Latest / Privycast / Ep. 171 Talking FLUSH w/ Kim Worsham (Privychat 43)
Transcript
- 0:00Yeah, well, and same to you, you know?
- 0:03there need, I think the, it's such a shame that we've let the stigma of like toilets and bathrooms become something where like it's just an untouchable topic when we do it every
- 0:13day.
- 0:13I mean, it's such an essential part of life.
- 0:16And the fact that we've made it this taboo thing, there's reason for it a bit, but I think we've almost gone too far.
- 0:28Welcome back to Privy.
- 0:30Privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded from my home bathroom.
- 0:36I'm your host, Hunter Hoover, and I love bathrooms.
- 0:39um I'm in uh home bathroom, but I'm joined virtually via the power of the internet uh by Flush's one and only Kim Wersham.
- 0:50Did I get your last name correct, Kim?
- 0:53Perfect.
- 0:54Welcome.
- 0:55Thank you so much for being here.
- 0:56How are you today?
- 0:57I'm all right, how are you doing?
- 0:59Thanks for inviting me.
- 1:00Absolutely.
- 1:01I'm doing well.
- 1:02It's actually like my first real day.
- 1:06I'm a school teacher by day.
- 1:08So today is like my actual real first day of summer.
- 1:12we were running around with the kids and getting that library stuff set up.
- 1:18yeah.
- 1:19Yeah.
- 1:20So I'm just going to give you and also the listener kind of a brief, how did we get here?
- 1:29Via social media, something that happens is the algorithm or the powers that be recommend me just countless bathroom related pages and profiles and accounts.
- 1:43And I follow a handful of those, especially the ones that seem to have a lot to say and a lot to provide and a lot of cool information just to keep track of what's going on out
- 1:52there in the bathroom world.
- 1:53And Flush was one of the early
- 1:57uh bathroom related Instagram accounts that I had found and it's super cool to see.
- 2:04I actually I was just earlier today I was on and I saw it might have been from some time ago but it was a video about the prisons in Alcatraz and I was reading through that.
- 2:14Super fascinating stuff.
- 2:15So that's kind of how we got to this point and then just reached out and said hey I like to talk about bathrooms and
- 2:25what y'all have going on at Flush seems uh very interested in them as well.
- 2:30I will say I did a little digging around and I wanted to on Flush's website, it cites you as being kind of like having this childhood passion for bathrooms.
- 2:42Can you share with us a little bit about what that was and what that looks like?
- 2:46Sure, yeah.
- 2:46So I have numerous gastrointestinal disorders.
- 2:51So I've always been someone that's needed a bathroom, even since when I was a little girl.
- 2:56And um I was always looking for a bathroom.
- 3:00I was always not feeling safe if there was no bathroom.
- 3:03And it became a family joke when I was younger, because whenever we would go to a restaurant in the 90s, I wouldn't let them sit down until I looked at the toilet first,
- 3:12because I knew I was going to end up there.
- 3:14Right, right.
- 3:15I started joking around that I was like this toilet inspector, because I have a personal code, because I wanted to make sure the toilet was good for me so that when I could go to
- 3:23the bathroom, it would be fine.
- 3:25yeah, and I totally forgot about that.
- 3:27Like as I got older, I was like, you know, single digits child, eight, seven.
- 3:34And then when I was trying to figure out my career stuff, you know, I liked a lot of different things.
- 3:39And then I kind of rediscovered water and sanitation when I was doing work overseas.
- 3:45And I called my mom at the time and I was like, Oh my God, I think I really want to work in toilets.
- 3:50And she's like, yeah, that makes sense.
- 3:52I didn't know what she was talking about.
- 3:54She's like, don't you remember the inspections of all the toilets at the restaurants?
- 3:57I was like, I remember it now, but like I, yeah, like I didn't put two and two together.
- 4:02Yeah.
- 4:02It's the thing.
- 4:04It stood out more to them than it probably stuck with you.
- 4:07That's interesting.
- 4:09That's funny.
- 4:10It probably wasn't funny in the moment, but um I know less gastrointestinal, but I think it's just anxiety of buildings and crowds.
- 4:22Tracking down where the bathroom's at is definitely uh a component.
- 4:27It is.
- 4:28What took you overseas for the work that you were doing?
- 4:31um I was pretty young in my career and I wanted to work overseas and I always wanted to work internationally.
- 4:37And I ended up on a project in one of my grad programs where I went to India and uh needed a bathroom.
- 4:44And it was a water-related program and I was doing some water work and needed a bathroom in the middle of nowhere in the rural areas.
- 4:55Couldn't find one or find one that was allowed to use.
- 4:58And I was like, you know what?
- 4:59I can't be the only person that needs a bathroom all the time.
- 5:02And it kind of opened light for me where I was like, my god, some people in the world don't have this.
- 5:08And found out just how many people, mean, millions of people don't have access to toilets, even billions sometimes we could say.
- 5:16So for me, that was like the big light turned on and.
- 5:20You know, I started my career thinking I was going to be in entertainment and did that for like a minute and got out and hated it.
- 5:26And then I went into toilets and my parents were just like, what?
- 5:30You like you went to business school, you went on to this international stuff and now you want to work on toilets.
- 5:36I was like, yeah, it's amazing.
- 5:38That's awesome.
- 5:41Wow.
- 5:43I've been fortunate enough to not travel anywhere that I couldn't find one eventually, but I think the closest thing was we uh did some building project stuff in Mexico a few years
- 5:58back and uh there was moments where it was like, is a hole, there's a seat and it's like, my goodness, this is wild.
- 6:06uh
- 6:08And in some of, I know there was a couple of places in Israel where you didn't flush the paper, which was another big cultural separation because it just feels so wrong to not.
- 6:23But yeah, it is a good reminder.
- 6:25It's something that I think we definitely take for granted.
- 6:29ah That's actually what sort of started this show.
- 6:34It was actually around Thanksgiving and I was going through and I'm like, man,
- 6:38This is pretty great that we have this access.
- 6:43There's a lot of definite thankfulness in the backburners uh of the show.
- 6:49You said you studied business.
- 6:54Is that what led to Flush as, is it an organization?
- 6:59I want to make sure I talk about it the right way.
- 7:02Okay.
- 7:03Yeah.
- 7:03Um, yeah, that's kind of how I've tried to marry my, you know, business degree and my international work together.
- 7:12Um, you know, I got a degree at a fantastic business school in the U S and really didn't know what to do with it at the time.
- 7:20And, you know, went off to do international development stuff.
- 7:24And one of the things I kept seeing when I was in international development was just how
- 7:29how much they struggled with things that we learned in business school and were pretty easy to me where I was like, wow, why are we having such a hard time with this?
- 7:38Particularly around communications.
- 7:41So I have a marketing degree and I see a lot in water and sanitation.
