I'm Scared of My Bidet

The many challenges of moving into a new home.

My wife and I moved to a new home recently. This is our eleventh home together, during more than forty years of marriage. Kids, dogs and cats have come and gone in the intervening years, returning us to the state we were in at the beginning: just the two of us, although with a bit more space than the convertible studio at State and Chestnut (apartment #27J), on Chicago’s Near North Side, where we began our journey.

Moving is a complicated process, what with the boxing up of household goods, physically moving those goods (or, paying a moving company to perform that task) and unpacking those goods on the other end. It is at exactly these times when I appreciate my wife’s embrace of the “discardist” lifestyle; I would venture to guess that our household contains less stuff than 97% of forty-year-old households.

At all other times, of course, I am miffed by this “unpack-rat” approach to the accumulation of stuff. “Honey, where’s my “fill in the blank?”

“Oh, we threw that out three houses ago.”

I suppose I shouldn’t whine about my missing stuff; I still have my high school yearbooks, for some odd reason.

The other challenge to moving into a new home is acclimating to its peculiarities, which might manifest in the form of thermostat performance, appliance effectiveness and affability of neighbors.

In our new home, the appliances seem to be performing as expected, and we have already met some friendly neighbors; we have, however, experienced some issues regarding thermostat results - these results, as well as that of our interior lighting, have been impacted by the presence of smart home technology.

That’s right, our home is smarter than we are.

We would awaken to a house in which every light in the entire house was on, after having turned them all off, before turning in the night before. And, one evening, while in the family room, the lights inexplicably turned themselves off. We had no choice but to go to bed immediately, because, you know, the home is smarter than we are.

Another uncontrollable dynamic was the management of the climate inside our home. At different times of day, our house would become unseasonably warm, or remarkably cool; upon inspection of our thermostat, a variety of temperature settings were established, seemingly at random.

Now, I’m no conspiracy theorist, but I began to suspect sinister forces at work here. Although I have never met the previous owner (he Docusigned the closing documents in advance of our real estate closing), I had developed a clear impression of him as a serial Rule No. 2 violator (you know, the one about not being a douchebag), but, let’s face it, most real estate transactions are by their very nature adversarial, and perhaps that impression was simply a natural result of that relationship.

My impression has subsequently been confirmed by a jury of his peers (i.e. his former neighbors, some of whom we have recently met). This more complete portrait of a serial Rule No. 2 violator further inflamed my belief that the sinister forces at work emanated from this gentleman’s new home base in Florida (are you picturing, as I am, Dr. Evil, from the old Austin Powers films, ensconced in an underground “lair,” with his bald head and his pinkie gently placed upon his lips, emitting that evil laugh?). Given the technological capabilities these days of operating equipment remotely, it isn’t that much of a stretch to imagine him lounging in his own, well-lit family room in Florida, turning lights on and off in his former home in Pennsylvania, and jockeying thermostats up and down, alternately freezing and sweating out the new occupants of his former home, cackling all the while. As a sidebar, do we really believe that it’s a good idea to turn on stovetop burners from anywhere in the world?

Cracking this code and reclaiming the title of “the smartest one in the home” turned out to be quite simple: we merely unplugged the “smart” device, restoring our lights and thermostat to their intended “dumb” status - problem solved.

But, another new home-related challenge loomed: the bidet.

Bidets are apparently common accessories in much of Europe, Eastern Asia and some Latin American countries, designed to clean a person’s “undercarriage”; they are not common in the U.S. Nonetheless, our new home includes a bidet in the master bathroom. It’s not a standalone unit - it’s clearly an aftermarket application, which features a separate water line and electricity (electricity!) leading to the toilet bowl. And, there’s a remote control of some sort mounted on the wall of the bathroom. I’m terrified of this thing, and have not yet attempted to deploy it. In fact, the only reason we have not disconnected the water line and unplugged the power cord is that there is a delightful, soft purple light bathing the toilet, which serves as a handy night-light for nocturnal visits to the bathroom.

I suppose one of the primary reasons for my reluctance to use the bidet is its remote control potential. I might find it difficult to shake the image of Dr. Evil, in Florida, messing with the bidet, while the bidet itself was messing with my undercarriage.

Ah, the joys of homeownership. . .

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