Fun on Friday: My Potty Got Jacked!

My potty got jacked.

There are four words you’ll probably never say. Who steals toilets, right?

But your problem is you don’t have a solid gold toilet. If you did, it might indeed get jacked. In fact, burglars snatched a 18-karat gold potty valued at about $6 million out of Blenheim Palace in England.

I’ve actually written about this toilet before. It was famously offered to President Donald Trump when the White House requested to borrow van Gogh’s Landscape With Snow from the Guggenheim.

Maurizio Cattelan created the solid, 18-karat gold crapper. As the Washington Post describes it, the golden potty is “an interactive work titled ‘America’ that critics have described as pointed satire aimed at the excess of wealth in this country.”

It was actually displayed in a public restroom on the fifth floor for museum patrons to use. At some point, it was moved to Blenheim Palace. I have no idea when or why. I could research it and find out, but I have to be honest, I don’t care. I suspect you don’t either. Just know it was there.

And now it’s not.

On a side-note, the toilet was also available for use by visitors to the palace, the home of the Duke of Marlborough.

Was being the operative word.

Officials say they think a gang of thieves using at least two vehicles pulled off the potty heist. Police have made two arrests, but they haven’t found the crapper. There is fear that the bad guys will melt it down.

That seems likely. I mean, where do you pawn a gold toilet? Just a wild guess, but I think that might raise a little suspicion. But that raises another question: how do you melt down a toilet? It’s not small. It would take one heck of a fire!

The chief executive of the palace (yes, that is apparently a real job) said the site has “a sophisticated security system.” Apparently not sophisticated enough to stop potty thieves. In what I would term an understatement, the CEO said the palace staff is “now challenged to look hard at ourselves and improve again.” Translation: somebody’s getting fired.

Cattelan (the toilet creator) is a little nuts. You may recall that when the potty was offered to Trump, the Washington Post contacted him and asked why he was willing to offer his work of art to the president. His response was completely incomprehensible.

What’s the point of our life? Everything seems absurd until we die and then it makes sense.”

He had an equally incoherent comment about the theft. In an email to the New York Times, Cattelan said he wanted “to be positive and think the robbery is a kind of Robin Hood-inspired action.”

Mmmm. OK. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

Anyway, this all underscores a truth. Even a toilet becomes valuable when it’s made of gold. That’s because gold is valuable in and of itself. Everybody should have some. But I don’t recommend stealing it — especially in potty form. Call a SchiffGold precious metals specialist instead. They can hook you up. No disinfecting necessary!

Fun on Friday is a weekly SchiffGold feature. We dig up some of the off-the-wall and off-beat stories relating to precious metals and the economy, and share them with you – with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Click here to read other posts in this series.