 1: just tickle it. Did I say sit under it or
Speaker 1: sit in it? You said sit in it? Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: in sit under it. Okay, you're gonna be the weird
Speaker 1: neighbor who just sits in people's yards. Maybe I've wanted
Speaker 1: to do that so many times and I just you know,
Speaker 1: and oh you can't do it, especially as they've grown adult.
Speaker 1: So what kind of a day do you have? You
Speaker 1: don't have the buzz market, But I got kind of
Speaker 1: one of the um like a seventy five dollar model,
Speaker 1: but that go under your existing toilet seat. But I
Speaker 1: know that some of these Japanese models it's actually part
Speaker 1: of the toilet seat and has dryers and they talk
Speaker 1: to you and all that good stuff. I will buzz
Speaker 1: buzz buzz, because I love mine. I have to total
Speaker 1: washlets and they it's not like the highest n one
Speaker 1: where like you stand up and it flushes automatically or
Speaker 1: um it talks to you or has lights. They have
Speaker 1: some that have like UV lights built in so when
Speaker 1: the lids shut like kills everything in sight. Um. But
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a good good washlet has like
Speaker 1: a heated seat and everything, um, and like it's it's
Speaker 1: just wonderful to have. It's just really that's the one
Speaker 1: where the seat is part of the unit, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like the whole thing replaces your toilet seat, and there's
Speaker 1: like a big kind of bulky contraption in back that
Speaker 1: I think is like a water tank and where all
Speaker 1: like the mechanations are. But it's like you take your
Speaker 1: old toilet seat and you throw it out the window
Speaker 1: into your neighbor's yard under their Japanese yep, next to
Speaker 1: year old spirit tires and and dead possums, and you
Speaker 1: replace it with this one, you know, bidet toilet seat
Speaker 1: you connected to the water supply and then you plug
Speaker 1: it in and there you have it. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: this thing now, I kind of want to get one,
Speaker 1: but I don't have a I don't have a power
Speaker 1: outlet over there. That can be a problem. So you
Speaker 1: have to That's like an added cost a lot of
Speaker 1: the times. Unless you're comfortable with just having like an
Speaker 1: extension cord and surge protector or something, we're just fine.
Speaker 1: It's at the end of the world. But if you're not,
Speaker 1: then yes, you need to have an electrician comput a
Speaker 1: power outlet next to year. Yeah, yeah, because you could
Speaker 1: have done that when you're doing that that Sorry I
Speaker 1: didn't warn you. That's all right. So I guess since
Speaker 1: we're talking about Bidet's seats, I guess we should talk
Speaker 1: about the cheaper ones. You can get them for like
Speaker 1: anywhere from thirty to fifty bucks. And like we said,
Speaker 1: that goes under your seat, and you have a little
Speaker 1: control device on the side of your toilet seat that
Speaker 1: you just turn on the spray and it shoots out. Um,
Speaker 1: it's cold water and less do you have the means
Speaker 1: to hook it up to warm water? Um, but ours
Speaker 1: is cold water, so you know, so it's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a h of a wake you up in
Speaker 1: in the morning, you know, Yeah, is your warm I
Speaker 1: guess yes, it is it's warm, the seats warm. It's
Speaker 1: just beautiful. I just want to poop at your house now.
Speaker 1: It's you come over and use it anytime you want,
Speaker 1: because I know you pee sitting down, so you're okay
Speaker 1: in my book. But these washlets, so get this man.
Speaker 1: The washlet when it was introduced in and the washlet
Speaker 1: is like, I don't know what you call it, but
Speaker 1: they took let's wash and turned it into the washlet
Speaker 1: when they released it. But as of two thousand seven
Speaker 1: total had sold seventeen million of these worldwide about nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty it is amazing. As of two thousand nine, twelve
Speaker 1: years after that, it was fifty million. They sold ten
Speaker 1: million since two thousand and sixteen or so, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Two thousand nineteen was fifty million, two sixteen was forty million.
Speaker 1: So at some point along the way, a big portion
Speaker 1: of the world said, I like that, We're going to
Speaker 1: try it, and I'm gonna get one. Because the sales
Speaker 1: have taken off even before this um coronavirus shut in
Speaker 1: toilet paper run that we're experiencing in America. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wonder I was gonna say if they had like a
Speaker 1: counter of that said like fifty million clean butt holes.