- 7:50It's a hidden topic partly just because we have a lot of enthusiastic engineers who don't know how to talk about it.
- 7:57think that when they talk about it, it must make sense to everyone and then get confused when people don't adopt the thing that they're trying to put in.
- 8:07every time I was just like, yeah, you didn't do the marketing.
- 8:10And everyone's going, oh, marketing is bad.
- 8:12And I'm like, it's not.
- 8:14It's just a way.
- 8:15It's like, I mean, I don't think of myself as like a corporate hound or anything.
- 8:21I think.
- 8:22There's just a lot of misconceptions about business principles in the international development and nonprofit world, to be honest.
- 8:30So I wanted to start a company to really provide those services and be like, I know what you're doing.
- 8:36I align with your values, but I have this skillset and this skills that's kind of important.
- 8:40And I promise it'll help you.
- 8:43um, yeah, so I started my company in 2018 and slowly built it up and it's, doing pretty well.
- 8:51And.
- 8:52you know, we're doing marketing support for some organizations and some other organizations were doing more like technical assistance on like evaluating how their
- 9:01programs are doing.
- 9:02So like, it kind of depends on the client what we actually do.
- 9:06But yeah, like the main the main reason I started it was just because I was like, wow, you guys really don't understand how to like, run stuff.
- 9:12And especially in in international development, it became really popular to talk about business principles.
- 9:19But
- 9:19when they were talking about it, was all very theoretical.
- 9:22And then when they would apply it, was like, that's not how that works.
- 9:26That's not, that's not.
- 9:27And I actually remember like, I had a full blown argument with someone about marketing, about what it was.
- 9:32And, and I was like, I don't, have a degree in it.
- 9:36I think I know what it is.
- 9:37Like, I think I, passed, like I got some good grades in it and they kept trying to be like, that's not what it is.
- 9:43And I was like, I don't know why you're trying to tell the person with a marketing degree, what marketing is.
- 9:47Well, what you're telling me is not right.
- 9:49Because they thought marketing was just flyers and radio station jingles.
- 9:54And I was like, that's not it.
- 9:56Marketing is like a whole lot of data and asking people questions, trying to understand how they use stuff, saying, hey, this product isn't going to work or this service isn't
- 10:08going to work because of this reason people don't like it.
- 10:11And basically, it's like the relationship manager of anything you're trying to put together.
- 10:17You know, when people started saying like, it's just communications.
- 10:20like, it's really big.
- 10:23Like, I mean, I had to take a lot of statistics classes and I had to learn a lot about like how to engage with human beings.
- 10:29And so started Flush to say, Hey, if you want this service, this is what we can do.
- 10:34And we use our blog and we use our website and our social media as like proof of concept of, Hey, people engage with us.
- 10:41People think our stuff is really interesting and they reach out to us and we don't even know them like.
- 10:46Here we are.
- 10:47m
- 10:47it gets found and people like it and and people are seeing that and they're resonating with it.
- 10:53Oh, wow.
- 10:54Like you do get people interested in your work and you don't have a big budget.
- 10:58Like, no, you don't have to have a big budget, but you have to be smart about how you talk to people.
- 11:02So, yeah, that's that's how flush started.
- 11:05That's super cool.
- 11:06uh I do have a question related to Flush and it's more of a personal curiosity.
- 11:12Have you in this marketing world, especially with a name like Flush, I love it, but have you found people that are standoffish around the whole bathroom related concept or are
- 11:23people pretty open to it?
- 11:26Because I know just to share with this, there's folks that are like, wait now.
- 11:31uh
- 11:32whole thing about it and I was like yeah yeah you know bathrooms are everywhere.
- 11:36Well, I think um it's kind of how I approach it with different people.
- 11:39So like, I'm not going to go balls to the wall, talk about, you know, poo in bathrooms with someone who's like in private investment, right?
- 11:48Like I'm going to start and kind of bring them in with like, hey, I work in like a climate or environmental related pro like thing, and we focus on sanitation and this is why.
- 11:58So we try to kind of get them interested.
- 12:02uh mean,
- 12:05I think the challenge sometimes with my company name is they think I might be like a casino because like the card gains like a real flush.
- 12:13So I get that sometimes or sometimes people get the name wrong or they're like, it's flush.
- 12:19I'm like, that's the name of the URL, but that's not the name of the company.
- 12:24So I haven't had people get turned off by the name, but honestly, I find more people when I tell them that I'm like a toilet expert.
- 12:33I did a joke about this, I don't know, eight years ago.
- 12:38I feel like a confessor.
- 12:40I become this person where everything that's deep dark in their soul comes out about toilets.
- 12:45I've always wanted to talk about this or ask this question to somebody.
- 12:49And I get some really weird people tell me, because they're like, finally, somebody has this expertise and I can ask.
- 12:56Or, oh, I had this experience and I need to share it.
- 12:59And I'm always just like, OK.
- 13:00and I'm happy to receive that information.
- 13:03It's always, sometimes, and I think my face is like, I've been told I have a resting nice face.
- 13:08So people just wanna share information to me.
- 13:12yeah, so I've gotten some questions where I'm kind of like, okay, I'm not a sex ed professional.
- 13:18So I think that's actually a sexual education question or I actually don't know that much about animals.
- 13:23And I feel like that might be someone else, like maybe a vet can answer that question.
- 13:28I get some really weird questions when I'm the toilets.
- 13:33If anything, I feel like people latch on really fast.
- 13:35They're like, yes, really quick.
- 13:38Well, good.
- 13:39That's right at home here because when we started doing guested episodes, it began as people emailing me, like you said, these confessions essentially of bathroom confessions
- 13:53and it's going, hey, do you want to talk to the internet about it and put it out there publicly for everybody to hear?
- 14:00About 50-50 on the people that are willing to do so.
- 14:04um
- 14:06What's the strangest question you've ever been asked about, whether bathroom-related or otherwise?
- 14:12Um, yeah, I mean, and I really don't remember who this person was.
- 14:17So I don't know if they'll ever listen to this, but they asked me about like the public health safety issues with like anal ingus.
- 14:26And I was just like, you know what?
- 14:28That's really not my specialty.
- 14:30I like, I don't, I don't suggest you do that.
- 14:33think there's cleaning protocols.
- 14:35I don't know.
- 14:36Like, I really, don't know how to answer your question.
- 14:39And
- 14:40You know, and the way they kind of looked at me like you can't finally answer this for me.
- 14:44was like, I really don't know.
- 14:46You know, I can tell you that there's, you know, bacteria down there that you will want to sanitize.
- 14:53You might get, you know, food poisoning from it, but like, I don't know what else to tell you.
- 14:57Like, this is really out of my wheelhouse.
- 14:59So I've gotten, that was my weirdest question, I would say.
