Lanai City
3,300 people live in Lanai City these days and frequent the island’s favorite breakfast joint — the Blue Ginger Cafe — in flip-flops and t-shirts throughout the morning gabbing nonstop. Their ancestors worked pineapple here as imported laborers from Japan, the Philippines, China, Portugal, Korea, and Puerto Rico so if you are looking to conduct a sociological study of amiable polyglot relations, the Blue Ginger Cafe would be the perfect field research lab for you.
Back in the (very old) day the Hawaiian ali’i divided the island into a dozen districts (ahupuaa) each of which extended from mountain to sea and each of which contained the essentials of life — water, cropland, wood, and sea critters. This balanced approach worked just fine until Hawaii’s magnificent isolation ceased in the eighteenth century thanks to Captain Cook, and the world came calling with its diseases and domestic animals. After sheep and goats mowed Lanai clean, the native population shrank below 200. So of course haole businessmen bought the place and converted it to the world’s largest pineapple farm. For 70 years the Dole Corporation provided grueling employment to Lanai City’s denizens, and when pineapple fell from profitability, Rupert Murdoch stepped in and built two luxury resorts on Lanai and overnight pineapple cutters became room attendants. Today Larry Ellison owns Lanai and the grandchildren of imported pineapple peons live secure in paradise.
The Future
When I stepped into the little toidy room at our Lanai resort, the toilet seat snapped to attention and lit up.
What?
Unawares I had stepped into the future of toilet . . . and . . . well . . . Jeez.
Alas the toilet of the future is sexist. The lid snaps up but not the seat, and I know from long experience that executing number one with the seat down results in pain and shame.
In my day there was one control device . . . the flush lever. This future toilet instead has a control panel bolted to the wall. Next to the buttons these words appear: Full Flush, Light Flush, Oscillating, Pulsating, (Pulsating!?!?!?), Dryer. On the side of the control panel, these words: Rear Cleansing, Front Cleansing, Pressure, Position, Stop.
I dared touch nothing but Light Flush or Stop, and prayed as I sat that nothing on God’s green earth would prompt my elbow to brush Oscillating or Pulsating. Just for the bleeping heck of it Jane and I placed one foot, each of us, on opposite sides of the toidy seat to approximate the weight of a seated human being, and punched Oscillate.
Ye gads. A robotic arm extended from the nether regions. It oscillated. It sprayed water all over us. We retreated. I warned Jane that at my age sometimes bladder pressure wakes me in the wee hours and that she should not fret if shrieks interrupted her slumber. Just me experiencing the future.
hutch adventure 2 
Gosh Bill. Thanks for sharing. For better or worse, your colorful and amazingly descriptive writing creates very powerful and precise imagery of your potty experience. But I do love and appreciate the notes on your latest adventure! ALOHA!
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Hello Bill,
You sure get around. Have life by the balls, so to speak?
Listen, you have been to Europe. Never used a bidet before?
If you use these types of toilets correctly, no need for paper. You’ll walk around with the cleanest behind in the neighborhood.
LOL!!
Take care and keep it coming. Always interesting.
Jean
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delighted to hear of your continuing travels. so insightful. thank you. I’ve been visiting your spiritual center in Sonoma, and I’ve enjoyed the environment, friendliness and messages. May we see you again there? All the best. It’s not spiritual rhetoric I’m accustomed to but delightful. I know there is only One and the words matter not as long as the message grasps the heart.
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I’m not sure that I have ever read a travelogue quite like this one. Very descriptive and very interesting. You are too much fun!
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I cannot even imagine how beautiful Lanai was before the white man came and developed it.
I had to laugh, because I have a toilet seat just like this one you described. In Korea and Japan, man people have these.
Enjoy!!!
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Oscillating, pulsating, gyrating! You got to be careful where you leave your shit these days! I remember, in the early days in Zorbathes, taking a digger, a roll of toilet paper, and disappearing into the woods for a while. Now that we have the Internet, we no longer do that. Keep the travelogue coming! Hugs.
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Bill,
Back to Hawaii. Wasn’t that where your travels began in the 60’s. What took you there after college?
Enjoyed the potty humor. Story struck home as I had 2 major plumbing issues in past 2 weeks. And of course plumbers now charge as much as surgeons.
I trust you caught up with putter.
Will be in SF next week for first visit with 5 week old grandson. Let me know if you are back in California and will be in the city any time.
Harry
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great to hear from you…. this is reminiscent of a potty in a fancy hotel in Japan… wow…
Niz Brown
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Big giggles with that shitter. Peter H
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ahhhh, i see you’ve experienced the Toto washlet. it’s amazing, isn’t it? in Japan they have them in the nicest hotels, and even in the Kabuki theatre. that one chimes and plays a melody for bathroom privacy. the Japanese are so evolved. Sounds like you are having fun. Lovely.
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When we finally get around to remodeling our upstairs bathroom I will be sure NOT to get a toilet like the space age one you encountered. With Steve and I each getting up at least once a night, I can’t imagine what would happen!!!!!!
Hope you had a good time, in spite of the plumbing
Lots of love, Barb
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Hi Bill,
Hawai !! whouah so far for us, thank you for sharing your impressions.
I make the experience by friends in the night without light. I let you imagine !!! ah ah
1st August our National day with François et Sonja with fantastic weather
Bisous
Colette & Andi and family
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