The 3 of us were laughing over it until the engineer added a postscript to my story. He said "Or until the bowl fills up so much that it flushes itself".
Salesman and i did a double take. We stopped laughing. Did we hear wrongly? We questioned the engineer further. Nope. that's wat he said.
I had to clarify - "So you mean that each time you pee into the toilet bowl, the water level goes higher?"
He said yes. And it'll continue to go higher until it reaches a certain level when it flushes itself, engineer alleged.
We both screamed at him that that's not right!!!!
Engineer insisted.
Totally flustered, i challenged him - does it happen with the toilet bowl at his house?
He answered confidently in the affirmative!
Salesman couldn't believe his ears and wanted to argue some more. I told him to leave it.
After 2 minutes of silence, salesman couldn't stop himself. He apologised and said he could not let it go. He grabbed the order slip, took a pen and started drawing a toilet bowl explaining to him the 'u' shape siphon of the bowl which ensures the water level remains the same.
Pic taken from the site linked below
It was amusing - seeing a salesman (not a toilet bowl salesman but a vege salesman) explain the mechanisms of a toilet bowl to an engineer.
And the engineer refused to accept it.
I finally forwarded this article to him recently. No reply came. Either he still stubbornly thinks he's right or was too embarrassed to admit that he was wrong. Maybe he actually measured the water level in his toilet bowl after peeing.
Salesman - after reading the same article - suggested that engineer could still be right. He could pee into the bowl enuf to make it flush by itself. But according to the article, the engineer would have to pee 2 gallons or urine to achieve that.
Maybe there is something wrong (or special?) with the engineer's toilet bowl in his house. But even then, surely he has used countless other toilet bowls before in his life! Could he not notice the water level remained the same after peeing? Or even after ... erm... doing the 'big one'? He lived overseas to do his Masters. Is it so coincidental that the toilet there also was 'special'???
It's strange how educated people can be so stubborn in their beliefs. I remembered a girl telling me there was something wrong with the car that she was tailing earlier on. Apparently, she said that the brakes were not working so the driver had to engage the reverse gear each time to slow the car down. She concluded this cuz the reverse lights came on each time the car slowed down.
I told her that in all probability, the owner of the car modified it so that the reverse lights would light up when he engaged the brakes. Not possible to suddenly go to reverse gear like that. She refused to accept, she would rather believe in her own theory instead.
It's the same in church too. Some people will have some strong beliefs based either on what they have heard or on their own experiences. When we tell them that that's not what the Bible teaches, they refused to accept it.
Even a browse thru the papers today show leaders of this country committing wrongful and criminal acts but they refuse to apologise nor repent of their deeds. They believe wat they did was right - and no matter how one may try to explain to them that they are wrong, they will not accept it.
Yes, when people believe in something, it can be quite scary if the belief is not based on proven theory and/or accepted logic.
*The Academy Award winning song taken from the soundtrack of The Prince of Egypt.
4 comments:
Some times you have gone so deep into it that it becomes so difficult to retract back a certain comment.
Having said that, I think our engineer friend has potential for something bigger next year.... bigger business you know at church next year!
When the old is flushed out, the new will appear!
erm... since you all were playing card games and were drinking so much... perhaps should just do an experiment on the toilet bowl thing... then the engineer perhaps would get persuaded, but the smelly fact.... -____-||
I think also the most difficult thing to do is to fill it up so much and see whether it really can flush by itself.
One way to find out is to get salesman, engineer and you drink so much till you fill like bursting. Then all 3 pee at the same time in the same bowl and see how it goes.
Who knows a miracle may happen and the engineer may just be right? The only concern is that asians being asians, dunno whether its ok to shoot at the same bowl together?!?
dear all, NO NEED to do experiment! the theory is there and clear.
anyways, engineer has finally conceded. during a dinner party last weekend, he was still stubbornly holding on to his view - until i challenged him to let me tell everyone there his theory if he is so certain.
he thought about it and told me not to tell them.
just shows how much confidence he has in his own theory.
p/s - to 2nd anon, it is not difficult to see if it flushes by itself. just fill up a pail and pour it in. it does 'flush' - just like how the 'How stuff works' article say.
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