Buffalo News:
Annmarie Vanini was on her knees scrubbing behind the toilet for what seemed like the millionth time.
Her son, Brian, was moving from that crucial potty-training stage, transitioning from sitting on the potty to standing at the toilet. Despite practicing with toilet targets and other potty training aids, Brian just couldn’t seem to aim straight into the water.
And it was driving Vanini nuts.
So she sat down with a sketch pad and started drawing a design for what would eventually become the Flippee Toilet Shield, a curved piece of plastic that can be swiveled up to cup the toilet bowl and flipped down when not in use.
Though the stay-at-home mom had no intention of becoming an inventor, that’s exactly what happened.
“I had a problem and I fixed it,” Vanini said. “I thought, ‘If I’m doing this for myself, I have to do it for other people.”
Photo by ReeAssured Products.