Were I born with comedic writing talent this headline and lede in Perth Now! down under could generate a few guffaws:

Householders to be charged for each flush of toilet
November 16, 2008 03:00pm

HOUSEHOLDERS would be charged for each flush under a radical new toilet tax designed to help beat the drought.

Bloody hell if they think they'll be counting the number of times I flush the loo. It seems plausible that a nation of toilets sporting built-in odometers counting and taxing the flushes might actually save water. Would that be the kind of thing you self-report or is there one of those pesky meter-readers coming around every month? Then there will inevitably be some blokes trying to turn back the odometer or flushing their toilet with buckets of water from the bathtub.

So the legislature would have to ban the possession of containers larger than one quart in lavatories. Opportunities for pre-dawn SWAT-style forced entries. The possibilities for a comedy series funnier than anything else on Comedy Central are limitless. Australian toilet police running amok? Yeah, that sounds funny.

But alas, shenanigans may be in short supply since it's a "tax" that most non-well water drinking Americans have been paying for years - water meters. Under their current system they apparently get unlimited water with the sewer charge set according to the value of the house. Talk about soaking the poor. Now they'll be charged by the gallon or hogshead or whatever they use to parcel out liquids over in Australia.

Not that I would know, but you could always tap your neighbor's hose and use his spigot if you weren't in the mood to actually pay for watering your yard or washing your car. Maybe you've got it coming because that damn dog of his barks all the friggin' time. Funny, but not tripping on the throw rug to a Jagermeister-induced face-first landing on the back of the toilet then being arrested for felony fleeing trying to ditch the odometer-reader when she's cuffing you for toilet tampering funny.

Less Congress spending a couple of trillion before they even take up the annual federal budget funny, more wacky with many degrading stereotypes and poo jokes funny. At least until Comedy Central can find an an Obama look-a-like for next season's That's my Barack! Compared to the antics of Congress and the White House how could bawdy hijinks ensuing as a crew-cut sporting ex-rugby player hits the streets with a sassy aborigine lady to battle washroom scofflaws do anything but fall flat?

Pikers. We've had the feds in our toilet tanks for 30 years. Flush twice, it's a long way to Washington DC.