• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
 
-1
The One That You Throw AwayBy Zoot Sax
The toilet paper I use now is good. It’s real good.It’s 2-ply, double rolls with Aloe and Vitamin E. Each roll is 300 sheets of comfort. This toilet paper, it’s so soft, they have a puppy as their spokesman.As if this puppy actually cares what I wipe my ass with.In the commercials, they don’t mention the fact that this puppy, he wipes his asswith his own tongue. They don’t mention that puppies don’t really use toilet paper. Notthe way we do.The commercials show the puppy playing with the toilet paper. Getting tangled upin it and looking cute. Chasing the bit that accidentally got wrapped around its tail. Usingit the way puppies use toilet paper. These commercials, the sets are full of soft lookingthings.Clouds. Puppies. Huge fluffy, cotton pillows. Not anything anyone would actually want to wipe their ass with.The commercials never show the puppy picking up its own shit in its mouth andchewing it. The commercials never say that puppies and toilet paper really have nothingto do with each other. The commercials never talk about the trouble that comes withadvertising toilet paper, without actually showing how toilet paper is actually used.They don’t want to show someone squeezing out a turd, and then wiping their ass.As if there’s something wrong about taking a dump. As if showing that their  product is just going to get ruined by your pet is somehow better.All those conventional tricks of advertising, they all get thrown out the windowwhen it comes to toilet paper.Showing a bikini-clad model wiping her ass, and then looking at the toilet paper as it swirls down into the sewers just doesn’t sell. Or, at the very least, doesn’t sell to people that you’d actually like to run into in the toilet paper section of the supermarket.These advertising people, the ones for the toilet paper companies, they’re myheroes. Selling a product that everybody uses, but no one wants to say what it’s used for.Talking about one thing everybody does, that no one wants to talk about.Those companies that sell those other products, the anti-bathroom products, theydon’t have this problem. The anti-diarrhea folks don’t have to disguise what they’reselling.You don’t have to sweeten your product with clouds and puppies if it’s going tostop someone from shitting their pants.When you have Irritable-Bowel Syndrome, you learn a lot about bathroom products. You learn to have a preference in toilet paper. You learn to take LoperamideHCI for diarrhea and Sennosides for constipation and Simethicone for when it’s just gas.When you have something that’s nicknamed “Spastic Colon” you learn to never trust a meal until it’s gone completely through you. Any foods that don’t send yourunning to the bathroom, they start making regular appearances in your diet.When you have Colonic Neurosis, you build a large collection of toilet paper commercials. A large collection of that one thing everybody does, and no one wants totalk about.You have bathroom stories the way porn stars have sex stories. When you give a
 
tour of your town to outsiders, there are a handful of places that you don’t point out because you only went to them once, and that was when you used their bathroom. A bunch of places that come with a story you don’t want to tell.When you go to that huge bookstore, the one that also sells movies, music andcoffee, you don’t tell that story from when you were sixteen.Or seventeen. Or eighteen. Or whatever.Your exact age doesn’t matter. It’s just one story in a catalogue of hundreds.When you and your date are there, getting coffee after just seeing a movie, you’ll barely be able to look them in the eyes without thinking that someone who was there thatday might recognize you. Someone who went un-noticed in the bathroom that fatefulnight.If this is a first date, you’ll be sweating because of this.You’ll be sitting across from your date trying to remember who was working thatnight. Your date will be talking about the movie, and you’ll be eyeing the employeeshoping that none of them will remember you as that kid who was sitting casually in thehumor section, reading collections from the funny pages of the newspaper.Your date will be making a comment on how shitty the acting was, while you’ll be busy paying more attention to someone putting books away. You’ll be trying toremember if that is someone who noticed how you went from sitting casually to sittingwith clear discomfort as that first stabbing pain of gas made your intestines feel like theywere going to split open inside of you.If this is a first date, you’ll really be hoping that you’re not going to have toexplain how having an unstable colon makes it so that a massive bowel movement canarrive at anytime, with almost no notice. Especially if you want to get laid on this firstdate.While your date sips their coffee, and asks you what you thought of the movie,you’ll almost be too distracted by the clerk in the music section to answer them. You’ll bewondering if that person was working the night you awkwardly hobbled from the humor section of books to the pop/rock of CDs, in hopes of be able to sit in a more comfortable position at one of the listening stations, you’ll be wondering if they’re working tonight.While you talk about the movie, you’ll make damn sure to not slip up andmention how you cut a large fart during that walk, in hopes it would be the only one, andyou wouldn’t have to be sitting in a cloud of your own foul smelling odor. And you’llcertainly make sure to not mention how, with that fart, there was moisture with it.You’ll talk about the movie all the while hoping that the clerk working in themusic section now doesn’t recognize you. Or, at the very least, doesn’t recognize youwithout pained-teary eyes, and beads of sweat dripping off your temples.As you and your date start deconstructing the plot-holes in the movie, you’ll doyour best to avoid talking about how another sharp pain in your gut started. You’ll avoidtalking about how this pain, it wasn’t just gas this time. You’ll be too busy wondering if the woman working the customer service desk might recognize you as the kid who boltedfrom the CDs, to the bathroom. You’ll be too busy thinking about getting recognized to point out that the movie really made no fucking sense at all.By the time your date points out that you look nervous, in your mind, you’ll bethinking about the massive relief you felt as you finally sat on the toilet. You’ll tell your date that you’re nervous because you want to make a good impression, but the truth it far 
 
