Talking Crap

Talking Crap

I don’t talk crap.  I derive precisely no-joy-whatsoever from using my arsenal of words to point out flaws; any associate of mine, I am confident, would eagerly substantiate this claim.  Verbal negativity is simply not my forte.  I don’t gossip.  I don’t insult.  I don’t snitch.  I don’t slander.  I don’t talk crap.

Why?  The reason, I reckon, is twofold.  On the one hand, I prefer to use my gift of language for positive things – to overstate a half-hearted compliment (Wow, send your barber all my accolades - that new-fangled coif is captivating) or to weave my life experiences into this sumptuous narrative cloth that is my writing; I like to employ my words in construction rather than demolition. I feel like I was offered the linguists’ gift - so like a disappointed girl the day after Christmas, I rewrap my lyrical gift and offer it to others.  I regift it.

That’s one reason I don’t talk crap.  The other reason I don’t talk crap, I suppose, is my passive meekness - or what one of my high school football teammates referred to so gingerly as my “pussiness.”  I simply don’t have the physical muscle to back up any verbal aggression.  If I talked crap to someone who happened to be looking for a fight I can tell you without a hint of hesitation exactly which part of my body that rhymes with brass I'd get kicked. While I often flex my vocabulary so intensely that you can see the veins in it, my physical body is not so strapping. 

Imagine that, by some freak accident, I found myself signed up as a contestant in a bodybuilding competition.  I guess that, fully aware of my physical inadequacies,  I’d take the stage and strut around flexing my oiled-up linguistic muscle instead of my biceps or pectorals.  It's the only developed muscle I've got.  My awe-inspiring brainflower, bulging with words, would get carted about the stage atop my  5’10/150 lb. scrawny stem as I waxed metaphorically on my deepest thoughts.  “Behold,” I’d bellow “The sinewy, lyrical miracle that is my fully flexed vocabulary!”  

In this wildly hypothetical fantasy, of course, the gals who’d gathered to watch this bodybuilding competition would swoon, ignoring the shredded Swarcheneggers next to me in favor of my hulking vocabulary.  “Oh my.” An overwhelmed lady spectator would whisper to her friend seductively, “Check out how cut his figurative language is.”

“I know.  I just want to run my hands all over that lexicon,” her friend would coo back as she ran her fingers across her pouty lips…

Anyway, suffice it to say that my physical strength isn’t much to talk about, especially in comparison to my well-trained linguistic physique.  I’m not much of a fighter, and I don’t have what it takes, physically, to back up any crap talking.  So I don’t do it.  Not usually at least. 

But now I feel like I must talk crap; I feel like I have an obligation to talk crap – even though it’s completely uncharacteristic of me to do so. I don’t want to do it, but as an ambassador between the East and the West, I feel it is my duty to…well, talk doodie.   

Fellow democracy-loving capitalists, please indulge me in a no-holds-barred crap talking. As a liaison between the World of NFL&Big Macs and the Land of Sand&Islam, I think it’s time we have a candid discussion.  I need to talk crap - but almost certainly not in the manner you’re thinking.

I need to talk crap as it refers to that unsightly brownish excrement that we all have the unfortunate compulsion to release either once a day or twice a week depending on how much coffee and cigarette we allow ourselves.  I need to talk crap inasmuch as it refers to our furtive, fecal habits.  I need to talk about our bowel movements and the way we clean up after them.

It’s not, perhaps, the most fragrant topic to discuss – and most of us would just as soon turn and run the other direction as to approach this odorous subject/fecal matter.   We would all prefer to constipate the issue - to keep all toilet-related discussions confined to our own private tanks.

But I can’t do it, my friends.   I need to talk crap.  I know too much to sit idly by on my porcelain throne and not flush this touchy topic out into the open.   So please, plug your nose if you must, but follow me into the WC, or the hemaam as we refer to the little boys’ room here in the Arabic speaking world.  Come sit with me in this stall and have little chat, because I’ve got some crap talking to do.

Westerners, it’s time to let go of the toilet paper.  As far as post-potty sanitation rituals go, using toilet paper to clean yourself is about as antiquated as fastening leaches to a wound to expedite the healing process.  Why are you still trying to spruce up your bottom half with a dry piece of paper? You’re not ridding yourself of the filth; you’re just spreading it around.

You are an advanced people. You gave the world space travel, modern medicine, and the iPhone. You pioneered democracy and existentialism.  You produced minds like Stephen Hawking and Ernest Hemmingway.  You are a highly advanced and sophisticated people.  So why are you still cleaning your knots with parched pieces of paper?

It doesn’t make sense.  Let’s talk crap.

Imagine, if you will, that you are riding in a massive Ford Pickup truck owned, perhaps, by my high school buddy who I mentioned earlier.  (The good ol’ boys who described me as having the charming quality of “pussiness”).  You are riding shotgun, passenger side, with this Skoal-chewing pal of mine as he indulges in one of his favorite pastimes.  Missouri mudding. 

He maneuvers his four-wheel drive, extended cab, F-250 through knee-deep, clammy wet muck.  The tires spin out in the black mire and spit copious amounts of saturated midwest mud onto the body of his truck.  He cranks the wheel to the left, then the right.  He buries the accelerator and the tires spin out, splattering the body of his Ford with grime. 

The windshield, the door handles, the hood, the tires – the entire vehicle is caked in mud.  Your driver can no longer see out the front window because it’s coated in filth, but he keeps the gas pedal on the floor, unconcerned with the 0% visibility.  You can feel the truck losing speed, and you think you’re going to get stuck, but just as the truck begins to stall out the experienced mudder hits a dry spot and the tires catch.  