Speaker 1: But there's more than that, is you have two butt
Speaker 1: holes in your house, right exactly. So I mean that's well,
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that people point to is like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a cost savings if this thing lasts
Speaker 1: long enough, you'll eventually pay for it, will eventually pay
Speaker 1: for itself, and savings from having to buy toilet paper,
Speaker 1: and well, and we'll get to the waist and toilet paper.
Speaker 1: But that is a problem. Yeah, yeah, because even if
Speaker 1: the cost thing doesn't quite work out, you are still
Speaker 1: you know, it's coming close to breaking even it's not
Speaker 1: like a complete like waste of money, but also money aside. Ecologically,
Speaker 1: it's probably a much better thing than toilet paper by
Speaker 1: any measure, any metric. All right, well, should we take
Speaker 1: another break? I think so, all right, let's take another break,
Speaker 1: and we'll, believe it or not, we're gonna tell you
Speaker 1: how to use these things right after this. Okay, Chuck,
Speaker 1: so I teased it earlier. I think we should start
Speaker 1: with this, uh, this this third act by talking about
Speaker 1: the different kinds of bidats. We've already talked about two. Right,
Speaker 1: there's the little cob horse bidet that looks like a
Speaker 1: tiny bathtub next to your toilet. There's the um. The
Speaker 1: washlet is a brand name, but it's almost become a
Speaker 1: proprietary eponym. It's so so um, so um widespread. Yes, um.
Speaker 1: But that's also called the bidet seat that you replace
Speaker 1: your toilet seat with. And then the third type is
Speaker 1: a hose that looks like you know, the dishwashing hose
Speaker 1: that you have, like as coming out of your your
Speaker 1: kitchen sink, if you if it's like that, but next
Speaker 1: to your toilet. That's the third kind of bidat. It's
Speaker 1: called like a water wall, a wall mounted shower head bidet. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think these are nearly as common, are they.
Speaker 1: I didn't get that impression either, But when I looked
Speaker 1: it up, a lot of different images came up on Google.
Speaker 1: I don't even want to do that. All right? So
Speaker 1: are we can we talk about how we use these things? Yes,
Speaker 1: But I just want to say one more time, I'm
Speaker 1: thoroughly engrossed by the wall mounted showerhead bidet. You have
Speaker 1: to see one of these. Sometimes I've seen pictures, I
Speaker 1: just haven't seen them in person. Okay, I got it,
Speaker 1: neither of I but I've just I spend a good
Speaker 1: hour like staring at pictures, he thinks, and imagining. You know, sure,
Speaker 1: all the possibilities, so go so go ahead. I think
Speaker 1: this part I cobbled this together from a bunch of
Speaker 1: sources from the Atlantic, from How Stuff Works, I think
Speaker 1: New York Times, but me, I think was mental floss.
Speaker 1: And I think this came from How Stuff Works. This
Speaker 1: step by step for how to use a bid day
Speaker 1: and uh. The first step they say is locate the bidet.
Speaker 1: That is a good first step. I can't believe they
Speaker 1: put that in there. I thought that was very funny. Actually,
Speaker 1: technically their first step, if you're going by bullet points,
Speaker 1: was used the toilet toilet as you normally do both
Speaker 1: for urination and for defication. That's step one as far
Speaker 1: as the editors of How Stuff Works is concerned. Oh,
Speaker 1: that is really funny. Um. Yes, And actually they do
Speaker 1: point out in that step one that whether or not
Speaker 1: you wipe a little with toilet paper first, I don't.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do that. I would uh. And how I
Speaker 1: do it as I wet to my bum first with
Speaker 1: a good spray, and then I used just a little
Speaker 1: bit of toilet paper and that's the great thing is
Speaker 1: is you're not using nearly as much. You can just
Speaker 1: use a few squares to kind of just make sure
Speaker 1: everything's cleaned up and dry. If you don't have a
Speaker 1: fancy pants dryer like yours. Yeah, I've found that the
Speaker 1: dryer takes so long that I don't have the patience
Speaker 1: for it. Now, who does you know, crazy psychos? Maybe
Speaker 1: unless you're you know, got a good book or something. Sure,
Speaker 1: and Uncle John's bathroom reader that would do it. That
Speaker 1: would keep me on the can long enough to air
Speaker 1: dry with the blow dryer. Or a little book coming
Speaker 1: this fall? Oh yes, shall we plug it? I think
Speaker 1: it's a great time to plug our book. It's called
Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know, an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting
Speaker 1: things that's right coming to bookstores this fall. You can
Speaker 1: pre order now. And uh, I think all signs are
Speaker 1: still full bore ahead. And though we're in the midst
Speaker 1: of a global pandemic, in fact, hopefully they're thinking this
Speaker 1: is just what people need. Yeah, and hopefully it is.
