So I’m staying at the Four Seasons hotel in Houston this weekend (wooo Mom 2.0 Summit!), and it’s all swanky and stuff. Which I expected. Though through a mixture of circumstances and pure luck, my roommate and I were upgraded from the fancy room we were supposed to have to an entire fancy corporate apartment, which is utterly CRAYZEE. I mean, this apartment has a nicer kitchen than my house. (Not that that’s hard, but still….)
Anyway, we each have our own bedrooms, and our own bathrooms, and probably our own butlers, though I’ve not spent enough time in the apartment to find out.
The part that tickles me most, though, is that my (ginormous) bathroom has a bidet. I’m just curious: At what income level does it become too onerous to clean one’s lady bits without a dedicated piece of plumbing specifically targeted as such? I just want to be prepared, you know. Right now I am just using it as a place to hang my shower cap.
Okay, if anyone can answer your question, can they answer mine? How, exactly, do you proceed once your bum is clean but dripping wet? Is there a jet of air which would be… interesting? Do you have a towel handy? Drip dry? Or do I just misunderstand the whole bidet concept having been too chicken to try out the ones in the hotels I’ve stayed in (note: this is because for some reason I’m convinced there’s this massive jet of water which, if one pulled the handle without actually sitting on the darn thing, would flood the bathroom causing mess and inevitable humiliation).
Bidets are lovely. Okaaaaaay, never thought I’d be writing that sentence. You can buy one that will attach to a regular toilet (go to amazon–through wantnot, of course). Why use a bidet? You have to take a shower to be clean, right?
You can regulate the amount/force of the water, so after the first time you’ll be fine as to water flow and clean-up, so to speak.
I’m too scared to use one. (Watched Crocodile Dundee…) Yeah, I don’t think I’ll ever have a bidet lifestyle. And I’m good with that.
I’m from Europe and we had one at home. I’m not from a terribly wealthy family, either. It was just practical, you know? And yeah, you usually have a towel handy, just like you’d have for a shower. ;) My problem with it was that I still had to take off my pants when using it, so it never made sense to use the bidet and not just go for a shower instead. However, I still didn’t have periods back then, so I think nowadays I’d find it much more practical. A bidet is just something you get used to if you see it often enough. I find that it’s one of those cultural differences between Europe and the USA.
One of our friends used to live at the Four Seasons apartments. Now that I know there was (likely) a bidet in his apartment, I feel like I know a little too much about him!!
Enjoy the rest of your stay. I’m bummed I couldn’t finish out the conference. Lovely meeting you-eat a few cookies today for me. God, those 4 Seasons cookies are fabulous!
Are they for “lady bits” or “bums”? I’ve never known exactly what they were, so I’ve never used one in a hotel. C’mon someone, fill us in on the details!
I can’t stand unanswered questions, so I googled: http://www.wikihow.com/Use-a-Bidet.
Still not convinced it’s anything I’d ever want to use.
Because I am an information gatherer by career and by nature, I just googled “how to use a bidet” and found many helpful websites. Give it a try!!
When I was a kid we lived in an apartment building in Switzerland. A bidet was standard next to the toilet. (Trust me we weren’t/aren’t wealthy!). Main reason I could figure these things were so “normal” was that people only showered every other day. This way, bum and feet would get a scrubbing without the huge amount of water (and money) that was wasted by taking a daily shower. Mom used to stick the baby brother into the bidet after a particularly messy diaper-crisis…
Now that we live in North America a daily shower is no longer a luxury. I NEED a decent shower in the morning as much and for the same reasons as I NEED a decent cup of coffee to get my day started…
Hey, I got one put into our new bathroom and I LOVE it. I just wish I still had periods – but it’s good for after, er, number twos, and makes me feel really fresh and clean. We have a basket of washcloths next to it. I face whichever way I need to, to do the business. I wouldn’t be without it and wish I’d had one when I had periods, was pregnant, after giving birth, when my kids were babies or even just little… It would have been so useful. Now that they’re teenagers and having periods themselves, they won’t use it, sigh – they think it’s disgusting. Or so they say…
They’re not all the same though – there was this: http://travelskite.blogspot.com/2009/08/innocent-abroad.html
We had a bidet in this house…we did remove it when we remodeled the bathroom and sometimes I miss it.
