Where’s the light switch? And how do you flush this thing?

Oi, people!

I love Brazil, or I wouldn’t have moved here. But that doesn’t mean that I love everything about the country. And sometimes what really bothers you are the little things.

A couple of years back I made a sweeping tour of southern and southeastern Brazil. One night in a little berg I stumbled back to my hotel room after a couple too many beers. Here’s what happened. Perhaps you can relate.

Where’s the light switch?

(And how do I flush this thing anyway?)

It was pitch black – the dona of the pousada evidently more concerned with her electric bill than with possible law suits – while I myself was lit up. Groping my way around the corner and to the end of the hall, I located the door to my room with my nose.

When the kaleidoscope of stars ceased swirling before my eyes, I tried to insert the key into the keyhole by feel. This was no easy task, as the key was like nothing I’d seen before. It was pointed, and resembled a cross between a Phillip’s head screwdriver and an awl, with teeth running down the length of four ridges. It was like something out of a Dali painting, Locks.

Eventually I got the key into the keyhole, and breathed a sigh of relief – a bit prematurely, it turned out. The key would not turn. It simply would not.

I was returning from a global summit meeting at a botequim down the street, where three new-found buddies and I had toasted the end of W’s tenure with several liter bottles of Skol. My joy at the anticipation of relieving my thoroughly distended bladder quickly eroded into something near panic as the key simply refused to budge.

I retrieved my cell phone from my pocket, and then from the floor. Straightening up, I pressed a random button and used the faint light to examine the key. My eyes discerned nothing, but my thumb encountered a bump on the thumb stock. A bump? A clue? In a spark of inspiration, I reinserted the key with the bump in the 12 o’clock position. Holding my breath and saying a silent prayer, I turned the key clockwise.

Yes! The key turned. I turned the key two complete turns around, scraping my knuckles on the doorjamb in the process – the lock having been positioned ridiculously close to the edge of the door by some sadistic locksmith. I stumbled thankfully into my room, banging my right shin on the foot of the bed, desperate to reach the bathroom.

The room was as dark as the hallway. I felt for the light switch. It was not there.  Think, John, think. Where was it earlier? It’s probably still in the same spot.

But I had checked in and left the room in the daylight. I hadn’t used the switch, or noticed its location. I searched high, I searched low. I searched on the other side of the door. No switch.

My situation was growing desperate now. The light would have to wait.

I groped my way along the wall, encountering a desk with my hip, a trash can with my foot, and a corner of the suspended television with my head. Having taken a complete physical inventory of my quarters, I reached the bathroom.

Here the light switch was where expected. I flipped it, and lifted the toilet seat. As I unzipped, the seat fell back down. I lifted it again. It fell again.

Oh, it was one of those toilets, the seat no doubt installed by a woman.

Holding the seat up required me to bend half-forward, a posture that didn’t combine well with my intoxicated condition.

But I managed. Finished, I raised hand to flush.

But how? Where was the device?

I should mention that I have traveled to about two dozen countries and seen many types of toilets with many types of flushing devices, and a quite a few without flushing devices. I was pretty certain that this toilet had one, but darned if I could spot it. It wasn’t located on the front, or either side. It wasn’t one of those old-fashioned types with the reservoir above and the pull cord – which you can still find in Brazil. It didn’t appear to be on top.

But wait. There was a small vase of artificial flowers sitting on the back of the toilet. Sliding it to one side…

There it was. A button, flush (ha ha) with the toilet cover. I pressed it, holding it down a few seconds as I heard the satisfying gurgle of Skol making its way… wherever.

Being on somewhat of a roll now, and feeling like the conquering hero, I decided to seek out the light switch that had eluded me earlier.

The light from the bathroom did not throw much light into the bedroom, but it was enough. There was the switch, just where I would have expected it.

But about 18 inches lower. The light switch was located knee high.

Who would do this? I pondered. And for what conceivable reason? Had he run out of wire? Was the room wired by a munchkin? Was the entire floor perhaps raised after the switch was installed?

Cursing the Lollipop Guild, I tossed my clothes onto the chair in the corner, avoiding the desk and the television this time, and fell onto the bed. Just before falling into oblivion, I thought, not for the first time, nor the last: They do this shit just to piss me off.

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