Twenty years ago I purchased a porta-potty from Sears. A month ago I asked Siri to add a reminder that I need to practice the portable toilet.  Today I learned to use it.

Having a portable toilet at my disposal (pardon the pun) is second on my earthquake preparedness list, just below gallons of water.

I was curious about how the thing works, how many times I could flush on a full tank of water, how much the waste tank holds, what kind of deodorant to use.

Once the tanks were separated, it helped me immensely to put big labels reading FRONT on the front sides of each tank to know how to attach the tanks again.

I asked Siri to convert the specs from the instructions, which were in gallons, to quarts.  The potty holds 12.8 quarts in its fresh water holding tank, and 18 quarts in its waste tank.

I filled, poured, refilled, and poured water from my OJ juice bottle seven times (12.6 quarts) into the fresh water tank.  I saw that that really did fill up the tank.

Then I flushed 100 times, and calculated that those flushes equaled 10 quarts.  Using simple algebra, I calculated that I could have flushed 128 times to use up the water in the fresh water tank.  Wow!  At, say, 10 flushes a day, I could go on flushing for over 12 days.  This would most likely be enough time to either get the plumbing working again, or to find a place to dump the waste tank.

BTW, there is a neat gauge that turns gradually from green to red as the waste tank fills.  The gauge goes completely red at 20 quarts of wastewater.  I figure I can fill the fresh water tank almost two times and still have enough room in the waste tank for all that flushed water.

The two-year-old toilet paper that came with the potty had to go.  And the bottle of deodorant that came with the potty carried so many poison warning labels that I chucked that also.

Happily I attached a roll of Kirkland toilet paper, and ordered a pack of 12 blue deodorant potty pouches from Amazon. Those 12 pouches should be good for 54 gallons  (216 quarts) of wastewater, and should last me about 540 flushes.

“Hey,” you might be thinking, “why should I get a porta-potty when I can open a large garbage bag and do my thing right there?”

My response is, “Just think about it – a porta-potty functions just like a toilet in most ways.  What would you really like to sit on – an open plastic bag, or a porta-potty?

Perhaps I had a premonition about a forthcoming earthquake in Los Angeles.  At any rate, it behooves us all to be prepared at all times.  IMHO, not only should we stock water bottles and a porta-potty, but also a key to turn off the gas valve outdoors, a stock of canned food, a hand-cranked can opener, a flashlight, and a portable radio.

Mr. Ebsen may be contacted at robertzebsen@gmail.com