Opinion
5 beauty investments that aren't beauty investments
by Natalie Hemengül
A dirty business: how my toilet brush lost its job
4/4/2025
Translation: Katherine Martin
Pictures: Darina Schweizer
I’ve ditched my conventional toilet brush for one with rubber bristles, and I absolutely love it. My old brush, however, hasn’t taken it so well. Here’s how its ex(sh)it from the bathroom played out.
My Migros toilet brush has been kicking up quite the stink. It all started when I anointed a new successor to the porcelain throne: the Zack Carvo toilet brush. As the Migros model presided over its final flush, the proverbial really hit the fan, and the handover of power descended into a verbal poop-slinging match.
Migros brush: «I’m being replaced?! Are you kidding me? After all the s*** I’ve had to deal with over the last few months?»
Carvo: «They’re saying you’ve got sticky fingers...»
Migros brush: «Oh, come on. Who hasn’t left a bathroom transaction with a little surplus in their bristles?»
Carvo: «That’s one way of putting it. Either way, your reputation has picked up a few skid marks.»
Migros brush: «What a load of crap. And I suppose a junior poop scrubber like you could do a better job?»
Carvo: «To be honest, yeah.»
Migros brush: «With those fancy rubber bristles?»
Carvo: «That’s right. They’re made of thermoplastic elastomer. TPE for short.»
Migros brush: «OOoooOO TPEEEE! What makes that so superior to my nylon bristles, huh?»
Carvo: «Oh man, where do I start? Well, I involve a lot less scrubbing, nothing nasty gets stuck in my bristles, I don’t get out of shape and I’m good-looking.»
Migros brush: «Says the overpriced brush fresh out of the box. I can smell your arrogance from here. But just you wait. Once you’ve spent months cleaning...»
Carvo: «...Yes?»
Migros brush: «... They’ll replace you with someone younger!»
Carvo: «I don’t think so. I may be pricey, but I’m much more durable than you. Some of my TPE colleagues – the razors, for instance – reckon we last up to five times longer.»
Migros brush: «Five times longer? That may be true, but you pollute everything with microplastics. You TPE folks seem just fine with flushing our planet’s future down the toilet.»
Carvo: We can’t prevent microplastic pollution completely, I’ll give you that. But you nyloners are just as bad as us in that department.»
Migros brush: «Let’s just park that conversation for now, shall we? That stubborn brush head of yours isn’t replaceable, after all.»
Carvo: «You know something? We’re all replaceable.»
Migros brush: (Buries brush head into the drip tray, sobbing)
Darina Schweizer
Senior Editor
Darina.Schweizer@digitecgalaxus.chI love anything with four legs or roots - especially my shelter cats Jasper and Joy and my collection of succulents. My favourite things to do are stalking around with police dogs and cat coiffeurs on reportages or letting sensitive stories flourish in garden brockis and Japanese gardens.
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