Say what you will about America, but we have the best toilets on the entire planet, and we take them for granted. I believe that people really do come to America and return home telling everyone, "They have the best toilets over there!" Because we do. Cultures around the world, especially those with limited means, have tried to solve the waste problem in such wildly different, creative, and upsetting ways, that you are never sure exactly what it is you are going to find. "Please just don't let it be Turkish,” I’ll be chanting in my head, bracing myself each and every time I push open a bathroom door.

If there even is a door...