It's been a while, so I thought I would break the silence with something deep.
How much thought do you give to wiping your ass?
If you're anything like me, not much.
At some developmentally critical part of your life you may have been given some advice by a parental figure about the "right" way to do it. Maybe you were a self-starter and worked out your own technique.
I was given a hand-up by my dad. Something about the frequency of plugged toilets or the rate of toilet paper usage prompted my dad to ask me about technique. He quickly disabused me of my self-brewed notions involving massive wads of toilet paper and showed me how to take advantage of the perforations to fold the paper into a nice, square pad.
In the many years since, I haven't had much of a chance to compare notes with others. Sphincter cleanliness is not a usual topic of conversation, unless you're reading one of my columns.
Despite this, I've developed some impressions of my dad's technique.
Advantages: You get a nice, regular wiping surface. If you're in a low-paper situation, it's easy to carefully meter the amount used.
Disadvantages: Sometimes cheaper, institutional toilet paper has odd length perforations or no perforations at all, forcing you to do some freehand folding. If you don't use enough layers or if the toilet paper is cheap, there's a real danger of "push through".
The biggest disadvantage I've encountered is the relative thinness of the pad. Even when you've got enough paper to prevent you from accidentally sticking a finger up your ass, certain situations can lead to "soak through", especially with the cheap institutional paper.
Within the last couple of years, my workplace has prompted me to refine my technique. When I first started my job, we occupied a flagship building at the corner of University and High in Palo Alto. These were the heady days of 1997-98 when the VC money really started gushing and the toilet paper was not only angora soft, it was shot through with threads of antimicrobial silver. Melt down one roll of the stuff and you could've fed an Uruguayan family of 10 for a couple of months.
Now it's 2005. If you haven't lost your job to 12 Indians, 10 Chinese, or 9 Ukrainians, you're damned thankful. The pucker paper now gives new meaning to the term "paper-thin". This stuff is see-through. No, not translucent. You can actually see through it like gauze or lace. If only it were as diaphanous or comforting as lace. It's more like a latticework of tiny splinters that serve as a matrix to suspend the larger hunks of tree.
Faced with bum wrap of this quality, I found myself pulling three- and four-foot lengths at a time. Folding as I'd always folded took all day.
After putting more thought into it than I had in over 25 years, I decided to fold in a decreasing geometric progression: half, half, and half.
Instead of 12 folds, I now had a burly pad in three.
Some people never have this issue.
A good friend tells a tale of touring India with her sister, two young women traveling in the rough. On a train to Agra, stuffed into a second-class compartment they'd been swindled into, a gentleman asked if the ladies could confirm that American folks use paper and no water to wipe their bottoms. They also found themselves reassuring the gentleman that no "stool" was left over and that they did wash their hands with soap afterwards.
Before trekking off to Turkey, we read extensively that one is not to flush lavatory paper down the toilet. Turkish plumbing doesn't handle paper well at all. You're instructed to put your used paper in the bin provided. As disgusting as this sounded to us, we dutifully did so.
In Turkey, every toilet that wasn't a gaping, stinking hole in the floor had a little tap with a tube that exited at the apex of the toilet seat, aimed more or less perfectly at your exhaust pipe. It wasn't until late in the trip that we realized that the tube is there to provide a water rinse as you clean out the remaining chunks with your left hand, thank you very much. Any lav paper is provided for you to dry your bum and your hand. Thus, putting "used" paper in a bin is not all that gross if done properly. I feel sorry for the folks who had to clean up after us ignorant Americans.
Finally, Sun Ra once painted the following utopian picture: "sometimes, you take the perfect dump. Large enough to give you satisfaction, but not enough to cause discomfort. Pinches off clean, two wipes - and the second one is just to be sure - and your anus is totally merde-free. You walk out of the john whistling, happy with the world." This lead him to ask "what can I eat that will produce that perfect dump every time"?
I've stumbled on an answer: psyllium husks.
Over 80% of psyllium husks is soluble fiber. Consume 15 grams of the stuff and you have a bolus of indigestible goo passing through your system, the consistency of which reminds me of tapioca and Jell-O gelatin. At the end of the day, you're left with a solid, self-lubricating load that exits with the alacrity of a shipborne WWII torpedo, leaving hardly a trace.
Pakeha