Speaker 1: And at the very least it is guaranteed to keep
Speaker 1: you on the toilet until your legs going numb. That's right.
Speaker 1: So that's an old George Carlin joke. Oh really, what
Speaker 1: to sit on the toilet to your legs go? Num?
Speaker 1: Now he did some like some. He was talking about
Speaker 1: some game show and one of the contestants was introduced.
Speaker 1: One of her hobbies was sitting on the toilet until
Speaker 1: her legs went, which is not good for you, they say,
Speaker 1: especially if you have hemorrhoids. It can make that a
Speaker 1: lot worse. So you're supposed to do your business and
Speaker 1: get off. I could totally see that. You're also not
Speaker 1: supposed to, like watch TV in bed. Beds supposed to
Speaker 1: be for sleeping, So if you ever have trouble getting
Speaker 1: to sleep, um, they suggest that you like go read
Speaker 1: out on the couch until you start to get drowsy,
Speaker 1: and then go to bed and fall asleep, so that
Speaker 1: you'll your body and your mind will start to associate
Speaker 1: bed strictly with doing your sleeping business. I say, poop poo,
Speaker 1: did that because I love watching TV in bed? Yeah, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm with you. It's a nice, nice little treat. It's great.
Speaker 1: I get why people don't do it, but uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not one of those people. Hey, to each his own,
Speaker 1: we always say, right to reach their own teach their own. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: so I guess we're at medical. Oh no, wait, we did.
Speaker 1: We located the bidet right right, You've done your business. Uh.
Speaker 1: To me, the downside of having the separate bidet is
Speaker 1: you do your business and then you gotta get up
Speaker 1: and like remount another device, so like you've got it
Speaker 1: going on with your your fancy pants washl I think
Speaker 1: I think that's why I was so surprised that you
Speaker 1: wanted a regular biddat, because there's like a whole drippy
Speaker 1: um step moving from one to the other, you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think when you get a washlet, you're
Speaker 1: not going to want a regular bidet any longer. I
Speaker 1: can't get a washlet, dude, I don't have the power.
Speaker 1: You can hire an electrician to come run an outlet.
Speaker 1: It's very easy. I know. Now I'm going to look
Speaker 1: into that. You're right, Okay, you're gonna love it, Chuck, Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: what does yours talk? I forgot No, it doesn't talk.
Speaker 1: That would be amazing. I've never seen a talking one
Speaker 1: except on the Simpsons. Well maybe that's where I got
Speaker 1: there was Yeah, because there's that one that says I
Speaker 1: am honored to accept your waist. I think that's where
Speaker 1: I got it. Surely some of them talk, right uh.
Speaker 1: Probably think Japan is famous for for talking appliances right sure,
Speaker 1: and just having like weird random stuff written on their appliances. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I've talked about that rice maker. I think
Speaker 1: you have the same one or one of the same versions.
Speaker 1: That thing makes all kinds of fun sounds. Yeah the
Speaker 1: uh um oh, hey, while we're talking about this stuff,
Speaker 1: let me say, um, Mike's Mighty Good Ramen looked us up. Dude,
Speaker 1: that was so nice. Well, like, I'm first of all,
Speaker 1: thank you for mentioning it, because you got us hooked
Speaker 1: up big time. I did not anticipate that much Ramen
Speaker 1: coming no, like a box full of Mike's Mighty Good
Speaker 1: ram and basically saying, hey, thanks for the shout out.