- 15:02But sometimes the weirdest questions, like the weird questions I get, I actually make me kind of go like, huh.
- 15:09That's a question that like is really interesting and it makes me actually rethink how we articulate stuff about sanitation toilets.
- 15:17Like I had one, I was doing a class in Connecticut a while back and someone was asking me like, why do my wives fart smell and not mine?
- 15:26And people were laughing at him because that's a weird question.
- 15:28was like, no, actually that's a really interesting question because it's like an evolutionary question.
- 15:33Like why evolutionarily speaking?
- 15:36Why do yours not smell and hers do?
- 15:38And I came up with a general idea of an answer, but I was like, you know, that's really interesting that you want to know that because it's like how you engage with that stuff.
- 15:49Whereas like in my sector, if I ask my colleagues that, they'll be like, why would we answer that?
- 15:54like, because some people want to understand how it relates to them.
- 15:57So to me, sometimes it's, you know, I think people in my sector would be like, that's a weird question.
- 16:02And I'm like, wait, wait, hold on, hold on.
- 16:05Wait, there's a point in like, yeah, like let's try to unpack that.
- 16:09Like, what is that about?
- 16:11And like, why does it bother them?
- 16:13And also what can we say?
- 16:15So sometimes I think if someone was with me whenever I'm like engaging in public stuff, would just collect these questions.
- 16:23And often I'm just like, yeah, that was a cool question.
- 16:27How do I answer that?
- 16:28I don't know.
- 16:30Yeah.
- 16:31Oh my gosh.
- 16:32I don't know why, but all I can imagine is that person, their wife sitting next to them just like, stop it, trying to shut it down.
- 16:46For me, when you open the door, whether it's through flush or other mediums to bathrooms, it's like you give permission to people.
- 16:59to be like, well, this person's at least this much comfortable with the concept of bathrooms.
- 17:06If I'm going to ask anybody, I'm going to shoot my shot with them.
- 17:11Hats off to you for being that for people because they need it.
- 17:14Like you said.
- 17:15You know, like we there need I think the it's such a shame that we've let the stigma of like toilets and bathrooms become something where like it's just an untouchable topic when
- 17:25we do it every day I mean, it's such an essential part of life and the fact that we've made it this taboo thing There's reason for it a bit, but I think we've almost gone too
- 17:34far Yeah, and when I go to certain countries, it's a lot easier to talk about my work than it is here in the US
- 17:42And people are like, hold on, I've been asked if I'm doing a bit when I talk about my work where they're like, are you doing a bit on me?
- 17:48And I'm like, why would I make this up?
- 17:51This just feels too good to be true.
- 17:53I'm really good at cocktail parties.
- 17:55But if I go to work with my colleagues in Kenya or Ghana, to them, they're like, yeah, that's a legitimate problem we have.
- 18:03Let's go fix it.
- 18:05yeah, I see it.
- 18:06And here there's a lot more giggles.
- 18:08And I'm originally from New York City.
- 18:11where people like weird stuff, but I live in San Francisco now.
- 18:15And there have been a couple of times when I'm trying to talk about my work and people are like, wait, what, really?
- 18:20That's what?
- 18:22What do you mean?
- 18:23You focus on toilets?
- 18:24I'm like, yeah, actually it's kind of important.
- 18:28And they're just really kind of befuddled the whole time, just thinking that I'm making fun of them, I guess.
- 18:36I don't know, but I'm always like, I don't know, this is.
- 18:38This is legitimate.
- 18:39get paid to talk about toilets.
- 18:41That's Yeah.
- 18:43Yeah, it happens.
- 18:45Yeah, that's wow.
- 18:48I imagine even Kenyan and I'm sure that's one of many places in the world where you just, I don't know, when you said that, my first response around bathrooms is to kind of like
- 19:02you said, chuckle a little bit.
- 19:05But for a lot of people, it's like, no, no, this is a serious thing that if we can't get this hammered out, ah life is harder.
- 19:13uh or less safe in many, instances.
- 19:17It's a good reminder.
- 19:19I've got dysentery more than once because of my work.
- 19:23Really?
- 19:24Yeah.
- 19:25mean, and it's funny.
- 19:26I was talking with my Ugandan colleagues and she was like, I don't know any Ugandan who's had dysentery.
- 19:30like, I've got it.
- 19:31I've had it twice in two different countries.
- 19:33I feel like my passion is even higher.
- 19:36I've had parasites and stuff because when I'm working in certain places, I'm going to these places because they don't have good access, which means...
- 19:45m
- 19:47Whitey McWhite White over here is going to end up getting dysentery and and it's funny to me because I'm always just like Yeah, like going to the doctor being like I have
- 19:56dysentery.
- 19:56No, you don't like Do the tests like I promise you I do and then they're like you do I'm like, I know I have dysentery uh But it's made me more passionate because I'm like, yeah,
- 20:06like look I I am proof of concept proof of proof of the need because Wow, I go to certain places and I get sick
- 20:15And, you know, or people, you know, joke about going to certain countries and getting sick.
- 20:18And it's like, well, if they had toilets, we wouldn't have this problem.
- 20:23So here we are.
- 20:27It's a solvable problem.
- 20:29It's time and resources and people to care.
- 20:36It's a gnarly problem too though, mean it's complicated.
- 20:39Yeah.
- 20:41Again, that's that stuff you take for granted.
- 20:44I think even when they just build houses and stuff over here, they have the infrastructure in place.
- 20:50um I've found there's a couple of articles that I've seen on Flush that was laying out that infrastructure piece.
- 21:00It was talking a little bit about how stuff integrates with a bigger sewage picture.
- 21:07I find that stuff super helpful mostly because like I said, I work at a high school.
- 21:12These kids have no idea how internet gets to their phone.
- 21:15They think it's magic.
- 21:18The same is true for when they hit the flush.
- 21:22Not my problem now.
- 21:25I've shown a handful of them stuff and trying to get them, especially there's handfuls that are into trades and looking to go towards trades and I'm like, you.
- 21:34You may want to take a look at this.
- 21:35This will give you a bigger picture feel for what you're going to go into.
- 21:39Plumbers make some good money too and we're running out.
- 21:42There are a bunch of them hiring so we're having like a bit of gap.
- 21:44uh
- 21:47That's why I think it's necessary, like you said, if we don't turn that corner, we'll have a different problem too, another problem.
- 21:58um I do want to know mostly because just to totally bear my ignorance, my interaction with the idea of dysentery is like playing the Oregon Trail back in the day.
- 22:11uh
- 22:12What are the symptoms?
- 22:14Or unless it's super overbearing, like what are the-
- 22:18graphics do want me to get?
- 22:19mean...
- 22:20I mean...
- 22:23I mean, it's bloody mucus stool and it's pretty constant diarrhea, like sick sometimes.
- 22:32I mean, it looks like other things sometimes.
