Please, Boss, give me a break!

My head is aching. My ears are ringing. This election rhetoric has the Ol' Columnist bewitched, bothered and bewildered.
So before the Missus has me shipped to the funny farm, I am going to regain my sanity before the Big Day of May 17.
Maybe, a little light reading might help.
So let me find a secluded spot and pick up Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, Volume 746:
Ah, here's one about someone named Thomas Crapper: Myth or Hero?
The name Thomas Crapper appears to have been unknown among bathroom historians until 1969, when English writer Wallace Reyburn published a 99-page book entitled Flushed with Pride -- The Story of Thomas Crapper.
This biography (which Reyburn's publisher calls "The Little Classic of the Smallest Room") begins this way.
"Never has the saying 'a prophet is without honor in his own land' been more true than the case of Thomas Crapper. Here was a man whose foresight, ingenuity, and perserverance brought to perfection one of the great boons to mankind. But is his name revered in the same way as, for example, that of the Earl of Sandwich?"
Of course not. Not, anyway, until Reyburn's book was published.
According to Reyburn:
* Tom Crapper was born in 1837 and died in 1910.
* He is responsible for many toilet innovations -- including, as bathroomologist Pat Mitchell puts it, "the toilets that flush in a rush seen in public restrooms today, and the ... trap in plumbing that keeps sewer gas from rising into our homes."
* But the most important of Crapper's alleged acomplishments was Crapper's Valveless Water Waste Preventer, and apparatus that made flushing more efficient. Cleaning management magazine calls it "the forerunner of our present-day flush system."
* For this contribution, Crapper was supposedly appointed Royal Plumber by King Edward VII.
* Crapper's name was stenciled on all the cisterns -- and later, toilets -- his company manufactured: T. Crapper & Co., Chelsea, London. American soldiers stationed in England during World War I began calling a toilet a "crapper."
Fact or fiction?
Beats us. But here are a few things to consider:
* The premier bathroom history, an impressive tome called Clean and Decent, makes absolutely no mention of Thomas Crapper.
* Reyburn followed Flushed with Pride with another social "history," entitled Bust Up: The Uplifting Tale of Titzling and the Development of the Bra.
* Charles Panati, in Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, notes that "the accumulation of toilet-humor puns, double-entendres, and astonishing coincidences eventually reveals ... Reyburn's hoax." He offers some examples: "He moved to London and eventually settled on Fleet Street, where he performed the 'Crapper W.C. Cistern after many dry runs' ... The installation of a flushing toilet at the Royal Palace was 'a high-water mark in Crapper's career' ... He was particularly close with his niece, 'Emma Crapper', and had a friend named 'B.S.'"
* On the other hand, Pat Mitchell sent us this information: "It seems that in recent years, a certain Ken Grabowski, researcher at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, has unselfishly, unswervingly, and unrelentlngly sought to uncover the truth. His findings? Indeed, there was a Thomas Crapper (1836-1910). And Crapper founded a London plumbing fixture company in 1861. His efforts did produce many improvements in the fixtures he manufactured. His company products (with his name upon them) were distributed all over Europe. Military barracks included. These were still there during World War I."
So now you know, folks. There, maybe, have been a real Thomas Crapper.
Hey, there's someone at the door.
"It's someone named Uncle John," says the Missus.
"Oops, tell him I am in the cr.....!"