A Test: Revisiting an old thought

This is an old ramble that I am posting because I need something here to see if this "Blog" thing works and I am too lazy to write something new.

In fact, for the next few weeks I foresee much reliance on old content. Primarily because I am unemployed, and as such have no time for frivolous dalliances like writing.

So...In memory of Allison:

Wet Ones


A good friend of mine has asked that I write about a topic that interests her.

This is the first time I have taken a request, and it is a bit weird. I am used to making ramblings based on left-handed turns caused by the faulty wiring of my own brain. I am not very used to making ramblings based on the faulty wiring of other people's brain. But there you go. My friend - who we will refer to as "Allison" to protect her identity - wants me to write about wet ones.


I thought the same thing! Not another romanticized flashback of sorority girl fantasies! Fortunately for us, as it turns out, Wet Ones is a new kind of toilette paper, devised by those astoundingly creative folks at a firm called Cottonelle. At first I thought they had devised a cute name for a recycled product (ugh), but actually they have created a breakthrough in toilet paper design by engineering a "moistened towelette", and "Allison" has turned to me to help her formulate an opinion on this wildly exciting new product.


Now, I don't know about any of you, but the only time I have had anything moistened or lubricated in that area has been in a doctor's office, and I didn't like it. Out of interest, why do physicians make you cough while they are violating the zone that should suffer no violation? My breath is already quick and sharp, and every muscle I have is uncomfortably tense. This isn't enough already? I have to hack as well? I am in a doctor's office, I am naked, bent over and lubed, and I am hoping I have enough money in my bank account to pay for these pleasantries. And now I have to worry about coughing in a realistic fashion? This is a situation that I do not practice for. And these physicians, men who have been stellar academicians, men who have passed the MCAT, men who have studied medicine all of their adult lives, wonder why my blood pressure is high. I am half convinced that most physicians eat lunch in their sample closet.


Not that I blame them. I mean, picture the scene for a new resident. He walks into an office with a couple of attending physicians, a handful of other residents, and a rotund guy in a white smock sitting in a corner with eyes that are getting bigger with each new person squeezing into the examination room. One of the physicians hands our resident a glove and instructs this resident to insert a digit into the patient's rectum while the physicians critique and the other residents take extensive notes on the procedure. What is the resident thinking on his first probe into the nether regions of another man's prostate? I'll tell you what he is thinking. He's thinking he's fucking glad he's not the rotund guy in the white smock.


Of course, he cannot show that, because they weed out all residents that demonstrate any normal human emotion. So with the self-assurance of wealth yet to come, he will extract his finger, hold it in the air as evidence and with an air of detached professionalism announce "His blood pressure is high.".


It's a hell of a welcome to your new career. And for those of you who read my previous comments on farts always being funny - This is one time where it would NOT be funny at all. Cut one here, and you will be told that you have to take these pills for the next three weeks or die, and you will become permanently attached to your toilet. Physicians are a spiteful bunch. Also, now is a good time for you men to make a mental note to yourselves: When you get older and the pipes start acting up, DO NOT go to a teaching hospital.You will be greeted by a hundred young residents, all of whom are wondering what a hardened prostate feels like. You'll end up doing more waist bends than Richard Simmons, and enjoying it a lot less.


Anyway, the best thing to do to advise "Allison" was to test this product, but I decided that I did not feel like it. One, it's wet. The point of the whole process it to get dry. And two, they suggest you use regular toilet paper to finish up. I shop at Sam's. Sam's only sells in quantities. The prospect of going through the checkout line with two palettes of toilet paper - one of which was refreshingly moistened - was not appealing to me. I was afraid I would be seen by someone that knew me, and would have to develop some sort of reasonable explanation for this toilet paper purchasing bonanza. ("We're having a party!").


So "Allison", while I did not field test this product, I did develop one overriding conclusion: As long as you have to use both wet and dry paper, it can make for a great advertising campaign. I haven't yet seen the current commercial that got you so juiced, but let me propose a Cottonelle/Charmin cross-marketing campaign: "Please don't squeeze the Wet Ones!".


Rumbler