Bidets Revisited

Looking through my old travel journals I rediscovered another famous bidet incident I had forgotten to mention. This one took place on my study abroad trip to Italy. A group of us had made a weekend trip away from Rome to Florence for the weekend. We had divided into boys and girls rooms at the small hotel. The girls room was directly above the boys room and I remember we heard some sort of commotion coming from below us and then saw pants hanging out the window. When we went down to see how the boys were fairing one boy, was stripped to his boxers. Apparently he had been in the bathroom and saw a bidet for the first time and decided to use it thinking it was a second toilet. I presume he was trying to “flush” it like a toilet when he accidentally turned it on and started soaking himself in water, which he then slipped on and grabbed the shower curtain to try to break his fall but ended up pulling it down with him. Which explains why we had seen his pants hanging out the window to dry…

When we returned to Rome Rob told his bidet story to our Italian teacher who laughed so hard and loud that the other Italian teacher came to check on us and our teacher told her the story, this time in Italian. I wish I could remember the translation, it was equally if not more funny when retold in Italian complete with hand gestures. Then our Italian teacher lamented on a serious note how annoying it is to travel somewhere without a bidet since she uses one daily…Perhaps bidets should come with a warning for American tourists.

You know it’s a bad-day when you’re sprayed in the face with a bidet

I never intended to write so much about bathrooms on this blog, but some stories I just can’t resist telling. I knew what a bidet was long before I ever saw one. My grandfather being French often lamented the fact that bidets don’t come standard in American bathrooms (however sinks generally do in America but in France I always ended up hunting through closets and cupboards looking for them…) So when I went with my orchestra to Brazil I was not confused by the bidet in the bathroom. Not so for many people on the trip. I didn’t realize how deep the misunderstanding about them went until dinner one night. The group had spent the day walking in the hot sun for hours and we were all covered in sweat (and those of us who “believed” in it, sunscreen) and could have used a good shower before dinner. So we had dinner at this pizza place that had 12 different kinds of pizza and just kept bringing them out-even dessert pizza-chocolate, banana and coconut cream. Part of our group was missing because they hadn’t had to be at rehearsal. I was sitting with a group of my friends when all of a sudden Mark goes

“do you know what a bidet is?”
“yes” I said
and to my horror he said “where is one when you need it? I could really use one right now . . . my feet are really dirty”
I sputtered out “Mark, do you know what a bidet is for?”
“what?”
Then I dissolved laughing . . . I had such gross images when he first said it.

When the rest of our group arrived I couldn’t resist telling them “I have a great story for you.” One of the bassoonist said that he had one in his hotel room, we were welcome to take Mark up to “educate” him. When we arrived he attempted to show me how well his foot fit in the bidet, which in all fairness, he was correct about. He then started pulling on the nobs on the bidet to see where the water came from. Unfortunately for him…one of the faucets sprays straight up and as he had been leaning close to examine the contraption he was squirted in the eye. Basically washed his face in the bidet. The rest of the trip whenever something was dirty (mostly feet) we were like “where’s the bidet?” and our last hotel everyone had one in their room.

I’d thought after that night the tour group had been pretty much set straight about the proper uses for a bidet and that the use of one probably wasn’t something people should go around demanding. But I realized I was wrong as the next morning our conductor got off the bus saying “That bidet was refreshing this morning!” I decided I hoped he’d been using it on his feet, or at the very least perhaps an eye washing station…