CONVENTION CRASHING: KITCHEN/BATH INDUSTRY

Friday, May 11, 2007 | 7:25 a.m.

Let's get this out of the way: Yes, there were countertops at the Kitchen/Bath Industry show. They came in different colors and materials. Sinks, cupboards and tiles? Ditto.

As for the refrigerators and freezers, well, some of them were big enough to hold a moose or a mobster (some assembly required) and a couple of others had built-in, cable-ready televisions (for the family ready to admit its child's artwork lacks merit).

Oh yeah, and vanities. Lots of them.

Got all that? Good. Now let's talk toilets.

You probably think a toilet is a toilet, a mere vessel. White. Quotidian.

But if you walked around the Las Vegas Convention Center on Wednesday, your cheeks would color with shame. You feel backward, awkward and ashamed: a toilet philistine.

Rightfully so.

First, let us discuss the toilet as art.

The Drake Corp. of East Brunswick, N.J., is importing an Italian line it calls, "the art in a toilet seat" and promises "Fun With Possibilities." The real standouts are the bright amber, red, blue and green ones patterned like geode slices. When you want your toilet to make a statement, this is the seat to say it with, especially if you want your toilet to say, "You are not fabulous enough to ride my Vespa."

Onward: the toilet as a way to spoil a small child.

Meet the PeeWee toilet from Gerber, not the baby food company, says Joe Sell, vice president of, yes, sales. "That Gerber takes care of the intake. We take care of the outtake."

The pint-size potty comes with the seat preinstalled, because you just try to find an after-market child-size toilet seat. Of course, your child will be small enough to use the seat for only three or four years. But that's OK. It costs only $361.

The company also sells a tiny sink with the toilet. But the sink has been around for years - it was originally designed for New York City apartments.

But now for the ultimate achievement of the commodal arts (sorry Duchamp), a line of sanitation products that will at last illuminate this benighted land.

I speak, of course, of the Neorest toilets from Japan's Toto Ltd. The premier model, the $5,200 Neorest 600, has a seat that automatically raises as you approach and lowers as you depart. Flushing, of course, is automatic. The seat is heated. The seat deodorizes your indelicate odors by drawing them away and separating the molecules in a catalytic converter. Above all, there is the robotic bidet arm that provides an endless stream of warm, aerated water. And there is an air drier when you're done.

Perhaps you worry this is too much technology and are intimidated by a remote control the size of a hard-cover book. Don't be.

"When you walk up to it and the lid rises," salesman Jason Fitzsimmons says, "you'll know what to do."