turdology

Do yourself a favor and read Wooj's fantastic post on toilets and shitting. If you've never seen the infamous "Turkish toilet" before (it's the one you squat over), Wooj's post contains a link. In my opinion, the picture isn't very realistic, because most of the Turkish toilets I encounter in Korea are dung-speckled and -spattered.

I can't stand using Turkish toilets because:

1. I can't squat flat-footed like a real Korean (is it racist to call this the "rice-picker posture"?). The best I can manage is a wobbly squat on tiptoe. When I go camping and do the squat thing, I usually grab onto a tree for stability. And yes, avid campers, I do dig a cathole before pooping. Heh. Cathole.

2. I don't trust my ass. It's actually fairly rare for me to poop out bona fide logs-- huge, fat Cs and Ls and assorted smileys. Instead, I tend to drop chunks or wussy rabbit raisins. I'm at my loggiest only after taking Metamucil, which I don't do here in Korea. I also tend to have very gassy poop sessions. You should know this by now, but in case you don't: gas and shit are a bad, bad combination, especially if your colon is very powerful.

My colon is powerful. It's a Master of the Dark Side of the Force. In a fight against Yoda, my colon would have succeeded where Count Dooku had failed. Yoda would have been reduced to a brown-green smear in that cave/hangar bay, and the Sith Lords' problems would have been solved. "Shat well, you have, my asshole apprentice," Yoda would have groaned before entering Force-parinirvana.

So imagine squatting down over a little strip of porcelain with said powerful colon waiting to breathe its awful dragon breath. Imagine this colon screaming brown chunks, each chunk forced out, pneumatically, by the terrifying buildup of gas within, like a downward-pointing Mount St. Helens. Once the fecal projectile leaves the moist gun barrel, there's no guidance system, no way to aim, no way to guarantee the chunks won't land on the pants stretched between my ankles like a torture victim. My colon is many things, but it is not rifled. This, then, is my greatest nightmare: shotgunning my pants by accident. Even a small dung-doodad, one the size of a dry grain of rice, would befoul my day.

Pants are our friends. How do you normally treat a friend? Do you threaten him periodically with marauding volleys of warm shit? Of course not: you treat him with respect. My usual technique in a Turkish toilet cubicle is to remove my pants completely, stand on my shoes, squat, poop (and pray for enough control to avoid baptizing my ankles), wipe, put my pants back on, then put my shoes back on. This takes time, which sometimes makes my friends think I have some sort of stomach problem. In truth, I do have a stomach problem-- it's too big-- but that has nothing to do with why I take so long in the bathroom.

By now you're saying this is too much information. I sympathize. I don't really want to hear about a female friend's battle with the Yeasty Beastie. I don't need to know about the sudden appearance of funny red spots around my friend's balls. But this is the Hairy Chasms, folks. You come here because you're fucking sick. And I'm only too happy to cater to your various illnesses.

Come to me.

Come to Dr. Hominid.


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