- 22:35So the first time I got it, they thought I had dengue fever.
- 22:38And so I was in the hospital and they came out with my stool sample and they're like, good news, it's not dengue, it's dysentery.
- 22:45And I was like, I don't know if that's better, but I mean, it was in some sense.
- 22:49So you get like really high fever.
- 22:51tend to get really bad back aches when I get it and really like lethargic stomach aches and cramping.
- 22:59And then you get, you know, bloody stool.
- 23:02So it's not even stool, it's bloody diarrhea.
- 23:04So you do that.
- 23:07And what is treatment, I mean modern day, what do they do for that?
- 23:12So the dysentery I've had is from amoebas, and so I get an antiprotozoal.
- 23:17So it's like an antiparasitic, but um I have to eat really bland foods and just be near a toilet for a week, essentially.
- 23:28And the last time I wasn't near a toilet at one point, and I was in a very dark place for a minute.
- 23:36But yeah, mean, you have to get rid of the amoebas and eat.
- 23:41just like rice and that's kinda it.
- 23:44Yeah, yeah.
- 23:48That's crazy.
- 23:51uh What a story.
- 23:54I will say this, you are the first person I've ever met- Who's had in person or otherwise that's had dysentery.
- 24:03Yes, I've met one person who had scurvy of all things.
- 24:10Yes, you're the first dysentery.
- 24:12It's, it's occupational hazard.
- 24:13are some cases of the, there are some countries where I've worked where it's almost like a badge of like proof.
- 24:20Like I work in this sector.
- 24:22I've had dysentery.
- 24:23So I was living in Cambodia and everyone got dysentery and like, was just a wave of dysentery that went through.
- 24:28So we all got dysentery and my roommate at the time had dysentery before me.
- 24:33So she was like, yeah, yeah, that's here's like, here's the, the stuff that I took, like good luck with it.
- 24:39So.
- 24:40Yeah, it's just a it's kind of one of those things that just happens in some places
- 24:44Yeah, that is a sad and unfortunate truth.
- 24:51I don't know.
- 24:53I think that would be an emotionally challenging thing as well.
- 24:57At least for me, I don't know if I'd be like, this might be it, but.
- 25:02You do feel like dying, but once the medicine kicks in, you start feeling better.
- 25:08If they give you good medicine, and in some countries where they don't have the FDA, they give you really good medicines.
- 25:15You feel really good afterwards.
- 25:19There's a couple of things.
- 25:20When I'm traveling for work, there are certain meds, I'll go to the pharmacist and I'll be like, give me a pack of that because I'm bringing it home.
- 25:30or when I my next food poisoning instance, because it's just really good.
- 25:35And um yeah, so it's not like you want to die forever.
- 25:39It's like you want to die for like a day or two.
- 25:41It's like having a terrible flu.
- 25:44And then you get over it and you survive it.
- 25:46then, you know, the only challenge for me is because I've had so many parasites and dysentery in a short period of time, I actually can't eat.
- 25:56meat anymore.
- 25:57So I'm a pescatarian because my body doesn't digest meat anymore.
- 26:02that's the that's the bummer.
- 26:03But I mean, I bacon sometimes, but it's fine.
- 26:08Yes.
- 26:08Wow, that's crazy.
- 26:14Hats off to you for both going through that and also going out there and doing that work.
- 26:21Yes, that's an incredible thing.
- 26:24I have a handful of questions that I ask everyone.
- 26:29Then at the end, I want to make sure that we come back around and sandwich it with a short conversation related to Flush.
- 26:37And so I'm just going to kind of float these out there.
- 26:39And if you want to expand on them as much or as little as you want.
- 26:44um like I said, these are super uh related to what you're doing.
- 26:50are like, we're back in kindergarten level questions.
- 26:54So ah I'm not going to be asking you anything too terribly wild.
- 26:58uh The first is, what is your preferred type of toilet paper?
- 27:03Like brand, ply, all of those things.
- 27:05What do you prefer?
- 27:06I like bamboo and I get who gives a crap.
- 27:10uh Like their bulk purchases.
- 27:14I get a bulk box of them and they last me pretty well.
- 27:18I like that they're durable and that they're nice and thick, but I also like the fact that it's not trees.
- 27:23Yeah, yeah, that's actually, I did like a whole, raided a whole bunch of toilet paper and I have like, it's called Honeycomb Bamboo toilet paper.
- 27:33But that's what we actually have right now.
- 27:35Nice.
- 27:37that's, yeah, very cool.
- 27:38And you said it's Who Gives a Crap that you, the one that you like?
- 27:42Yeah.
- 27:42Okay, I'm gonna have to check it out, because there's a handful of brands out there that have popped up, I think, in the, not too distant past, but.
- 27:52Yeah.
- 27:53And then on your toilet paper, are you a fold it over or fold it under?
- 27:58Over.
- 27:58Okay.
- 27:59um Is that like, are you set on that or are you?
- 28:03yeah.
- 28:03Okay.
- 28:03Because every time I do it under, breaks whenever I try to pull it out.
- 28:07So over is always easier for me.
- 28:09Got it.
- 28:10If you ever, like if you go to someone's house or if you go somewhere and it's under, will you flip it?
- 28:15No.
- 28:17Yeah.
- 28:19Perfect.
- 28:19I'm just like, oh you're an under.
- 28:22Okay.
- 28:25Well, that's that's funny my uh My wife is is in the same camp as you she is like, nope It must go over and if and if you put it on the other way I'm flipping it around and then I'm
- 28:37you know that you did it wrong
- 28:38So in the toilet paper patent, it's supposed to be over.
- 28:41So I mean, we're
- 28:41We're correct.
- 28:46People bring this up to me all the time and I'm convinced that it's not a conspiracy because I don't want to go into that, but I'm convinced that the guy did that on purpose
- 28:56because I think it actually uses more paper to go over unless you're being mindful.
- 29:02I think if anybody's being mindful of their paper, you're going to solve that problem, but especially little kids when they just grab and rip.
- 29:11I think the over, I don't know, I'm working on a test for that, but I haven't been able to.
- 29:16uh I have two kids and isolating them on that test is like, wait, wait, wait, how many did you use?
- 29:25Like half of it's gone.
- 29:26You got to chill out and then there's no way to measure anyway.
- 29:29uh
- 29:30You should like number every single piece of toilet paper and just see how many they go for.
- 29:38Yeah.
- 29:39Oh, yeah.
- 29:40I wonder if you could buy it.
- 29:42There has to be like pre-numbered paper.
- 29:46Oh, man.
- 29:47Now I know what I know.
- 29:49looking up later.
- 29:51Do you do you prefer bar soap or liquid soaps?
- 29:54Bar.
- 29:55Bar.
- 29:56Okay.