more disgusting. The truth is that you’re nervous because you didn’t bother to check if someone was in the other stalls. You’re nervous because you didn’t have time to put oneof those seat covers down before you sat. You’re nervous because you’re busy thinkingabout the sounds and smells that came from your body once you finally dropped your  pants and sat down.You’re nervous because you seriously want to avoid telling this story tonight.So you’ll make the mistake of asking your date to tell you about them. You’llmake the mistake of having them tell you a bunch of information that you’ll never remember. You ask them to tell you something important, but you’ll be too busy thinkingabout the bathroom to repeat any of what they say if you ever get to a second date.Your mind will be preoccupied with how you had to flush the toilet two times before you even started with the toilet paper. You’ll be too busy remembering how yousat on the toilet making a mental record of everything you had eaten since the last timeyou had a bowel movement. And how you tried to pinpoint exactly what it was that leftyou shitting your brains out in a public bathroom.You’ll be too busy remembering how your heart felt like it was going to drop intothe toilet also when you noticed that there was no toilet paper left. You’ll be too busythinking about how, more than if someone else was there, more than putting down a seatcover, the toilet paper was really something you should’ve checked before you sat down.While your date tells you about where they were born and where they went toschool, you’ll be thinking about that little cardboard tube. Mocking you with the little bitof toilet paper that was still stuck to it. Not even enough for a fly to wipe it’s ass with.Your date, they might even say something shocking. Something that, at any other time, would get a reaction from you and you won’t even blink. Nothing they say can stopyou from remembering what you did next.You’ll acknowledge their statement and tell them to tell you more, but you won’t be listening. You’ll be thinking about the shame. The shame of looking under the stall’swall, to see if anyone was in the bathroom. The shame of waddling from stall to stalllooking for the amount of toilet paper needed to clean your ass with and only finding notenough. The shame of waddling to the sink, pants still around your ankles, looking for  paper towels and only finding empty paper towel holders and those air dryers that never dry your hands all the way.It’s about this time that your date wants to hear from you. Your date wants you totalk about yourself. So you’ll start talking. You’ll be as vague as you can. You’ll just tellthem the facts, no stories to go along with them. In your date’s mind, based on your ownstory of your life, you will have never experienced anything.You’ll be vague so you don’t accidentally tell them about how you used up whatlittle toilet paper you found, and it wasn’t enough. You don’t want to explain how thetoilet paper was so thin you could almost see through it. You don’t want to have toexplain how you walked out of the bookstore without getting shit in your pants.After you get done talking about yourself, there’s this moment of silence. You’llnotice that your date is thinking that you don’t like them. That the date itself is goinghorribly wrong. So you’ll put your hand out and tell them that you’re not usually like this.It’s just first date jitters, and that you really like them and would much rather gosomewhere more private.Perhaps their house. Perhaps yours. Just as long as it’s not this bookstore. Your 
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...