I was on a long flight not too long ago, one where they turn the lights out for most of the trip and everybody is just laying like jelly all over their seats fast asleep. Legs propped up over armrests, seats reclined into laps, and headphones, blankets, and eye masks creating cocoon-like defenses against all light, sound, and touch.
Frankly, I don’t like flights like this because I feel really uncomfortable. I think I’m going to wake people up and bother them. I feel like I’m hanging out in a nursery and I’ve finally got all the babies asleep, now I just have to sit in a rocking chair in the corner taking quiet, calculated breaths until the sun rises.
It’s very stressful.
I have always been paranoid about waking people up. When I was younger and would come home late I would take about twenty minutes to get from the driveway into my bed. I tiptoed up the walk, slid my house key in the door very slowly, took my shoes off outside, and tiptoed up the stairs to the bathroom. Often I wouldn’t even flush until morning, preferring to let my business simmer overnight rather than wake somebody up with the sound of excrement zooming through the walls on it’s way out of the house.
On the airplane I don’t tilt my seat back too far because I think I might crowd the person behind me. I walk down the aisle slowly and analytically, quickly grabbing chairs and overhead compartments for support so that a sudden jolt of turbulence doesn’t knock me into a sleeping grandma’s lap. I have brief visions of shattering her hip and sending her dentures flying into someone’s glass of wine.
It is because of my attempts to keep really quiet on these Voyages of the Subconscious that I am fascinated by the toilets in the airplane.
First of all, they exist! The fact that you can go to the bathroom on an airplane is pretty novelty. I bet nobody expected that a hundred years ago. Can you imagine two sailors looking over the front rails of their massive ocean liner in 1908, one of them pointing way up in the clouds and whispering to the other “One day a man will take a dump up there.” No, me neither.
Anyway, after we get over the fact that these bathrooms exist, let’s talk about that amazing flush. You do your thing, close that lid, hit that little plastic button, and a second later there’s a full five seconds of giant, full-force, vacuum-sucking noises. It’s so loud it’s unbelievable — like a transport truck full of silverware flipping over on the dirt patch between two World War I trenches.
I used to think that the airplane toilet was a little hole that opened up right to the outside of the plane. I looked down when I flushed expecting to see clouds or little cities below maybe, and figured someone had just done the math and proven that dropping dirt bombs from thirty-thousand feet didn’t actually hurt anybody. It was just a matter of gravity, distance, and atmospheric pressure or something.
Turns out I was dead wrong about that.
See, according to the Internet’s geek patrol, regular ol’ house toilets just don’t do the job in the airplane world. The combination of toilet bowl water and rough landings tend to leave splotchy autumn-colored rainbows all over the plastiform vanity and walls. For this reason airplanes use a whole new type of toilet called vacuum toilets. I guess these vacuum toilets are perfect for the job because they don’t use much water and are fairly low maintenance. Just one little side-effect, though: When you flush them it sounds like somebody’s making a smoothie out of rocks.
Now personally, I love that beautifully loud airplane toilet flush. I can’t very well leave a gift bowl for the next passenger, so I’m forced to press the button. The power and noise of that flush undoubtedly wakes up the last few rows on the airplane every time so I have no choice but to confront my fears.
So I say thanks, airplane toilet flush. Your whooshing, vacuum-packed boomflush wakes the whole world up.
AWESOME!
39 Comments
July 25, 2008 at 1:59 am
I do indeed bow to the awesome power of an airplane flush. Especially during an international flight (China or New Zealand, usually. Sometimes Western Europe) and I’ve been consuming gin, Jagermeister, and single malted scotch for a few hours. I top that off with airline food and I’m out like a light.
Somewhere over the ocean I wake up with the dire need to empty my bowels. The combination of enough preservatives and alcohol to save Estelle Getty for future generations produces a dump that no mere mortal toilet can handle. But the 767′s does the job nicely.
I’ve clogged up toilets on buses, cruise ships and at the FedEx Forum in Memphis. Tennessee during American Idol auditions. But I defy anybody to clog an airplane toilet.
July 25, 2008 at 2:20 am
Entire article worth it for the word “boomflush”
September 4, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Hahaha. Exactly what I was thinking.
July 25, 2008 at 9:19 am
So what happens if you flush while sitting on it?
December 1, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Hmmmm… Maybe you get water on you-know-what.
July 25, 2008 at 9:38 am
Please no more posts that describe your post-drinking poo.
The Internet
July 25, 2008 at 11:53 am
You get stuck and have to call for a stewardess to come “give you a hand”. How’d you think the Mile High Club started?
December 1, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Whoa.
August 1, 2008 at 9:06 pm
” Can you imagine two sailors looking over the front rails of their massive ocean liner in 1908, one of them pointing way up in the clouds and whispering to the other “One day a man will take a dump up there.” ”
Just think, 100 years from now, people will probably be shitting directly into their computer and all life functions will be taken care of by the computer, including sex.
Now, this is me completely guessing, but it is possible, right?
July 28, 2010 at 2:02 pm
” Can you imagine two sailors looking over the front rails of their massive ocean liner in 1908, one of them pointing way up in the clouds and whispering to the other “One day a man will take a dump up there.” ”
I read this and thought of ‘Family Guy’. I can imagine how they’d present that… drone of an old plane up there, farting sound… one of the sailors (Peter Griffin) sidles away… crap hits the other sailor. Sound of receding plane, and ‘Damn!’ Peter says ‘Today’s the day…’. Maybe, in the distance, the pilot parachuting down into the sea, still seated on the toilet… further off, his plane, with a big hole in the bottom, hits the water. Strips of toilet paper rain down over the ocean liner, like a ticker-tape parade..