- 29:56I like the feeling of control I have with the bar and I like the fact that like I just feel like I can rub it better.
- 30:07Like I don't like loofahs.
- 30:09Loofahs are kind of gross to me and I have to use liquid soap sometimes when I'm traveling just because that's like what's available.
- 30:16And I always like the exfoliating feature of the bar soap.
- 30:21So I just can't get behind the liquid.
- 30:24My partner likes liquid but
- 30:25Yeah, no, I'm like, he knows that I like bars like in my my Christmas stocking.
- 30:30I always get like bars of stuff because I like soap.
- 30:33Do you have a preferred brand or like a?
- 30:36No, well, if I'm going to have to go for like a brand brand, it's going to be Dove because I have sensitive skin.
- 30:42I tend to really like to go to markets where they have like goats milk soap because I really like how it works.
- 30:50It's good.
- 30:51And so the two best soaps I've ever used, one was donkey soap, donkey milk soap, which is like something that's really popular in France.
- 31:01And so I got some and I was like, hold on.
- 31:04Like I was getting this because it was funny and now I'm like really into it because if it was nice and then charcoal soap, which is called soap in Ghana and that's really nice too.
- 31:14So anything that's like milk or like just basically anything that someone's like making in their house in like a sketchy way, I probably
- 31:26man, it's the unsanctioned soap and dietary medications.
- 31:34Yeah, that's it.
- 31:35Yes, that's the way to go.
- 31:36totally.
- 31:38And then so related to that, not exactly, how do you feel about baths?
- 31:45And to share where it's coming from, there's like two camps.
- 31:48There's the folks that are like grossed out by baths and then there's the folks that like it's...
- 31:52it's peak experience for them.
- 31:54do you, where do you fall on that continuum?
- 31:56So I grew up not having baths.
- 32:00we always did showers because my mom was told in the 80s that they weren't safe for kids.
- 32:06So we didn't have baths really.
- 32:08um Now I think it's weird that would stew.
- 32:14I would become Kim Soup.
- 32:17I don't like that idea.
- 32:18oh But I know people I've tried to enjoy it in the past.
- 32:24And I know some people do enjoy it and I just think I'm not it's not it's not it's not my jam So I really like the shower feeling and like historically speaking baths are really
- 32:36like where it was at for a long time because it was like a full Spa experience and like the shower only came in like what?
- 32:43150 years ago or something Very recent but I just like I'm like, know what whoever decided to like put a
- 32:52bowl above their head and make a splash down on them was brilliant.
- 32:57Love
- 32:58yes.
- 32:58ah Okay, yeah, I'm on the same page.
- 33:02ah Do you have any bathroom pet peeves?
- 33:06Like things that just drive you bonkers in the bathroom?
- 33:09As in that I do or that other people do in my bathroom or in their bathroom.
- 33:14any of it.
- 33:17If you really want to dig down deep and find the things that you do that drive people nuts.
- 33:22I mean, I think having, I have to think about this.
- 33:31It's like not trying to say what drives me nuts my partner does basically is what I'm trying to like, what else?
- 33:38What's like not a partner thing?
- 33:43I think of my bathroom as like my sanctuary.
- 33:45like, there's just certain things about cleanliness that I like about my bathroom that I'd like to keep.
- 33:51um One of the things is I don't like it when people close the bathroom door after they showered.
- 34:03Okay, just traps the...
- 34:05Yeah, traps all the glue and stuff, or like they don't put the fan on or anything.
- 34:09Like I've worked, lived with some roommates who were like, you have to close the door.
- 34:12And I was like, do you not understand?
- 34:14There's no window.
- 34:15There's no way for us to get ventilation in here.
- 34:17And that's like a really big peeve of mine.
- 34:19Cause I don't like, I don't like the smell of mildew and I don't like the feeling of everything being kind of just like always a little bit soggy.
- 34:28Yeah.
- 34:30Realize, my biggest pet peeve.
- 34:32Yeah, hey, is totally valid.
- 34:34Yeah, I don't think of that one.
- 34:37And I also don't think that, I mean, yeah, I don't think I've heard that one from people, uh but it's a good one, or even just the air, like when you go in, especially if it's not
- 34:49been long since the shower has been off, you just get hit with the wave of like uh hot, warm, wet air, and it's like, ooh.
- 34:57And there might be something to like one of my apartments in New York when I was living there for I lived there for a long time.
- 35:05And one of my apartments, the bathroom ceiling fell on me and it might be something to do with that because like, yeah, there was they were like close the door because there's
- 35:17asbestos like in your in your bathroom now.
- 35:20And I was like, cool.
- 35:22Oh, my goodness, we're gonna ventilate.
- 35:24that's yeah.
- 35:26That's wild.
- 35:27eh
- 35:28Yeah, they didn't get rent that much.
- 35:31uh Hey, that's Wow.
- 35:36um So I'm going to be honest with you.
- 35:39I have a series of what I've been told are like weird shower questions.
- 35:46So I'm just going to go, I'm just going to dive right into them.
- 35:48And if you're like, you know what, hard pass.
- 35:50um But the first is, do you or have you ever taken a dark shower?
- 35:54Just lights off, full shower experience with the lights off.
- 35:59No.
- 36:00Sometimes the power goes off when I'm overseas.
- 36:04Okay, yeah.
- 36:06so yes.
- 36:07m
- 36:08Okay, so I had a buddy in college that he did this and it was one of those things where it spread like wildfire and now it's like my preferred path forward.
- 36:20I liken it to the sensory deprivation chambers, especially if you're a morning shower person.
- 36:27It's like this is the best way to ease myself into this day.
- 36:31um So yeah, just the weird things that people do.
- 36:35It's more strategic.
- 36:37Like it is a six minute shower and I am like, I, it's clockable.
- 36:43Like people at six minutes and I'm like taking the extra hair off of my head and stuff.
- 36:49That's like falling out and whatever.
- 36:50Cause I'm a female and I have a lot of hair and um, you know, like it's a very like, and now is the time that we're doing the face and like, there's, just like the order.
- 37:00It's my ritual.
- 37:01It's like my operations and
- 37:03If I don't have light, think that would hinder some of the things that I have to do in the shower.
- 37:07Absolutely.
- 37:08I think you have actually inadvertently answered a handful of these questions.
- 37:13However, I'm going to soldier forth.
- 37:15um Do you do any snacks either in the shower or you're like, noop, drinks, shower drink?
- 37:25No, really?
- 37:26Okay.
- 37:28to do?
- 37:29Why do need to blend things I enjoy?
- 37:31This is a pure experience for me.
- 37:33It's a shower.
- 37:35Yeah, I, you know, it's, um...
- 37:41There's a variety of things that are great in the shower.
- 37:45There's a variety.
- 37:46I've heard a lot of things that are a bridge too far.
- 37:50I had a guy that was like, yes, a bag of chips.
