#1 or #2?

As you know, I'm moving. And as you could probably guess (from my age and income level), I've spent a lot of time at Ikea lately.

[Warning: Yes, this is going to be totally off-topic.]

Maybe we're way behind the times in the good ol' Midwest -- and we definitely are in the U.S. -- but imagine my surprise when I went to the bathroom at Ikea, and the toilet asked me to specify what type of waste I had deposited.

There was a nice placard to explain that in an effort to save water, please press the flush button with one water drop for "liquid waste" and three water drops for "solid waste."

Now I thought that was just weird, but with a little research, I found that:

• The solid button swirls around 6 liters (1.6 gallons) of water, while liquid uses only 3 liters (.8 gallons).
• The system can reduce water usage by 67 percent -- and save a family of four 6,000 gallons a year over your average toilet.
• Europeans and others around the world have been doing this forever; we're just slow.

Wow, and I thought I was just buying a bookshelf.