Speaker 1: So um, I had never tried it before, and it
Speaker 1: is really good stuff, and we have a bunch for free,
Speaker 1: which is nice because it also stores really well too
Speaker 1: during times like this. Yeah, and I had already also
Speaker 1: purchased about a hundred dollars worth and it all kind
Speaker 1: of came at once, so I have literally a big
Speaker 1: moving storage been full of Mike's mighty good and I
Speaker 1: eat it for lunch every day. Today I had the
Speaker 1: vegetable cooking up milk lemongrass and it is delicious. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is amazing. I think the beef is my favorite
Speaker 1: so far. I love that spicy beef. Have you augmented
Speaker 1: yours yet? No, I'm I'm a novice still. I'm just
Speaker 1: kind of taking it a little by little. But I
Speaker 1: saw that on they have like a recipe card for
Speaker 1: suggesting how to kind of dress it up a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I usually just because it's a good, good
Speaker 1: quick meal to go and a pretty low calorie, very
Speaker 1: low calorie. But the other day I did have some
Speaker 1: beef brisket and I minced that up really small, and
Speaker 1: I cooked, I did a boiled egg and cut that
Speaker 1: thing in half and it was so good. Man, that
Speaker 1: sounds good. Yeah. I mean, we don't buzz mark it much,
Speaker 1: but it is delicious. And they hooked us up. So
Speaker 1: thank you, Mike. Yeah, and thank you also. Um. The
Speaker 1: thing that made me think of it was the Zoji
Speaker 1: rushi rice makers. They liked us talking about them, and
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, you guys want some, You want a
Speaker 1: thermis yeah, it was pretty Maybe I'll get a washlet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Toto brand washlets are really great, Chuck, I can recommend
Speaker 1: him highly. All Right, so let's talk about um medical uses. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're like you said, there hasn't been a ton of research,
Speaker 1: and there has been a little conflicting research, but a
Speaker 1: lot of doctors GPS do say and specialists. If you
Speaker 1: have colitis, if you have ib s, if you have crons,
Speaker 1: if you have colon cancer, then a bidet seat might
Speaker 1: be right up your alley to help you out back there.
Speaker 1: It will be. But also, Chuck, I just realized we
Speaker 1: never finished saying how to use the bidet. Well, now
Speaker 1: you know you scorch your butt, right, and it said
Speaker 1: that you either can dry it padded dryer or have
Speaker 1: a dryer. What else is there? So, oh, yeah, you
Speaker 1: we did make it through that. Wow, it just went
Speaker 1: so quickly. I think one of the things just I
Speaker 1: want to point out really really really quickly is that,
Speaker 1: like the whole point of it is that you're using
Speaker 1: water to clean off your bottom in the exact same
Speaker 1: way that you would use toilet paper to clean off
Speaker 1: your bottom um or your other bits, depending on if
Speaker 1: you have other bits. Down there. How do you how
Speaker 1: do you put this? I don't know. Well, whatever's job,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. But in some people prefer to
Speaker 1: use toilet paper to dry off, like it sounds like
Speaker 1: both of us do. Some people just air dry um,
Speaker 1: or they use the blow blower attachment or whatever, but
Speaker 1: like that's it, there's nothing more to it. I've read
Speaker 1: that some people use soap, which is crazy to me,
Speaker 1: but okay, and then some people chuck, I ran across this,
Speaker 1: they don't even use a but at if they poop,
Speaker 1: they take a shower after a word. Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard of anything like that before in your life? No,
Speaker 1: you know, I would say that's an extreme clean freak
Speaker 1: germophob clean freak is probably not a nice way to
Speaker 1: say it, but le phobia is about that stuff. But
Speaker 1: from what I there's a significant number of people, at
Speaker 1: least in the United States who like, you poop, you
Speaker 1: take a shower. That's just what you do after you poop. Interesting,
Speaker 1: I would take seven showers a day if you have
Speaker 1: water crisis, just from you know what a waste so well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is a huge waste um. And that's actually kind
Speaker 1: of a criticism of bidats is like while you're using
Speaker 1: water instead. But as we'll see in a little bit,
Speaker 1: you're using a resource one way or another down there.
Speaker 1: So there you go. But okay, so you were talking
Speaker 1: about um medical issues. Sorry about that. No, that's right. Um,
Speaker 1: I talked about all the uh the ones dealing with
Speaker 1: your bottom. But um, apparently, and this is I don't
Speaker 1: know how much research they've done on this, but apparently
Speaker 1: they can help out with U T I s as
Speaker 1: well if you get frequent U T E s. Yes,
Speaker 1: And here's how they suggest that, Um, if you're a woman,
Speaker 1: you use the bidet on your woman parts before and
Speaker 1: after sex, and that that will help cut down on
Speaker 1: fecal bacteria entering your vagina and becoming part of your
Speaker 1: vaginal micro flora, which can lead to U T eyes. Interesting.
Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty interesting as well. Um, and
Speaker 1: don't take offense. Well, now you know you can get
Speaker 1: a prostate infection from from not keeping very clean down there. No,
Speaker 1: I just mean you know, if you if you make
Speaker 1: love and then your girlfriend and wife jumps up and
Speaker 1: runs in there and and cleans out real good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just be a man about it, right, You should probably
Speaker 1: not take offense to that kind of thing should we
Speaker 1: be talking about this? Yeah, yeah, we haven't crossed the linet.
Speaker 1: I think I think you established a new line in
Speaker 1: the student Loans episode, so I think we're well within there. Well,
Speaker 1: my my reasoning there is if there are any like
Speaker 1: elementary school kids listening to student Loans, then their little
Speaker 1: Alex P. Keaton's they can handle it. Alex peakey, Man,
Speaker 1: what a great, great shout out there? What else here?
Speaker 1: If you're elderly and if you have arthritis or something,
Speaker 1: it's tough man, if you you might just physically have
Speaker 1: a harder time wiping your bottom, have to use the bathroom.
Speaker 1: And apparently as you age one of the single biggest
Speaker 1: factors for staying independent. Like you can still cook, you
Speaker 1: can still clean, you can still take care of yourself,
Speaker 1: but you might have a hard time wiping your bottom.
Speaker 1: You can still stay independent. Uh, if you can get
Speaker 1: that bidet going. Yes, And again, if you're sitting there
Speaker 1: like just like, wait, what are you guys talking about?
Speaker 1: If you were raised on toilet paper from from what
Speaker 1: there's a huge divide right now in the world. Apparently
Speaker 1: a good three quarters two thirds the three quarters of
Speaker 1: the world does does not use toilet paper, or they
Speaker 1: use it much more sparingly and they use a bidet instead,
Speaker 1: and they consider that clean. They consider using toilet paper unclean.
Speaker 1: And this this is this, whether toilet paper or b
Speaker 1: days are clean or unclean is so culturally ingrained that
Speaker 1: it's almost un imaginable considering one cleaner than the other,
Speaker 1: depending on what you've been raised on. But that is
Speaker 1: the case. And they've done a lot of well they
Speaker 1: haven't done a lot of studies, but some of the
Speaker 1: studies they've done have shown like, yeah, this actually is cleaner,
Speaker 1: or no, this isn't as clean as you think. Um.
Speaker 1: But one thing that really kind of stuck out to me, Chuck,
Speaker 1: was the idea that water alone can make you cleaner
Speaker 1: than wiping your bottom, which makes total sense if you
Speaker 1: step back and think about it, because all you're doing
Speaker 1: is wiping paper on your bottom. But to me, it's
Speaker 1: like you're you're getting stuff out of there and and
Speaker 1: you're getting it away, which I guess you're doing with
Speaker 1: water as well. Uh yeah, I mean that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of it with I mean, like you said, they've done
Speaker 1: some studies and they have shown that it can eat
Speaker 1: some of these symptoms of anal fissures and hemorrhoids. There's
Speaker 1: something called itchy anus that it can help up with.
Speaker 1: That is a real thing. But there was also a
Speaker 1: study about ten years ago in Japan that said if
Speaker 1: you use a warm water bidat, uh, and if you're
Speaker 1: a woman, it can kind of jostle loose your microflora
Speaker 1: in your vagina and you can just kind of knock
Speaker 1: things out of whack down there, and it can lead
Speaker 1: to more vaginal bacterial infections. Yeah. So in the study,
Speaker 1: it was like two sixty eight women, um, and they
Speaker 1: found that normal microL microflora was not present in forty
Speaker 1: three percent of bidat users and only eight percent of
Speaker 1: non users of bidats had normal microfloora not present. That's
Speaker 1: pretty significant. And then of of the fifty out of
Speaker 1: the tight who had fecal bacteria present in their vaginal microflora,
Speaker 1: forty six of that fifty used bidats. So that was
Speaker 1: a really surprising thing to a lot of people because
Speaker 1: they're like, no, no, no, this is this is clean. Um,
Speaker 1: this is way cleaner than using toilet paper, And this
Speaker 1: study suggests that that's not necessarily true. Now, was that
Speaker 1: for only for warm water though from what I saw, yeah,
Speaker 1: it with warm water. Yeah, use that cold water. Sure,
Speaker 1: it really gets you up in the morning, like you said. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then I guess finally we're at the point where
Speaker 1: we talked about just toilet paper. We covered toilet paper
Speaker 1: in our episode on toilet paper, but as a reminder
Speaker 1: about of toilet paper in the United States comes from
Speaker 1: Canadian forests. Um, And that's not cool. Americans represent uh,
Speaker 1: less than five percent of the world's population, but we
Speaker 1: used of the world's toilet paper and that's got to stop, Yes, dude.
