A Brief Natural History of Restrooms Through Time

by Justin Teerlinck

Of all the lights in the universe, none shine as brightly as the light of restroom diversity. The Santorum Institute For Elimination Science, a conservative D.C. based think tank estimates that over 2,000 restrooms populate North America alone. These are divided into 700 known species and subspecies of the genus: restoomacae. The study of restrooms provides us with perspectives of our own human evolution as well as the evolutionary history of man and nature. Indeed, the ecosystem we know today would not be possible unless that first restroom emerged forth from the primordial sauce nearly 7.3 billion, trillion, billion years ago ushering in an era of eliminatory hygiene and civility that is reinvented in modern dance, art, culture and wet wipes—things that have tamed the wild and brought needed order to a barbaric world where things eat each other or birds flashed a crude display of feathers or monkeys a red and swollen buttock in order to win a life partner or compete for cherished documentary footage on a National Geographic Special or an asinine Jack Hanna television program. Indeed, the world, restrooms and man have come a long way since then. The ultimate lesson of evolution is that the brain is the strongest muscle, replacing the flexed arm wielding a stone axe or the protruding canine teeth we once needed to masticate the cruel roughage of the meager bark and leaves that we once knew only as our “daily bread.”

Restrooms, the experts have deduced have not evolved in linear fashion like the metal links in a chain link fence, but rather in fits and starts, struggling, reinventing, and struggling again to improve function and form, to seek a balance with the ecosystem. This process is of course, very complex leaving most non-experts hopelessly perplexed in a pit of ignorance. Yet, with the correct explanatory tools we may hope to form a ladder and climb out of this pit, ascending to the rightful station of knowledge beside the pit that is our heritage of higher learning. Indeed, we may one day look down into that pit and laugh at the image of our previous unenlightened selves, even as we build new ladders and climb out of newer pits only to look down and laugh at ourselves yet again, and so forth and so on, until there are no more pits at all and human ignorance has finally been conquered.

But for now let us speak no more of metaphorical pits or the ignorance contained within them, but move on to an introduction of evolutionary changes in restroom anatomy through time. In the beginning, restrooms were wan shadows of the beautiful, complex structures we know today. They had no internal systems for waste elimination but held on to waste until it was broken down and decomposed by other organisms. Thus, scientists have decided to call this class of primitive restrooms anhydrous, or without water, because other than early spring fed restrooms they had no internal water delivery systems that eliminated waste or brought nutrients to other areas of the restroom. Eventually, about 2.1 billion years ago these older restrooms were replaced by complex vascular restrooms that were now able to flush waste products away from themselves and bring nutrients in from the hinterlands. These aqueous restrooms had the means and the motivation to better themselves in ways previously unimaginable without a college degree. As a relationship developed between human beings and restrooms, restroom evolution accelerated even faster, producing the modern varieties we now know today. Below is a discussion of individual restroom species and their role in the advancement of restroom evolution.

Anhydrous Restrooms

Cathole
Felinis Abysmus L.
The earliest ancestor of the modern restroom is found in holes in backyards or places of scarce plumbing but especially in forests where other types of bathrooms do not abound. Contrary to its name, the Cathole does not resemble a cat but it bears a marked likeness to the types of holes which cats dig. Only experts are able to distinguish empty Catholes from other types of holes as this most primitive of the restroom species can barely claim common lineage with its highly advanced evolutionary descendants. However a full Cathole is easily identified by even the most unschooled amateur restroom enthusiast by wads of rotting toilet paper, feces and houseflies depending on time of year and climatic conditions. It has but a tiny, undeveloped pit anywhere from 3 inches to two feet deep to contain its contents. Catholes were first utilized by dinosaurs during the Middle Crustaceous Age. Earlier generations of scientists first referred to the Cathole as “Dinoholes” but this name was firmly rejected by sensitive members of the Victorian Public, who deemed any reference to lizards or reptiles as indecent and insulting to the dignity of mammals. Thus the term Cathole was adopted and standardized.

Open Air One Holer
Restroomacae Uni
Increasingly rare and difficult to spot, this shy species dwells in places that are poor in materials required to build the cellular structure for roof and walls. It rises from the dirt like a toadstool. The Open Air One Holer represents an evolutionary advance over the Cathole by its erect, tubular above-ground structure which facilitates sitting (called a tubus) as well as a much deeper and wider subterranean substructure, or pit if you will.

Open Air One Holer with polyresin or fiberglass reinforcement
Restroomacae uni cum poliresnus Spp.
Superficially, the anatomy of this subspecies is no different than the one above with the exception of a tubus which is better adapted for resisting the elements by virtue of increased structural molecular density through polyresin, polycarbonate strands or fiberglass. Only some Open Air One Holers have been able to make this advance due to an advantageous position near active volcanoes where new, plasma bearing smegma can be gleaned by these primitive creatures for use in structure apprehension. In these cases, the One Holer’s fibers are fused with 200,000 degree smegma to create an elemental bond impregnable by even the most fertile foe. A prime place to view these “living rocks” is at Smoking Smegma State Natural Area and Protection Place in the popular historic one holer region, in Alabama. In other cases, a-smegmeous polyresinate one holers are produced by their proximity to mineral rich springs, sphagnum bogs or calcareous fens where carbonic acid like the kind found in your can of cola can build up the structure of the one holers over thousands of decades. This is the same process that produces such wonders as “cave bacon” and stalactites and mites and bacteria rich snottites.

