The Toilet Inspector

My mother’s sister (hereby known as auntie or aunt) had a very important job throughout my youth. She did something that as a child I knew was very important. She was a toilet inspector.

Whenever we were on a family outing, periodically she would see a public toilet block and proclaim that this toilet in particular was a rare one that needed to be inspected immediately. I never actually questioned what exactly she was inspecting or how. As far as I was concerned the camera she took in with her completely validated her status as a toilet inspector. Why else would you take a camera into a toilet with you?

From the ages between 7 and 12 I fully believed that my aunt was a toilet inspector. It is only recently as an adult that I actually worked out the reason for the deception. My aunt had devised a very good solution to a common problem. On family trips it is perfectly acceptable for children to demand that they need to go to the toilet irrespective of when a toilet was last encountered. They need not justify themselves. An adult on the other hand has trouble even admitting in front of children that they need a piss.

My aunt had two choices. She could either stop the car that she was driving and state to all the children present that she needed a “dump” or she could state that she had just spotted a rare toilet that needed inspecting. She chose the most respectful option. An option that most people don’t know they have.

Pete