- 37:52I said, no, no, no.
- 37:55That's madness.
- 37:57Yeah, I know there's no food.
- 37:59It is a non food place.
- 38:01Like the bathroom is not a food place for me.
- 38:03It's where things are evacuated, not for things to come in.
- 38:11No, it's because I have like GI disorders.
- 38:16maybe there's like, my bathroom experience is always a bit precarious because it's how much pain am I going to be in while I'm It's a safe zone.
- 38:28Like the sterility of it needs to be there partly so that I feel
- 38:32Yeah, that's fair.
- 38:34And like, you know, like I have a thing where like, it's an IBS thing where like, sometimes I don't know if I'm gonna pass out puke or shit myself.
- 38:45And when I'm on the bathroom, it's like, I don't know which one it is.
- 38:49So I need everything to be like as food free as possible.
- 38:53Cause it's like, I don't know what's gonna happen.
- 38:56You don't want to add another calculation to that situation.
- 39:00That's totally fair.
- 39:01Totally fair.
- 39:03Yes.
- 39:04I guess I would recommend a shower drink if you ever are like, you know what, think I'm going to.
- 39:12I'm down on me.
- 39:13I can just open my mouth up and have some water from the shower.
- 39:17I know a guy that said he makes ramen, like with the hot water and like I've had some deviance on the show.
- 39:24That's what I'm learning.
- 39:25uh
- 39:27I'm wondering how many of them have like, you know, some form of like bacterial growth in their stomach and they have no idea.
- 39:34Oh, I'm confident both based on our conversation right this moment and my co-workers' responses to just the things that I've said I've eaten.
- 39:47I'm confident I've got something going on, but you don't know what's
- 39:53It can be a prophylactic.
- 39:57I've taken the wormy in pills as prophylaxis.
- 40:00So you can go enjoy those.
- 40:04my gosh, that's wild.
- 40:06No orange in the shower as if it's an apple.
- 40:09This is like uh a juice.
- 40:12Okay, perfect.
- 40:14Then the last shower question and we ask everybody on the show this question.
- 40:20The first is, do you know what a waffle stomp is?
- 40:25I don't know if I wanna know, but yeah, I don't know.
- 40:27uh So in short, it's when a person poops into the bottom of the shower and then to just get it, they stomp it down.
- 40:36know.
- 40:37You're like running.
- 40:38I'm fine.
- 40:41Public health-wise, not fine.
- 40:43Yeah, yeah.
- 40:46Also, I have IBS, so like it, can't guarantee it's solid enough to do a stomp.
- 40:54So um the times that I've heard and know of people having done this, it's actually because of moments like that, whether it's because of something they ate or known IBS where it's
- 41:06like, I'm not going to make it out.
- 41:08So we're just going and letting fly.
- 41:13so I'm going to venture to say that you've never.
- 41:15out of the bathroom if I have that urgent need because to me, like for a lot of reasons, one of them is like my sphincter doesn't work that way.
- 41:23Our new little dog Izzy thinks that she has to police him so they just yell at me.
- 41:28It's a great thing.
- 41:30so like I don't think I want to ever do a waffle stomp.
- 41:37Especially just because like my sphincter doesn't work that way and also it's like I...
- 41:42I like the idea of the division of places in my house for activities.
- 41:47So it's like, you know, like I don't nap on my bed because then my body thinks it's sleeping for sleep, not napping.
- 41:54So like I'll nap on the couch, right?
- 41:55Like unless I'm sick and I know it's going to be like a three hour nap, like then I will sleep on my bed.
- 42:00But otherwise like this is a fine place to nap.
- 42:03And it's same like the kitchen is like where the food is and it's where it stays.
- 42:09And it doesn't go in the bath
- 42:11go there.
- 42:11It doesn't actually like we don't need in the living room much either.
- 42:14we, it's in the kitchen and like the bathroom is where like Kim takes care of her IBS.
- 42:21And it's also the place where she cleans herself to like feel better after a bad bout of it.
- 42:27And the separation and the, know, like this is the place where I eliminate.
- 42:32This is the place where I feel better.
- 42:34And I don't want to have those like sensations crossed because I feel like psychologically I'll start associating.
- 42:40Oh, yeah.
- 42:43Well, and yeah, I will say you're onto something psychologically uh because once a person, what I found is if somebody's done it once, most of the times when I ask, they've done it
- 42:55twice.
- 42:56ah It's like they've given themselves permission ah and yes.
- 43:01They say the same thing about murderers, you know, so like, I'm just putting that out there.
- 43:11There's a research project like how many known confirmed murderers have a correlation to waffle stomping or other deviant bathroom activity.
- 43:23At which point they're just going to start tracking people that I've talked to at some point on this show in the past.
- 43:29And I will be clear because she doesn't waffle sound so it's fine.
- 43:33I will say less people have done it than have not.
- 43:38So you are actually in the majority.
- 43:40I don't know if that helps you navigate the world knowing that most people I've talked to are like, no, this is crazy.
- 43:48I've weird things in the shower, and I've heard weird experiences that people do.
- 43:54I feel better knowing that I'm not the only one who has a limit, but I'm sad for the people who have let that happen.
- 44:05Who've accepted that as like, yeah, like it's like, you know, it's like how many shout, how many days do you go before a shower kind of question?
- 44:13It's like after like your day, like to what end?
- 44:18Yeah, I had a buddy tell me one time, gosh, that he said after day five you have regulated, like your, I don't know, body ecosystem, whatever, has hit stasis and he says
- 44:35you're gonna smell exactly how you're gonna smell.
- 44:37I don't know if that's true.
- 44:39He was not the cleanest guy, but you know.
- 44:45the feeling of just being fresh.
- 44:49This is one of those things where, again, and to even go back to that thankfulness conversation, I am thankful daily for shower, especially hot shower, on-demand hot shower.
- 45:05It's baffling that that's a thing that-
- 45:10Yeah.
- 45:11um Yeah, we were just having, my son and I were talking about this because he's eight and he's like, and I'm like, bud, just wait, we're going camping soon.
- 45:25That idea that you can just, I'm going to roll right in and just clean up, you're going to want it even after a couple of days here, buddy.
- 45:32Yeah.
- 45:33Yeah.
- 45:34It's truly an interesting thing.
- 45:37I have a story.
- 45:38I had to go to Papua New Guinea last year for work and I was in middle of nowhere.
- 45:45So the project I was evaluating was in a remote island of Papua New Guinea and there were no electricity.
- 45:52So they were having a fuel crisis.
- 45:53So no electricity, which meant no running water.
- 45:57And so one day it was like two days in and I was like, girls got a shower.
- 46:02It's also 87 degrees outside every day.
- 46:06So I was like,
- 46:06where my shot, like where am I, what do I do?
