Positive Cynicism – Shitting and eating; America’s national pastimes

Aaron R. Davis

Yes, it’s the great leveler. From the lowliest peasant to the mightiest king, we all must use the bathroom to expel waste. And we all want to do it in comfort.

But, really, do we need to do so much advertising about it?

America, your diet is not consistent with a healthy bowel movement. You know this. You’re not stupid. You enjoy taking your health into your own hands by eating junk. Let’s not be too afraid to admit it: in America, we love food that backs up the system and gives you gas. I live in the Midwest, okay, and the farms aren’t the only reason the countryside stinks. It’s our eating habits.

Let me put it this way: just over a week ago was Super Sunday. I’m not a sports fan, so I don’t observe this holiday, but I do have a feast some years. I went grocery shopping the Friday evening beforehand, and was horrified to see that not only had nearly all of the corn chips sold out, but every case of Pepsi was gone and the toilet paper section was almost totally empty. Charmin had had a big sale and every roll, every square, every overly-bleached, quilted corner was cleaned away. How appropriate that the Charmin mascots are bears that, apparently, only live to wipe their asses. I guess that’s what passes for cute these days. When I was a kid, Charmin’s mascot was the kindly, neurotic Mr. Whipple, who would go to admittedly excessive lengths to stop people from squeezing the rolls, lest they be misshapen and their freshness destroyed by overzealous hands. Today, it’s cartoon bears that have no problem shitting all over the great outdoors, but are suddenly timid and genteel when it comes to how much toilet paper gets stuck in their fur. Classy work, Charmin.

So yes, I live in the Midwest, the most constantly hungry section of America, where I now have the image of hundred of fat guys in my neighborhoods, wearing what I can only assume are ironic sports jerseys and their douchey backwards caps, stuffing themselves with corn chips, swilling down Pepsi and all using the bathroom at once, trying their damnedest not to scream as the diarrhea burns their guts and has them praying not to die, at least not until da Bears win the Super Bowl again, please God, someday, just let me pass all of these TGI Friday’s potato skins!

Seriously, America: you love to shit. You love to eat, and you love to shit. And you don’t give a damn about portion control. It’s one of the things that makes scooters for people with limited mobility such a cash cow industry. You’re creating jobs, and that’s what I love about you, America: when you’re not shooting each other over parking spaces and shoes, you’re community-minded and creating employment opportunities and making nursing the number one job in the country.

Just look at all the fast food we’ve got here. They just can’t build burgers big enough anymore. Here’s my idea for a new burger: you take five pounds of meat and serve it raw with pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, relish, horseradish, Thousand Island dressing, mayo, ketchup, mustard and French fries on a sesame seed bun. Then you smother it in spaghetti and sauce and roll it up in a gigantic tortilla. Then you deep fry the whole thing and wrap it inside a deep dish pizza with jalapenos and potato skins. And we’re not even done yet! Put on low grade chicken, cheese, salsa, guacamole and sour cream, then wrap it in an even bigger tortilla, and deep fry it again. Then cut open a pig, shove that whole thing in the pig’s stomach, sew it shut and deep fry it again. Then serve it with four scoops of ice cream. We’ll call it the USA Burger. I’m betting Red Robin or at least KFC will want to carry something like that.

(By the way, if you want to super-size it, they put the whole thing inside of an entire side of beef, sear it on a gigantic grill and then cover it in chocolate. That’s going to be either the USA Deluxe or the Morning in America. I’m still hammering out the recipe.)

Oh, America, I kid your fat ass.

Anyway, you have the right to eat whatever you want and I have the right to ridicule you for it. What I’m getting at is that Americans eat food that can take what we want to be a comforting restroom visit and turn it into a particularly mean-spirited David Cronenberg movie. So what do we do? Do we cut back on the onion rings and cheddar cheese bites and drink less soda?

What are you, tetched in the head? We make products that make shitting an easier process.

I thought about that this morning because, well, you can no longer escape the onslaught of excrement-related products. Between getting yelled at about my structured settlement and being told that I should only have one period in my adult life and being whipped up into excitement about whether or not J’Mocha is the father of LaBelinda’s fifteen babies, I actually see, in a row, the following:

First, there’s a commercial for Alli, a product that literally gives you uncontrollable diarrhea. It’s under the guise of easy weight loss (which, to be fair, is a side effect of amoebic dysentery), so it’s apparently a responsible uncontrollable diarrhea product. Seriously, it’s a product that will make your anus leak like a broken Slurpee machine, and some announcer is telling me it’s a great supplement to responsible weight loss. I have a feeling, though, that if you’re thinking of purchasing a super-laxative, you’re probably past the point of wanting to lose weight responsibly.

Then, immediately following, there was a commercial for Vesicare, the drug you take when you’re incontinent. This is for waste coming out on the other side. Instead of shitting too much, this is to make you stop peeing so much. It’s a serious problem that some people are unfortunate enough to have, and I sympathize with them, but I just point this out because I think it’s interesting the problems we have with the entire human plumbing system.

After that comes a commercial for Beano, which I’m going to go ahead and childishly describe as a product for preventative fart control. I find the woman in the commercials extremely distasteful, partially because of her smug attitude, but mostly because her role as spokeswoman for Beano makes me wonder if she’s had some kind of uncontrollable farting problem for years until she discovered the most hilariously named anti-farting project imaginable. Seriously, they could come up with a pill called AntiFart and it would still be less unintentionally hilarious as Beano.

So, now that I’ve got an uncontrollable shitting problem and got my urination under control and am not ruining my formal dinners by farting constantly (the uncontrollable shitting will take care of that from now on — maybe I should bring a change of pants?), what more do I need?

Of course! Toilet paper! Or, er, bathroom tissue, or whatever euphemism for “buttwipe” the grocers are using these days. And there they are, the bear-and-stained bears, admonishing me that if I’m going to poop in public, at least I won’t dirty the place up by using an embarrassing amount of ass plastering.

But then, after that, comes the most horrifying commercial I’ve ever seen. It’s another toilet paper commercial, this time for Luvs. And what’s going on here? Cartoon babies, wearing diapers, participating in a contest. A dark, evil contest. Because, see, Luvs is all about how it can hold more shit than other diapers, which, if you’ve ever held an infant with explosive diarrhea, is a realistic concern for you and your favorite sweaters. So, before an entire crowd of infants, these cartoon babies strut, pout and put it out. The “it” in question here, though: feces.

Yes, the toddlers are having a contest — in front of judges, no less — to see whose diaper can hold the most. Except, of course, that America has yet to get to the point of animating actual baby crap pouring through the leg-holes of these fat little avatars, their diapers weakened by usage and the known toxicity of strained beets. No, instead the babies are just producing larger and larger amounts of fertilizer in their nappies, so the terrible implication of this commercial is not that babies are illustrating the relative effectiveness of diaper brands and their facility for excrement containment … but rather, someone has set up this contest, found entrants, rented a venue, hired judges, engaged in promotion, sold tickets and perhaps even signed advertisers … for a baby-shitting competition.

The only point this event can have is to see, in front of a packed arena, which baby can shit the most.

There is no other point to this commercial. It’s not about diapers, it’s just about crap.

So yes, America, you love to eat and it makes it hard to excrete. I know this. But I don’t know what motivates someone to imagine a baby-shitting contest as something cute and hilarious. I really don’t understand that at all.

Aaron R. Davis lives in a cave at the bottom of the ocean with his eyes shut tight and his fingers in his ears. You can contact him at samuraifrog@yahoo.com.