August 3, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Yeah but a computer can’t snuggle afterwards.
August 6, 2008 at 11:36 pm
So to leave you all a facsinating thought just image if the business you flushed did fly directly our of the plain.
Picture a innocent little child playing in their backyard and BAM! down comes what they might call “spacepoo” or maybe “Alien Crap” all over them. Mom and dad are disgusted, but the little tyke is still marveling over the fact that they have made the discovery ‘aliens’ can poo. Of course the people on the plane are definately NOT aliens.
March 13, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Oh god , you don’t know how hard I’m laughing right now, poor child!
August 26, 2008 at 5:11 am
Hey you guys, just thought i would add a little question to get your brains going. What actually happens to it after the almighty flush?
December 1, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Maybe the stuff goes somewhere on the bottom of the PLANE.
October 7, 2008 at 11:54 am
I used to think that the remains would be thrown off the plane too when i was little. Then I went on an airplane trip with my dad…and he has really weak stomach, so before we went in I thought to myself “man…i feel bad for the people down below us…” Turns out that when you flush, it all stays in. I know this bc once my dad went to the bathroom a few times, I felt so bad and so curious at the same time! I ended up asking the flight attendant and I think she almost laughed at my face, but she was nice to me and explained that it all remained in the plane until we landed.
January 18, 2009 at 9:58 am
I newer prefer to go airplane toilet, I dont like airplane toilets. ıhhhh
February 4, 2009 at 1:08 am
Actually, I’ve been scared of the terrifying flushing all my life.
I fly often, since I’ve been a kid, and every time I have to go to the bathroom the incredibly loud sound always frightens me.
It’s awe inducing, but pretty darn scary.
March 23, 2009 at 7:01 pm
When I was seven, those things scared the living shit outta me! I would always, get up, wash my hands, and then open the door halfway. Then I would stand on my tip-toes and reach for the button, when I pressed it would jump out of the washroom and slam the door shut and hurry back to my seat.
March 30, 2009 at 9:07 am
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May 8, 2009 at 2:34 pm
My method: plug ears, lean back and flush with foot… works every time
May 9, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Wanna know something funny?
Year 2001, I think… but some years ago, in a national flight, to Santiago (Chile), a lady went to the bathroom to do her business and she flushed it, with her seating there yet. Results? Her arse got sucked up (she had to be fatty), she landed that way and a special team of people went to help her.
…. One of a kind..
January 1, 2010 at 10:40 pm
that’s not funny!!! >8[]
May 16, 2009 at 10:53 pm
I hate airplane toilets with a passion. The noise is so anoying, and the bathroom is so small. Theres no space. The toilet and the sink, and thats like…all? It’s shit scary in the night time and the light automaticaly turns on. Gives me creeps. lol =]
June 20, 2009 at 10:50 pm
I remember when I was young they used to scare me also, like previous commentor Adam. First time was the worst though. There is like a 3 second delay before the boomflush and I was washing my hands, totally not expecting it, and I swear I nearly screamed! Threw water all over the mirror
March 13, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Dude you don’t know how much you made me laugh!
September 1, 2009 at 3:16 am
This article made me giggle so hard. Hahahaha. Thank you for the laughs! :D
March 13, 2010 at 7:27 pm
I know right! The laughing just gets worst until I start guffawing, and I have to cover my mouth with my hand because my mom’s taking a nap across from me!
September 22, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Those airplane flushes actually terrify me! I hate them! I have to plug my ears because the sound is just odd and wrong and i’m really not sure why! although the invention of the airplane flush is great!
January 15, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Airplane flushes scare me.
January 16, 2010 at 3:11 pm
I hate shitting in an airplane. There’s always a line for the bathroom, and I know people are thinking, “That guy is taking a shit.”
February 25, 2010 at 2:31 am
I rode on Southwest once with an amazingly AWESOME crew. To demonstrate the power of their flush they rolled toilet paper from the toilet all the way down the airplane aisle and flushed. ZOOM! That toilet paper went so fast…much applause.
March 13, 2010 at 7:31 pm
That’s frikin’ awesome!
April 16, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Questions were asked regarding the content’s destination; fun thing to look up is stories regarding when that compartment has a leak. While I havn’t been able to confirm, there are rumors of a poor soul killed by a frozen airplane poo water meteorite.
April 19, 2010 at 9:34 am
it’s = contraction of “it is”
its = possessive pronoun
April 22, 2010 at 9:41 am
Know what else is awesome about airplane toilets? The nice cool breeze that wafts against your privates when you sit on it.
May 4, 2010 at 5:57 pm
I spent alot of time in the air(somewhere around 100 flights a year) and I still get a little paranoid that the pressure difference when you flush will somehow affect the flight. I guess I never gave any thought about waking others up. I guess I’m just inconsiderate
May 30, 2010 at 5:04 am
aaah dear i’ve been laughing aloud at this. Truly Brilliant. I’ve always been, quite frankly, scared when flushing toilets on airplanes, knowing full well what noise is coming. ITS SO LOUD!
August 23, 2010 at 12:51 am
i block my ears when i push the button.