We have begun preparations for renovating our second floor bathroom. What better place to start than with a trip to Home Depot, list and credit card at the ready. Karen and I had already done some research online so we had a very specific stop to make in the toilet division of the plumbing department. We found our box right away, then my eye caught “Bold.Power.” on the end of an adjacent carton. What? Some marketing guru at Kohler has gone haywire or is just reflecting their own bathroom insecurities (desires?).

Is “Bold.” symptomatic of a narcissistic attachment to our bodily excreta? Or, are we supposed to feel “Bold.” when ensconced on the throne? For the males in the crowd, are “Bold.” and “Power.” supposed to call forth some new fulfillment from the vertical position? Perhaps we have been satisfied too long with the simpler idler pleasures of this position? Or maybe, we are supposed to elide these doubly emphatic periods into BoldPower, bringing back to mind the “shock and awe of the Bush years? Maybe there is an interpretive hint in the upper left corner of the box, “Virtually Plug-Free” and “Clean-Bowl Rinse”. With these kinds of assurance from marketing imagery, we will never again have to call on prune power.

So, having momentarily sated my amusement with the wondrous conjugation of corporate marketing prowess and nature, we wheeled our new toilet out to the car and a quick trip home. Though even this seemed fraught with questions about my Power. – Karen wondered aloud several times whether this box was really going to fit into our little Corolla. With a little huffing and scrunching, it did.

The Global Leader in Performance Thrones

When we got home and we carried the box into the front room, I studied its end panel a bit more closely.

I had hit the jack pot. Our choice for a throne promises to be “The Global Leader in Performance Toilets”! Who needs Moses when you can forever trash all of those embarrassingly ineffectual plungers.This update of 19th century engineering innovation achieves the holy grail banishing those blockages that cause such frequent finger pointing in every household.

Not only that, but ours is also “Powerful”, “Comfortable” and “Fast & Easy”. Really, the promise of this last claim seems to stretch credibility. All of my future visits to the loo will not be tests of my core strengths, every visit with come right along with speed and no sweat. I can leave my iPod Touch elsewhere because I will be done in less time than it takes tio bring up the WiFi. Unfortunately, this promise is about an entirely different Fast and Easy. The marketeers at Kohler have mixed messages to different audiences on the same end panel.This is a pitch to plumbers about how installation will be Fast and Easy.

Nevertheless, casting my eyes to the bottom right I feel reassured that I have purchased “The Complete Solution”.