- 46:09And my colleagues were with me, they're like, you're gonna have to bathe in the river.
- 46:13And I was like, oh, I'm bathing in a river.
- 46:17Like the river that everyone's going to the bathroom in is where I'm bathing.
- 46:21They're like, yeah, don't worry, it's fast moving.
- 46:23I'm like, more worried.
- 46:26Yeah, I was like, that makes me more worried.
- 46:28So I had to bathe in the river.
- 46:29was the first time, it was freezing cold.
- 46:31I had to wear, you know, like a sarong and stuff.
- 46:34It was very, like, I didn't fully clean because it's hard to clean yourself.
- 46:38And, um, but while I was in the river and I was also in my head being like, I am way too old to be breathing in a river for work.
- 46:47Like, this is not something that I want to do it again.
- 46:50Like, you know, middle-aged women who have never bathed before in a river to probably shouldn't start, you know what I mean?
- 46:58No, but the thing is it was a rapidly moving river, which means that the water.
- 47:04just quickly entered my mouth at one point when I was like trying to do something with my hangout face.
- 47:10And I was like 24 hours, I have 24 hours before I start feeling sick.
- 47:15Sure enough, 24 hours, I was like, I feel terrible.
- 47:19And the next day I had to fly home, which, you know, I had to fly through Hong Kong.
- 47:24And at the Hong Kong airport, I get there and I, because I'm someone who has a lot of GI disorders, I know how to mask really well.
- 47:32And so I get to the Hong Kong airport and I was like, hello, I would like to see your medical staff, please.
- 47:38And they were like, you don't look sick.
- 47:39And I'm like, oh, I'm pretty sick.
- 47:41Like I'm pretty sure I need a doctor.
- 47:43And so they were like, that's going to cost you money.
- 47:45like, I have medical insurance.
- 47:47So please like give me, give me my doctor.
- 47:49So they come in and they're like, they're just looking at me.
- 47:52like, yeah, you seem fine.
- 47:53I was like, just take the temperature.
- 47:55And they like looked at, they're like, oh, you're sick.
- 47:57And I was like, yeah, yeah.
- 47:59I had like a 103 degree fever.
- 48:02And they're like, you look fine.
- 48:04I'm like, I'm really good at masking.
- 48:06I'm always sick.
- 48:07And they were actually debating if I was allowed on the plane.
- 48:10Cause they're like, technically you have a fever of a certain level that we shouldn't let you on the plane, but because you're masking and we know what you got sick from, we're
- 48:19going to give you the meds and don't tell anybody in the airline that you're sick.
- 48:24And I was like, okay, I'm going to be on this.
- 48:27was like in the airplane and I was like telling my, my, you know,
- 48:32a neighbor guy that was sitting next to me.
- 48:34was like, Hi, stranger.
- 48:36I just want to let you know, I do have food poisoning, and I am going to be very sick.
- 48:40But like, don't worry, it's not contagious.
- 48:44And he was just like, Okay, I was like, don't tell anyone.
- 48:49It's a 15 hour flight home.
- 48:50So please stay quiet.
- 48:52So yeah, big fan of showers.
- 48:57Yeah, that's fair.
- 49:00And you know, with stories like that and others that you've shared, I get not mixing, you know, the eating experience with the bathing shower.
- 49:10Like, totally makes sense.
- 49:13yeah, that's totally fair.
- 49:14not my anal retentiveness.
- 49:17uh Do you have a, and I'll say an American food establishment because I think we could really go down some wild ventures being abroad and traveling.
- 49:32Do you have an American food establishment that does you the worst as far as in the bathroom?
- 49:40I I could take the easier route, because I am lactose intolerant.
- 49:44I'm a dairy queen, but um for obvious reasons.
- 49:51But I don't actually, because of my GI stuff, I tend to cook at home.
- 49:56um And I'm trying to think of if there's a restaurant that I go to.
- 50:02Honestly, I don't think there's an establishment, clam chowder and ice cream at Dairy Queen.
- 50:07I can eat ice cream, but if it's like,
- 50:10or like a hot chocolate will always make me sick.
- 50:13Yeah, Ice cream's tough because I feel like if everybody's honest, it messes them up even just a little.
- 50:21But it's tough to stay away from.
- 50:24Well, and so my partner in our snows because he makes ice cream from scratch
- 50:28Okay.
- 50:30phenomenal and he's always like, it's good.
- 50:33I'm like, ah, you've ruined me.
- 50:35So I go to like, you know, ice cream parlors in other parts of the world and I'm like, no, like it doesn't, it doesn't chalk up.
- 50:41But like, so we, we go to like bougie, like homemade, slow made ice cream parlors now.
- 50:48So like it's pretty good, but yeah, there's, there's like, like I used to go to Dairy Queen with my family when I was little and like every time I'd
- 50:56Yes.
- 51:01They're really doing the hard work, Dairy Queen is.
- 51:08That is really all of the questions that I have.
- 51:11Before I finish up with a couple of questions about Flush, do you have any bathroom wisdom that you want to share with listeners?
- 51:19Just advice or stories of survival, anything that you want to share?
- 51:25got lots of stories of survival.
- 51:27um It's always nice to have a squatty potty because it will always help you if you're having a hard time letting go.
- 51:38It helps your sphincter and one of the things that I also found is deep stomach breathing if you're having a hard time going, put the phone away.
- 51:51I actually read poetry if I'm having a hard go.
- 51:55It sounds silly, but it really does help.
- 51:57like, and like deep stomach breathing, like deep in the belly, it kind of relaxes stuff and things go faster.
- 52:05So there's that.
- 52:06uh Other advice that I can give.
- 52:10um Don't flush other things down the toilet.
- 52:16Yes.
- 52:17Yes.
- 52:18um I was a janitor for 10 years and I have pulled countless things out of an S-Bend and yeah, that's just good advice all around.
- 52:31Yeah.
- 52:31I'm always surprised when people are like, why is my toilet not working?
- 52:34I'm like, because you put pickles down the toilet.
- 52:36Real story.
- 52:36It happened.
- 52:37Roommate story from a long time ago.
- 52:39And it still upsets me.
- 52:42Yeah, you know, I will confess my wrongdoing.
- 52:46When I was a kid, I was probably fourth, fifth grade.
- 52:50My mom gave me this just pot of soup that was, I don't know, it sat too long or something.
- 52:56She said, I need you to dump it out.
- 52:57And she meant go out into the Montana cold and dump it in the ditch or whatever.
- 53:03And I was like, actually, and just in the toilet is what I did.
- 53:08I now know that that's not a thing that I should have done.
- 53:11um
- 53:13uh Yep.
- 53:15Yeah.
- 53:16That's good advice.
- 53:18So I wanted to kind of move to close.
- 53:22Ask about what are some current, whether it's big projects or big focuses that y'all have for Flush right now.
