You may not know this, but the toilet is really a wonderful place to retreat to whenever you feel crappy. A toilet cubicle is a very personal space and i warm up to it immediately. There’s nothing like a clean cubicle where you flop down on the toilet seat, pull your pants down (regardless of whether you need to or not), and just sit there. You can hum a song, take a nice long crap, talk on the phone, cry, read Pride And Prejudice, study for a history test, analyse the environment, or simply think about life in general. The possibilities are as endless a giant roll of toilet paper.

Many historic events have taken place in a single toilet cubicle. It is the last place where i usually see my wallet. Teen girls like to give birth in there and try to flush the baby away (only to see its bloodied head bobbing in the toilet bowl, refusing to budge, with the rest of its body wedged in the opening). Lindsay Lohan ate her first recess meal there in the movie Mean Girls. Jim Morrison, the lead singer of The Doors, decided to die in there with a fatal heroin overdose on the toilet seat. More importantly, I overdosed on potato chips once and spent hours hugging the white ceramic bowl like a long-lost lover.

Due to my uncooperative rectum and its adolescent mood swings, i often end up spending time in various toilet cubicles, from the school to the airport to the hospital. I’ve had to defecate in all sorts of toilets, from one with everything but toilet paper, to another which was just a hole in the ground. Diverse experiences, i’d like to call it.

Whenever i step into a toilet cubicle, i think: “wow! Man has evolved from doing his business in the leaves, to doing it in pots and finally to doing it in white shiny ceramic bowls with a handle to flush it all off!” the toilet is a miracle.

When i spend time sitting on the throne in various toilets, i make sure it is time well-spent. Usually i just muse over life’s great mysteries, while mummifying my fingers with toilet paper. Like how, while staring up at a cubicle ceiling once which had bits of blu-tack stuck all over it, i suddenly wondered, “why is blu-tack always blue? Why can’t they make it in white so that it’ll be less obvious on walls?” see? What a brilliant question. All this out of a mere session on the toilet bowl.

Besides musing about life, i analyse the sounds. If you’re alert enough, you can detect the “shish-ing” sounds from the neighbour-next-door. Some are so soft and gentle, like the susurrations of the evening wind, while others make me wonder if the person is holding a microphone nearby while peeing. It’s highly amusing sometimes, especially when you have several people urinating at one go. i close my eyes and can almost imagine an orchestra. Well, you imagine and orchestra made up of people peeing with different, um, strengths. Concerto No. 9, Beethoven, P-Major. It’s so morbid it’s funny.

And then come the human sounds. There are generally 4 sorts: the Moan, the Grunt, the “Ow!” and the very occasional Scream. The Moan is the one i’ve heard the most. It’s the great sigh of relief. When we hear someone moan, exhale and flush, we all know what’s happened. As any human will tell you, there is no earthly sensation like letting go something you’ve been holding back for too long. Like Mahatma Gandhi once said, “… evacuation (defecating) ends in a sense of relief. eating, if one’s tongue is not held in control, brings discomfort.”

The “Ow!” happens when we don’t finish our vegetables. The Grunt happens when we difficulty expelling things. the Scream is a rare treat. I’ve heard it once, a few years ago, when a very pretty woman gave a shriek and emerged from her cubicle, looking as if she’d seen a ghost. later, i found out that she’d not seen a phantom, but she’d seen something far worse— a Cockroach.

I think we all fail to see the beauty of the toilet. We use it every day but we don’t give a shit about it. a toilet is where humans make the closest, if not most honest, contact with our true animal selves. Under all the perfume and PDAs and books, we’re all savages in reality. The toilet is where we see the ugly side of human animal instincts: the uncivilised sadism (that’s why people sometimes pee all over the place, fling their faeces around the cubicle, for no apparent self-benefit but just to inflict pain on the next user), the cold-bloodedness (hence the flushing away of foetuses), the desire for privacy (hence the door and lock) and even mating desires (no need for elaboration).

The next time you use a toilet, keep your eyes and ears open. Listen. Observe. In this place where man gets down with Nature, you’ll never know what you might find.