Originally published on January 31, 2008.
So, I should be stocking wines, but since I haven’t written in several days, I’ve decided to do that instead. And what am I writing about – my store’s toilet. Frankly Wines probably has the tiniest toilet in the entire US retail wine business. And I should know – after who knows how many account calls in my life as a wine business manager (including time as a pregnant-go-to-the-loo-every-5-minutes-business manager), I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Mostly the ugly.
My store’s bathroom is neither bad nor ugly, but it is tiny. It’s basically a toilet with a 3×3 foot closet built around it. Very tall ceilings and a genius nook built under the counter (thank you genius-architect Carlos) make it seem almost spacious. Unless you’re a man – if you’re a man, you pretty much have no choice except to sit and do your business as there’s just no room to do otherwise and still remain behind closed doors.
But the coolest thing about the bathroom is the sink. It’s this crazy thing called “Sink Positive” and it sits on the tank in place of the tank lid. When you flush, instead of the water just filling the tank, it runs through a little faucet, into a sink basin, and then into the tank. Unless you know how a toilet actually works, this seems, well, disgusting. But apparently, the water used to fill the tank comes from the same water lines as the good old New York City tap water. So if it’s good enough to drink, it’s certainly good enough to wash your hands with. And it’s incredibly space saving – and ecologically correct as well! Really, the only drawback is that if I want to wash out tasting glasses, I have to flush the toilet to do it. This doesn’t bother me, but it does sound a little odd to those distributor reps who hear the toilet flush and see me come out of the water closet with clean glassware.
Oh well, I’m sure this isn’t the oddest thing they’ve every come across in a wine shop.