- 53:30um We've got a lot of projects right now, so we're growing, oddly.
- 53:36So everyone else in my sector is not, but we are.
- 53:39And uh one of the things that I'm excited about is transitioning my company so that it's a cooperative model.
- 53:48like, I'm really big on like, know, white girls in the US should not be like doing jobs only in Kenya because they're not Kenyan, they don't know the market.
- 53:58So I have like a really fantastic East African group of colleagues and I'm trying to get them to start thinking about like registering flush overseas.
- 54:07So one of the things that I'm starting to do is how do I decentralize a company?
- 54:11So it's not just my company.
- 54:12I love my company.
- 54:13I will run the US stuff.
- 54:14I love doing stuff overseas, but do I, am I needed?
- 54:18Like, do I actually have to go?
- 54:19First of all, I'm tired and I don't want to fly 15 hours.
- 54:22Second of all,
- 54:23It's just, doesn't make sense all the time for me to do projects in certain countries because I don't know it well enough and I don't know the local language.
- 54:30So I'm trying to work with my colleagues on like learning how, like what certain parts of running a business makes sense.
- 54:37Like I can do the admin pieces, but like, how do you get work?
- 54:41How do you talk about yourself and training them on that?
- 54:44And also training them on like, do we want to start registering the company in other countries?
- 54:50So that's a big thing that I'm excited about.
- 54:53And we're also, we're trying to have conversations.
- 54:59So I don't know if you know, like all of the USAID stuff that happened, like USAID closed down.
- 55:04Most of my colleagues lost their jobs.
- 55:06So a lot of them I'm taking on as associates, but we're starting to have this conversation of, know, like Americans are upset about this, but the African colleagues I know are like,
- 55:18you know, this actually might be a good thing because
- 55:20We want to be able to be more sustainable and we want to be able to like make our own decisions.
- 55:26So we started to like build out conversations.
- 55:28Like what does, what does international development look like where maybe it is more like, you know, Kenyans for Kenyans and you know, the U S isn't doing that great either with
- 55:39sanitation.
- 55:40So it's like, Hey guys, like maybe we focus on the developing country that is the U S where we have a lot of.
- 55:47A lot of people in the US don't have access to toilets and we don't talk about it or, you know, all of that, like there are counties in Alabama and Appalachia that don't have good
- 55:57access to good plumbing.
- 55:59So we have issues too.
- 56:00We just don't think about it much in the US or we don't communicate it that way.
- 56:04So how do we start thinking of international development as more just like development?
- 56:11Yeah, absolutely.
- 56:13that so project wise with my clients, we've got some cool client projects, not going to lie, but I don't know if my clients want me to talk about it on a podcast.
- 56:22Absolutely.
- 56:23But yeah, like building out my company, growing it and also like getting empowering my colleagues and my associates to start taking on projects without me and uh letting me run
- 56:37the numbers that they want.
- 56:38But like they can they can run with the brand because at end of the day,
- 56:42I don't think this is going to be my forever thing.
- 56:44I love toilets, like, you know, I'd love to also walk dogs and do that for a while.
- 56:50And my ultimate goal that I want to do, but I haven't figured out how to balance it with my work is I do want to write a history of toilets book because I have 6,000 years of
- 57:01history in my head.
- 57:03like people, I go to like events and like, tell me an interesting history fact.
- 57:07I'm like, geez, can you narrow it down?
- 57:10because I have too many history facts in my brain.
- 57:13So yeah, I wanna build a history book where the center of the history isn't Rome, it isn't England, which is historically what a lot of people focus on.
- 57:23It's a history of the world where like, hey, did you know that Africans were using toilets when Europeans were going in the bush?
- 57:30Let's have a conversation about that.
- 57:32Let's have a first plumbing toilet, like the first flushing toilet for women was in Korea.
- 57:37Let's have interesting conversations about all of this other interesting stuff that's happening in the world that people don't focus on.
- 57:42Because it's a lot cooler when you start bringing in those other pieces and seeing how like, it's a world history, it's a cultural phenomenon.
- 57:50So that's my like ultimate goal is to write this history book.
- 57:55That's super cool.
- 57:56Yeah.
- 57:57And a lot of we do like history deep dives too.
- 58:01And so I, you know, I don't know how far out that would be, but I will definitely be uh both through just like following Flush and keeping eyes for that because that's going to
- 58:13be a uh definite read.
- 58:16actually, have like Sir John Harrington, wrote like when he invented the first like modern Flush toilet, he wrote this like,
- 58:25long form treatise about- AX.
- 58:28Yeah.
- 58:29I bought the book.
- 58:30I found it.
- 58:31I used to have it in here somewhere for light reading, but yeah.
- 58:35No, it would-
- 58:36Medieval writing is what I'm reading to you.
- 58:38That says a lot.
- 58:39Well, you were saying you take him, no, it's not.
- 58:44But you you're reading poetry.
- 58:47Sometimes the distraction of like, yeah, I don't really know what he's saying.
- 58:52Well, enough to.
- 58:53Yep.
- 58:53Yeah, you got it.
- 58:54But that's super cool.
- 58:57And before you go, would you tell folks where they can check out Flush and your own stuff if you want?
- 59:05Go ahead and.
- 59:07Share that with whoever's out there.
- 59:09Yep, you can see FlushThings at itsflush.com.
- 59:13We're on Blue Sky, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
- 59:16And we're starting to dabble in YouTube very, very, very smally.
- 59:21So feel free to look, and we have blogs that come out pretty regularly, I would say a couple times a month.
- 59:26Always interesting, wacky things that you might wanna learn about, and we always take requests, so if anyone has requests, we're happy to write blogs about those as well.
- 59:36And yeah, my personal stuff is flushed right now.
- 59:40So that's what you'll find me.
- 59:42Yeah.
- 59:43Awesome.
- 59:44Well, Kim, thank you so much for joining us here on the pod.
- 59:50I always tell people whenever I close out the show, I always feel like the dog that's in the backyard, like going to the bathroom and then somebody catches what they're doing and
- 1:00:00they're still doing it, but people are watching.
- 1:00:03So I'm going to close out the show.
- 1:00:05Yeah, but listener, thank you so much for being here.
- 1:00:08I'm gonna save all of the plugs and just to say go follow Flush, check out itsflush.com ah and check out what they're doing in those blogs as well as their social media and things
- 1:00:18going on out there.
- 1:00:19It's how I found them and it's pretty interesting.
- 1:00:21So go check that out.
- 1:00:22As always, we wanna thank Kevin McLeod and Pottington Bear for the use of their music.
- 1:00:27You can find it in the description down below wherever free use and that specialty music is found.
- 1:00:34Thank you so much for being here.
- 1:00:35Keep pooping in the free world.
- 1:00:37And now, as always, don't forget to flush.