Normally you might not want your toilet going viral.
But for Union Hardware co-owner David Goldberg, that’s just what happened this week.
“It shocked the hell out of me,” Goldberg said. “I got calls and messages from friends in South Carolina, California, and even Germany telling me they had seen the video.”
It all started Tuesday morning when Goldberg, who’s known for creating art out of the kitchen fixtures and appliances he sells in his Bethesda store, brought out his motorized toilet Loo-cy with a snow plow attached. He shot and posted a video on Youtube as he used the plow to push snow around in front of his store.
Goldberg then distributed the video to local news outlets (we posted it on our Facebook Page). Not long after, the video and the story of the plow was bopping around the Web, on sites including Buzzfeed, NBC Washington, Time.com, USA Today, the Associated Press wire, The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post.
Goldberg said his intention in making the video was to try to get more views on YouTube than one of his friends who had shot a high-production video of water faucets that appeared to be dancing. That video garnered 3,500 views, while Goldberg’s toilet snow plow had racked up more than 21,000 by Thursday morning.
“I’m really surprised about it,” Goldberg said, “but when you look back, all the news at the time was about the snow, so it makes sense.”
Goldberg said he made the plow using a shelf from his storeroom and some pipes. He fixed the plow underneath his electric motorized toilet “Loo-Cy” that he built last year for the Capital Pride Parade. He said he got the idea to attach a plow to it as he read the weather forecast for Bethesda while relaxing in a hammock in Thailand two weeks ago.
Even with the frigid temperatures and lack of snow Thursday morning, Goldberg could be seen outside his business hamming it up for a news crew of students from the University of Maryland. The snow plow was struggling, though—it had lost a bolt and was dragging on the concrete.
Goldberg said it worked well enough to push some snow two days ago, but the small tires were struggling on the icy surface.
“I need a monster-size toilet for next year,” Goldberg said.
