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TOILETTE du BOUQUET

When the flush tank on our 25 year old upstairs toilet cracked, it created a remarkable water feature in the half-bath below, and had our house been on the market then, our realtor no doubt would have described it that way. (Are realtors employed by wineries to write their over-the-top labels when the housing market slumps? Hmmmm.) We were left with a perfectly good commode sans tank, but because of its age, we decided to replace the entire toilet. Since the landfill is the highest point in our county, our sense of environmental stewardship suggested that we not increase its elevation further by putting the tank out on the curb for pick-up.

After a thorough cleansing, a coat of primer was applied. The addition of some black spray paint created the background for the application of some stylized cherries. Our apologies to Mary Engelbreit.

Some plastic flowers, attractively arranged in the bowl, completed the project. All we had to do was to wait for our friends to be out of town for the placement of Toilette du Bouquet. Pictures were taken of the installation and quickly incorporated into a Power Point presentation "How Your Toilette du Bouquet Came To Be," and saved to a CD, which was then hung on their doorknob to complete the gift. The CD made clear that Toilette du Bouquet was only on loan for two weeks, at which time we would retrieve it and install it at another location. Our finest triumph was a "remote" installation on Cape Cod. Through the magic of photo editing we were able to install it without actually leaving our family room. Our apologies to those few remaining friends who are still speaking to us.

Although the CD presentation is of artistic merit similar to the project itself (pictures of which can be seen below), there is not room on this site to include it. Our apologies to you: both for this omission, as well as for the pictures we have posted.

(Click on images to enlarge)

TOP TO BOTTOM:

Four images of Toilette du Bouquet.

First installation at a nearby location.

Two pictures of our remote installation on Cape Cod.

One was was installed on the beach near Cotuit. In accordance with our respect for nature, we remotely removed the toilet from the beach after two weeks.

The other remains in that Cape Cod yard to this day. What can we say? The yard already had a flamingo holding a pot of plastic flowers! That yard was already funky.

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