Cottonelle

Some of you wrote me to ask about the #LetsTalkBums campaign because you wanted to know if this was me selling out. You didn’t know I have a dysfunctional digestive system or about my experience with Chicken Vindaloo.

Won’t ever forget that day because even though it wasn’t International Talk Like A Pirate Day it was a day that I imitated one.

In my best pirate voice I growled:

There do be flames shooting out of my ass. It is a good thing that there do be water in the toilet. Arrgh!

A Little Digestive distress

In my younger years that digestive distress sometimes turned dating into one hell of an experience. Imagine having a great meal, great night and she invites you to come upstairs for a drink.

You head up and in your head you are doing a little dance because you feel cool and think if you just keep doing what you are doing you and her are soon going to be doing something far more interesting.

But then comes the rumble and you try not to panic. You are still cool. She is digging, kissing you back and pressing her whole body against yours.

Meanwhile your nether reasons have given notice and instead of squeezing her, you’re squeezing yourself, praying for a cool way to excuse yourself so that you can hit the head.

Why Is The Jewish Guy Screaming Help Me Jesus!

And then when you are safely ensconced in her bathroom you fear that the fan won’t mask the noise so you turn on the shower and pretend you don’t hear her asking if you are ok.

Time passes and you are dying because you can’t breathe and you know if your own air is choking you there is no way she is not going to choke. You worry about UN Inspectors suddenly appearing to search for the source of chemical weapons.

You spent three months doing all that you could to reach this moment. This isn’t supposed to be happening. You are terrified she is going to wonder why it sounds like 76 trombones are playing inside her bathroom and suddenly you have this image of her telling all of her girlfriends about the worst date she ever went on.

And then just when it can’t get any worse a massive cramp washes over you and you scream HELP ME JESUS!

Oh good lord, did that really come out of your mouth? She is another member of the Tribe and you already know she won’t get serious with a boy who isn’t.

Hell, you have never been more proud to be cut and then this moment comes when the gates of Hell relocate to the place between your cheeks and you feel fire.

You feel heat coming from a place it should never emanate from.

Are You Ok?

The crazy Ferris Wheel inside your head is interrupted by her angelic voice, “are you ok” and even though you are anything but ok you squeak out, doing fine.

Slowly you stand up, legs numb from the marathon session you just experienced and you start to put yourself together. You are cool. All you need to do is wash your face and pray that whatever scented crap girls keep in the bathroom will somehow overpower the stench you left behind.

Just before you reach for the doorknob you hear a giant splash and you realize that somehow you didn’t notice her shower tub filling up and as the water comes cascading over the side you exhale because the one thing you know for certain is that the Cottonelle wipes she kept next to the toilet have put out the flames in your behind and left you feeling pretty damn clean.

P.S. Just in case the FTC asks, I was compensated for this post.

I like to think most people are kind-hearted souls who would never try to convince their friends that a bidet is a European Water Fountain and that it is customary to use it to both wash your hands and drink from it.

Did I mention I am grateful we didn’t have this sign hanging around the restroom during our trip to Europe because if we did I might not have convinced those drunk college students to foster their European sides by using the aforementioned bidet.

But karma is a funny beast and in the time before the Modern Age when we used to film the proof of those fellows proving they were more European than the Europeans was lost in the X-Ray machine at De gaulle Airport.

Yeah, that long wistful sigh you just heard was me thinking about how much fun I could have had if I could have uploaded those pictures to Facebook, talk about blackmail material.

They probably wouldn’t have appreciated it, but I bet they would have appreciated being able to ask a friendly European face to confirm that some friend of theirs was messing with their heads.

A Crappy Thing

Years later it is sometimes referred to as that crappy thing you pulled in Europe. I prefer to say that Crap Happens, but that is just me.

Hell, they are probably luckier it didn’t happen now because I could have turned the whole thing into a slide show or video about why people should use Cottonelle and not rely upon European Water Fountains.

Some of you are probably shaking your heads now trying to figure out how I could have convinced them to use European Water Fountains and wondering what could have pushed me to do such a thing.

Well I can neither confirm nor deny that such a thing ever happened or that I was ever given a reason to come up with a revenge prank of my own.

She was young, beautiful and had captured my heart at birth but it didn’t mean that she wasn’t capable of making me crazy.

My baby girl and I were spending some daddy/daughter time together at the mall when I felt a twinge and a rumble in my stomach and I knew that it wouldn’t be long before nature would ask insist I attend a meeting inside the closest facility.

We had just arrived at the play area and she was an almost five-year-old on a mission to suck the marrow out of life right there. She had told me she was going to climb on everything and run, jump and play because it is what she loves to do.

Things were beginning to look grim. It was the middle of the day and I was the only father there and the moms weren’t entirely certain what to make of me.

I looked around to see if I knew any other parents because I knew that rumble meant it wouldn’t be long before the situation would get um…ugly. Damn, I didn’t know anyone so there would be no asking for help.

That burrito had tasted great going down but I just knew that it is departure was going to be nightmarish and that it was going to create the sort of clean up where Cottonelle would have been a welcome help.

But the malls aren’t equipped that way and I didn’t see any friendly Brits wandering around talking to people about it.

Since I couldn’t see a clever way of asking the moms for assistance I knew I had to take action so I walked over to my daughter and told her it was time to leave.

She told me she wasn’t ready and that she hadn’t had enough time to play. I said I was sorry and explained we had to get going and instantly saw this was not going to go well. Angry females are not always easy to deal with regardless of their age, but the under five set can be particularly difficult.

Rational thought isn’t a big part of their daily routine. I told her I had to go to the bathroom and she said go.

I said I couldn’t leave her alone and she said she would be fine. She told me she wanted five minutes but I knew that could mean hours to her so I gave her the stern dad look and said it wasn’t up for negotiation.

And then I remembered how I ignored her nap time because I figured it would be a treat for her to play longer and that she would sleep in the car anyway. They say people plan and G-d laughs and man I am certain he was laughing then.

My decision to let her slip into overtired land because she would sleep in the car had just smacked me in the ass. It wouldn’t be as physically irritating as what was coming but getting her out of the mall on a timely basis was about to become an issue.

So I picked her up, grabbed her shoes and started speed walking towards the other side of the mall where we would have to take the escalator up three flights, walk across the parking lot, get strapped in and then drive 25 minutes to the local relief center, our home.

Assuming she didn’t find a way to slow me down, the parking lot wasn’t jammed and there wasn’t any traffic I figured it would be ok.

But we live during a time when adults can’t carry a screaming child through the mall without people paying lots of attention. Under normal circumstances I am grateful and appreciative for the attention.

The “it takes a village” to raise a child bit is good and it is nice to see other parents try to help protect our children by making sure the man carrying the screaming child is indeed their father.

But when you are in a rush to answer the call of nature it is less appreciated and people don’t respond well when you tell them to get out of the way or you will unleash the sort of biological attack upon them that will make skunks hide in shame.

And it was during those moments that I thanked G-d for having a deep voice and a glare that makes men move out of my way because those moms made way so that I could make like Moses moving through the Red Sea.

Somewhere in the midst of all the chaos my daughter started singing, ‘Move It, Move it’ the song from Madagascar and we managed to get to the car and somehow got home just in time.

Now if only I would have had those Cottonelle wipes waiting for me at home it really would have been a happy ending from top to my bottom.

(Disclosure: I was not paid a million bucks for this post but I was compensated by Cottonelle.)