“Whooweheee!”  He yelps as the filthy truck emerges from the mire and charges back onto the gravel road.  “How d’ya lak that?” He whoops from the other side of the bench seat. 

Trying to match is hillbilly enthusiasm, you rip off the best rebel yell you can muster, but you wonder aloud if it isn’t going to be an all-day project to get the truck clean again.

“Nah,” he says, holding up a roll of Angel Soft,  “I got me some of this here single ply paper I use to wipe ‘er down after she gets muddy.” 

You furrow your brow, confused by this revelation.  It doesn’t make sense does it?  If there is mud on the truck, why would he clean it with dry paper.  Wouldn’t that just spread the filth around? Why wouldn’t he take it through a car wash where, aided by water, he could get the truck clean? Like for-real clean.  

Wiping the body of the truck down with Angel Soft is just going to scatter the muck around, right?  You can’t really get the body of the truck clean like that, can you? 

The answer, of course, is no.  No, you can’t clean the mud off of the body of a truck like that.  And I'll be a monkey's uncle if you can get your body clean like that.  You can't.  You need water to get it clean.  Single ply paper won’t cut the brown mustard.  You need aquatic assistance.

The anal analogy I just splashed you with is a bit crude I admit.  And perhaps it’s a tad dramatic considering our defecation rarely, God willing, leaves us “covered in filth” or “caked in mud.” But as unrefined as that muddy metaphor is, I think it illustrates a critical point.  Water is the quintessential cleaning agent.  You don’t wash your dirty dishes with a dry towel; you soak them in water.  You don’t wash your hair with a dry dishtowel; you scrub it with soapy water.

So why, Developed World, are you still cleaning your western wazoos with dry paper?  It makes no sense.  Listen to me; there is great deal you can learn about anal sanitation from your ASSociates to the east. Please, take some can-cleaning cues from your Arabic neighbors. Because over here, we've got this thing down to a science.

Now I am by no means suggesting that we have the market cornered on cleanliness here on the Arabian Peninsula. As I write this, I’m sitting in a coffee shop where the doors and windows are wide open.  The desert wind is blowing sand and dust into the building.  The floor is slick with barren filth, and there are two relentless flies circling my coffee mug, seizing every opportunity to land on the cup’s rim - eager to turn their buzz into one of the caffeine variety. Occasionally they zip out the open door and recruit a couple buddies to come help them spread their vile germs about the restaurant.

The waiter to my left is smoking a cigarette directly over the plate of food he will soon serve to a fellow patron.  And if I watch for a bit, I’d wager a hefty lump of UAE Dirhams that I can catch every single staff member emerge from the bathroom with the guilt-ridden dry hands characteristic of one who has sloughed on his most important sanitation ritual. No, this is not the cleanest region in the world. 

However, here on the Arabian Peninsula, we do have the market cornered on one facet of cleanliness.  We have, without question, the most pristine posteriors the world over.  Nowhere else in the world will you find people whose fannies are clean enough to walk into an operation room and perform a surgery.  But from Dubai to Doha, from Muscat to Medina, you won’t find a single itchy ass. 

Why?  Because here on the Arabian Peninsula, we use water.  Every stall in this part of the world comes equipped with a hose and spray nozzle next to the toilet.  Each individual poop cubicle has a sprinkler system that allows you to point and shoot at your nether-regions, thoroughly ridding it of any souvenirs that you’d rather not try to get through customs on your way out of the Republic of Lavatory. 

Just like you probably use the hose in your kitchen, right next to the sink, to spray off your soiled pots and pans; you use this doodad to rinse off your soiled can.  Or to use the dirty Ford pickup analogy, you don’t just spread the mud around with paper, you wash it clean off. 

I’ve included a couple of pictures to help you get a clearer image of this remarkable evolution in sanitation.  

This is the toilet in the very coffee shop where I'm sitting to write this manifesto.  Note the hose and spray nozzle between the toilet and the paper.

Here is the toilet in my very own flat.  In America, even the most cutting edged homes don't have this remarkable tool that comes standard even in my 2o year old building.

So how - you must be asking, astute reader - does one deal with the subsequent wetness left by this poop power washer?  Does one not leave the restroom feeling quite tidy indeed, but not without a bit of water seeping down the back of the legs?  

Well, my dear reader, that is where your toilet paper comes in.  Here in the Arabian Gulf countries, we still have a roll of toilet paper within reach, as the pictures affirm, but the sole purpose of the tissue is to dry the posterior.  No longer do copious quantities of flimsy paper squares have to take on the burdensome task of cleaning in solitude. On its hardest day of work, the toilet paper acts as a touchup.  Typically, however, it is simply there to pat down and dry your spotless bum. 

It's such a remarkably simple concept that it's no wonder Westerners didn't pioneer it.  It's too obvious.  Westerners are too busy mapping genetic codes, wiring circuit boards, and finding cures for terminal illnesses to notice that they aren't getting their tails tidy enough.  So I'm cutting you some slack for coming onto this bathroom-hose scene late.  I get it.  It's not your fault - you didn't know how far behind the rest of the world your behinds were.  But now you know.  

So I beg to you, Western World - get your crap together.  I'm not the kind of guy who likes to use my words to point out flaws.  I don't, as I tried to make clear, like to talk crap.  Verbal gunfire is simply not my forte.  I don’t gossip.  I don’t insult.  I don’t snitch.  I don’t slander.  I don’t talk crap. But if you don't start washing your butts at least as meticulously as you wash your Ford trucks, how can I refrain?