Common Outhouse
Restroomacae vulgare
The common outhouse represents the pinnacle of anhydrous restroom evolution. Used for decades by outdoorsfolk of all ilks and creeds, this work of art demonstrates the perseverance of nature in a deeply hostile unchristian environment. Here, the tubus is completely surrounded by the three dimensional exoskeletal superstructure of a rectangular set of walls joining at 90 degree angles and topped by a roof with special ground level and roof level vents to facilitate respiration and transpiration from the now fully formed breathing gills which aid in the decompositional processes. It is at this phase of restroom evolution that marks the beginning of a truly ecological symbiotic relationship between restroom and man. At this point, multiple varieties and subspecies befuddle dedicated taxonomists and the evolutionary “tree” begins to look more like a creeping vine or untrimmed shrubbery. Why the variety?

It is believed that subspecies variation in the common outhouse is a function of competition for limited resources and an intelligent adaptation to vie for the attention of man as ever more elaborate eye popping forms spring into existence toward the end of the Late Thorassic Ice Period just as man takes his first, grunting baby steps toward more efficient peristalsis and anal hygiene. However it must be said that much disagreement and ill will yet lingers between evolutionary restroom biologists of the functional school and those of the random mutation migration theory. Yet both sides agree that it was in this great period that the doors of many toilet seat bedecked outhouses beckoned early humans with their strange doors on hinges and little half-moon carvings, so markedly different from the rugged cave life they previously knew, a life of small campfires kindled with dung and then peed out during fierce competition for a life partner. It was a life of broken bones and broken hearts, a time when man knew what he had to do but couldn’t quite get it together.

Wild gestures, miming, picture games and shadow puppetry coupled with encouraging grunts were the only forms of communication. It was a life defined more by coarse language than language courses as university life was rejected in favor of rugged barbarism and the bloody excesses of savage ignorance. Somehow in this environment, the outhouses had to find creative ways to communicate to man that he did not need to burn or eat his own dung for fuel but he could safely deposit it in the waiting hole of the outhouse in exchange for the reward of living in a home free of the putrefaction of his own foul eliminations, free to live a healthier life unencumbered by the gastro-intestinal ailments and skin conditions that made his life as short as it was brute and cultureless.

Slowly, and only timidly at first did man establish relationships that later became entrenched in early art, dance, ritual and religion with these strange four walled beings with a roof and a hole to sit on. It wasn’t long, perhaps only over the course of a few thousand years that human beings stopped their aimless, godless roaming and cast off their heathen ways for a life of sedentary sanctuary amidst the welcoming bosom of waiting restrooms. Finally did our species grasp the importance of earnest living, of basic courtesy and civility. This new age of civility became manifest in such simple gestures as wiping the blood of a fresh kill from their mouths with a fresh napkin, using a good antiseptic mouthwash after consuming poo, in opening doors for ladies—doors that until now did not exist. Before long, both restrooms and man would develop inseparably along a single nondualistic coevolutionary path to responsible waste elimination.

Aqueous Restrooms

Single Entry One Shitter
Restroomacae uni plumaris
As the relationship developed, so too did restrooms, becoming ever more advanced and civilized as the long night of dark, barbaric dung fired stupidity gave way to the realized potential of daily showering and neckties in church. Finally did the cave men cast off their primitive, poo eating idols in favor of monotheism and monorestroomism, the advent of which is exemplified by the new emergence of locks on bathroom doors and indoor restroom plumbing—developments that only came about because of man’s intervention. Behold the Single Entry One Shitter, a place of personal privacy and reflection on the finer things life has to offer, such as earnestness and napkins. These restrooms have by now evolved into fully functioning organisms complete with underground septic and sewer systems, sinks that fill with clean running water and toilets that dispose of the byproducts of human biological success. The anatomy of the restroom is augmented with even greater layers of complexity as the aqueous class ushers in pipes, air cleansers, urinal cakes, sinks, drawers and mirrors in an array of appendages that are needed to supply water and nutrients to the expanding brain and technologically adept vascular restroom system.

Single Entry One Shitter, Handicap Access
Restroomacae uni plumaris cum excretos wheelchairum
At this stage, restroom compassion is fully realized as the stall is enlarged and supplemented with extra railings and lower sinks and mirrors.

Multiple Entry Handicap Access
Restroomacae polymaximus excretos wheelchairum
Efficiency and performance is matched with ingenuity as the single stall wheelchair accessible restroom is expanded into the turbo charged multiple stall waste elimination facility which accommodates all.

Multiple Entry One Shitter
Restroomacae polypopulus excretum
A strange hybrid that allows multiple people into a restroom that only features one or a few waste receptacles, usually a urinal and a toilet stall.

Multiple Entry Multi-Shitter
Restroomacae polypopulus polyexcretus
This dead end on the evolutionary shrub adapts by prioritizing quantity over quality. Here the dangers of an increasingly techno-savvy restroom culture become apparent as monstrosities such as the trough urinal and the seatless toilet make their entry into the evolutionary. Uptown Sinclair wrote about the dehumanizing effects of these industrial waste elimination machines in his landmark book The Jungle, as immigrants attempt to survive in a world filled with low wages and filthy, excrement riddled restrooms barely fit for a microbe, let alone a thinking human being.

Justin Teerlinck is a 28 year old freelance writer who resides in St. Paul, Mn. His bathroom reviews are founded on a bedrock of 20 solid years of independent toileting. You can find his work in the Double Dare Press, and in the Whistling Shade. Teerlinck has experience with travel writing, social commentary, movie reviews, miscellaneous reporting, short fiction, novels, animal stories, and fake advertisements but he mostly considers himself a humor writer above all. Teerlinck welcomes your non-threatening input. Write to him at Here_Leezard@msn.com.