Very helpful after childbirth when you need a sitz bath, also nice during periods. Or when you don’t really need an all over shower but you’d really like a little “freshening up”.
I always kept a hand towel or wash cloth ready to go when the bidet was in use. Though I’m an American by birth, I’ve always thought the American antipathy toward bidets to be a bit odd. And out of proportion (not that you’re expressing antipathy).
I think they’re very useful things for men and women.
When my daughter was still in cloth diapers we had a hose sprayer attached to the toilet for spraying poop off of her diapers. I found it was also nice for my, um, messy visits to the toilet too. I would just wipe with tp when I was done. It’s not like I was soaking my whole butt in water, just a little spray-assisted cleaning.
I went by and looked at those. I don’t know why, I guess I have a habit of looking at apartments I know I can’t afford, but those were in a whole new ballpark…average rent of $5000 per month. Of course, that does include a lot of nice things such as daily maid service.
Title’s next line: Life goes on, BRA! AH Oh Bidet life goes on.
Hehe, I’ve been a lurker on this website for a long time so I find it funny that the first time I come out and post a comment is when the topic is about bidets (out of all things).
In my opinion, bidets are pretty much awesomeness. I’m Middle Eastern, so I’ve grown up using them. To answer annon’s question, it can be used for both “lady bits” and the bum. You can “straddle” the bidet having the part you want to wash facing the faucet. (I never really had to take off my pants for either one…I just keep them all the way down to my ankles).
I just find it a lot cleaner to use a bidet after each b-room visit instead of waiting ’til it’s time to shower. I can’t imagine not using one. When I was in Canada (no bidets) I used to wash up after every b-room visit by filling a large bottle with water and just using that to clean up.
An alternative is to install a mini-shower tool next to the toilet. It’s just like a movable shower head–but a lot smaller. You can hold it in your hand and pressing a button activates the water and you can maneuver it to wash wherever you want. And once you’re done, just dry off with TP.
Hehe, and no, you don’t need to have a high income to afford a bidet. Lebanon (where I live) isn’t full of wealthy people but you’d be hard put to find a house that doesn’t have some kind of bum-washing equipment. :-P
And that’s my mini bidet intro…hehe, so much for my first post. Love your blog, by the way, Mir :-D
We have a bidet seat and you sit on it just like a regular toilet. It was made in Japan, and has a ‘smiling woman’ icon for lady bits, and a booty icon for the…booty. My husband first saw them in Japan, with a couple of colleagues. They got a big laugh out of the ‘smiling woman’ icon.
In addition to fodder for laughs, a bidet is great when you want ‘that clean, fresh feeling.’
I DID wonder about the drying off part, because otherwise, I think they sound like a great way to freshen up between showers or baths. Thank you for the education, everyone!
Here in Europe it’s not really a rich-people thing; quite the opposite, actually. Until fairly recently, most houses didn’t have showers, only bathtubs, and a bath was way too expensive for every day. The bidet was for the bits that needed daily washing, without the (considerable) expense of heating gallons and gallons of water.
Wow, I feel so enlightened!
I know this is WAY late to the party, but I’m way behind on the blog reader —
anyway, I never understood the need for a bidet until I read a post by Eldon of Fat Cyclist about the bidet. His basic summation was “if you got poop on your hands, would you be okay with just wiping it off with some toilet paper and calling that ‘clean enough until I get a chance to take a shower’?” yeah, see the mental image there is quite moving and although I do not have a bidet because of it, I DO have those “fresh wipes” that I had never before thought to use. Because although it never thought to bother me before to just use toilet paper, now I can’t get that mental image of just wiping my poop-covered hands with a paper towel and calling it good out of my head.