Togetherness

This past week I was doing my daily scroll through Facebook looking for humorous posts and came across this picture of a wide rectangular toilet built for two. Unfortunately, as happens sometimes, when I went back to try to find the post, I couldn’t find it. I wanted to see if it was real because I suspected it was photoshopped. Off to Google, I went, and lo and behold, I found that double-seated toilets do exist. By the way…short rabbit hole…where does the saying lo and behold originate? Google came to the rescue again, and here is what I learned about the saying: Lo was a shortened version of look common in Middle English texts that goes back as far as the 18th century. The literal meaning of the expression is “look and see.” Cool, huh?

Anyway, back to the original subject. I found two distinct versions of a double toilet. I laughed my ass off. Neither was the one posted to Facebook, but something equally as ridiculous. See the pictures below for proof that, according to a little digging, someone actually considered marketing this crazy idea. Apparently, the Twodaloo was being marketed back in 2007 to Home Depot and other major chains, with an estimated cost of $1400. This version is clearly a ripoff from the Saturday Night Live skit featuring a Lover’s Toilet. The original post posed the question, Can there be too much togetherness? That got me thinking about couples who work together. They spend practically all of their time within each other’s sphere, but is that a good thing for the couple? I suppose it depends. It can certainly prepare them for retirement. While my wife and I were in the same industry (healthcare), she worked in clinical research, and I worked in healthcare administration, we did not work at the same place. In fact, most of the time we were together before retirement, there was either a significant geographical distance or during the week we didn’t see one another until very late at night. So, needless to say, retirement was an adjustment. There’s a whole lot of togetherness now. I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing, but we’ve certainly evolved to kind of doing our own thing in the same space. I absolutely would draw the line at peeing together! I’ve known couples who work together, mostly in the restaurant business. We used to go to this Greek restaurant when I was younger that was family-owned. And to my knowledge the couple worked just fine with one another. However, I was sorely disappointed when my favorite Italian restaurant drastically changed when I lived on Whidbey Island after the couple divorced. Togetherness was not good for them.

This got me thinking about the series I wrote where the couples are in the same business, and that has now extended to their children, making it a family business. Of course, it’s more exciting than running a restaurant because it’s the spy/covert agent business, but still, I haven’t ever really touched on the possible conflict that might occur, other than one not wanting to have the other put themselves in danger unnecessarily. I suppose this could be an interesting dynamic to pursue. Too bad I’m done with the series! However, that might not stop me from including it in a different book. Want to check out the series, feel free to click on the links below. Exciting news…The Organization will be out in audio soon! I’ll let y’all know when it’s available, but for now, enjoy the first book in the series on audio and the two spin off series with the characters in The Organization making a prominent appearance.