Speaker 1: So those Canadian forests, they're talking about old growth boreal forests,
Speaker 1: and there's a term I saw, the tree to toilet pipeline.
Speaker 1: I saw twenties seven thousand trees a day go down
Speaker 1: the toilet in the form of toilet paper. And again
Speaker 1: this is mostly old growth trees. Um. And I guess
Speaker 1: the toilet paper industry in the United States is like
Speaker 1: a six six billion dollar industry from what I saw.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's a lot of I think each American
Speaker 1: uses about forty rolls of toilet paper every year. The
Speaker 1: average household uses a hundred and fifty. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of room for improvement. And that's a big, big plus
Speaker 1: for bidays that you even if you still use toilet
Speaker 1: paper to dry off, you're using so much less than
Speaker 1: you would without a bidat that it's it's um. You're
Speaker 1: just saving tons of trees by using a bidet. That's right.
Speaker 1: You are using water. But if you've ever used one
Speaker 1: of these seat attachments or seats like you have, it's
Speaker 1: not a ton of water. Um, it's not like a
Speaker 1: bathtub or anything like that. You know, no, not at all.
Speaker 1: It's um. And if you have, you know, the more
Speaker 1: advanced your your bidat is. And it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be like the most high end bidet for this to happen.
Speaker 1: But I mean, like pretty quickly as far as technological
Speaker 1: development goes in the biday you get um, the amount
Speaker 1: of water is going to be much more efficient than
Speaker 1: you know, just like say scorting a a dishwasher hose
Speaker 1: up there. I'm just fascinated by that. It's pretty great.
Speaker 1: Do you got anything else? I had nothing else? Well,
Speaker 1: there you have. Everybody. There's bid days. We told you
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of t m I and
Speaker 1: we delivered. And since I said t m I, everybody
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. Uh. This is from Mary
Speaker 1: Kerr in Buffalo, New York. Hey, guys, been listening to
Speaker 1: stuff you should Know for years. It's been my companion
Speaker 1: on many a morning run, road trip, and just tidying
Speaker 1: up around the house. I listened to the shorty on
Speaker 1: six six six and Chuck mentioned his license plate had
Speaker 1: six six six in there. I thought of the story
Speaker 1: about my brother Matt. He recently moved to Wisconsin and
Speaker 1: was at the d m V to change his license plates.
Speaker 1: The d m V employee handed him his new license
Speaker 1: plate and number, which was six six six mph like
Speaker 1: six hundred sixty six miles per hour. I know, I'm
Speaker 1: I love it, not bad. Uh. The employee looked at
Speaker 1: the plates and said, uh, do you want a different number?
Speaker 1: And he thought about it for a second, and he
Speaker 1: thought a different number would be best so that he
Speaker 1: didn't appear to be a speeding Satan lover. And so
Speaker 1: the the d m V employee graciously changed out the plates.
Speaker 1: Um And I'm not gonna read what plate they changed
Speaker 1: it out for, because it's just now occurring to me
Speaker 1: that I don't want to out her brother's license plate
Speaker 1: for some reason, Oh, that's that's true. It was, um,
Speaker 1: asked man. She said, just a silly story. Couldn't help
Speaker 1: a share. Thank you for your knowledge, levity and distraction
Speaker 1: that you've provided over the years, especially in this time
Speaker 1: of stress and uncertainty. And keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And that is from Mary and Buffalo, New York. Nice.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, very much appreciate it, Um. Although I
Speaker 1: do have to say person only, I'm a little disappointed
Speaker 1: in your brother. But that's okay because he probably doesn't
Speaker 1: care if you want to get into this like Mary
Speaker 1: did till so you can hear that we're disappointed in
Speaker 1: your your your sibling. Well, you can send us an email,
Speaker 1: then wrap it up, spank it out of the bottom,
Speaker 1: and send it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.