A Matter of Interpretation

           Toilet paper is kind of a misleading term if you think about it.  Why is it called “toilet” paper?  You don’t use it for the toilet.  You don’t place it anywhere on the bowl.  If anything it should be called “butt” paper, or “dookie” paper.  If you’re in rush perhaps “shit” paper.  Like, “hey I’m about to explode.  Got any shit paper?”  Or, “hey, my asshole just erupted.  I could really use some shit paper.”  See?  It makes more sense then toilet paper. If we used the paper to clean the toilet, then maybe toilet paper would make more sense.  But we don’t.  We use it to wipe our butts!  Butt paper!

            And I know what you’re thinking… “Well, we use toilet paper when we’re sitting on the toilet.  It should be called toile paper!”  Blasphemy!  We use magazines on the toilet too but we don’t call them toilet journals.  See what I mean? 

            Women use facial wipes to clean off their makeup; usually done in the bathroom.  We don’t call them bathroom wipes.  That would sound like a term for toilet paper.  We call them facial wipes.  Why?  Because that’s what they are used for; to wipe your face.  Why is there a discrepancy with wiping other parts of your body?  Like the butt? 

            And speaking of wiping butts… isn’t a little disgusting how arbitrary we treat wiping the dookie from our bodies?  If a bird happens to fly by and drop a little bird poopy on your arm you freak out and have to scrub the spot clean.  And yet we can eat twelve pounds of Taco Bell causing a three alarm fecal fire that we just smear away with toilet paper.  Gross!  The bird poopy requires full-blown disinfectant but our own little Hiroshima gets a dry two-ply, swipe of good faith?  Ahh.  All clean.  Really?  The smell is still clinging to your sweatshirt but that brown roll of recycled napkins just solved all the world’s germ problems? 

            Maybe that worked pre-puberty but once a body starts sprouting up a little follicle insulation you are now faced with the equivalent of muddy boots on a shag carpet.  Wipe all you want you’re just pressing the stain deeper.  Two-ply?  Might as well make it five!  It’s still not going to change the outcome.  And then you get the helpful little reminder of the inadequacy of your efforts in the form of the little (and yet still infuriating) butthole itch.  Like a text message from your colon saying, “hey, you’re not done yet.”  But by that point it’s too late.  You’re already back at your desk trying desperately to shake the feeling that every one else in the office knows you just crapped your brains out.  You can’t get up and head back to the bathroom now.  That would be too obvious.  You might as well dance a chorus line and sing a song about the terd playing hide and seek just centimeters out of reach.

            Maybe the Europeans have it right.  They don’t bathe often, except when they poop.  They even had the fore sight to combine their shower and shitter.  A bidet!  They sit down with confidence.  Now rogue stragglers dangling from those bottoms!  But what I don’t get is… aren’t they just flushing themselves with the same water that they just pooped in?  Ugh!  That’s their concept of clean?  Yuck!  I take it back!  The Euros have it all wrong!  They’d be better of with some good old-fashioned toilet paper.