I Could do That!

March 8, 2017.Reading time 5 minutes.

Have you ever watched any of those survival shows or National Geographic where someone is trekking through a jungle deep in the heart of Africa against all odds? My favorite was Man vs. Wild. I would sit in my comfy recliner with my bowl full of ice cream while a guy named Bear faced temperatures of -30° and a pack of rabid polar bears and I would think, “I could do that.”

I once watched him squeeze water from elephant poop to avoid dehydration. I could totally do that.

Seriously, that’s how guys think!

We think that if forced into such a situation, our natural instincts would take over and we could do anything. Of course, the first month or two in the wild would force us to shed our extra thirty pounds of office-chair flab to get down to our raw fighting weight. Never mind we aren’t former Commandos with years of training – that isn’t what we lack. We lack only the opportunity. If we had the opportunity, we could discover new lands just like Magellan or lead armies like Alexander the Great. It’s just that we came along too late; there is nothing new to discover. The lack of opportunity is what is preventing us from being bold and daring… oh, and a slight case of bursitis.

But I was recently forced into a survival situation.

My situation started in Walmart. Now I know that can be the very edge of humanity, but I didn’t have to wrestle a 400-pound man in a thong or anything quite so appealing. I had to get dinner. My wife and daughter have been busy with a show, leaving me to spend many evenings as a bachelor.

Let’s define “bachelor” because I was certainly not a good-looking, rich single guy chased by thirty beautiful women. Wrong reality show. No, I was just a lonely man facing dinner choices. I’ve been there before. I have lived in a world of condiments, nachos, and little substance. Granted, it has been nearly twenty-five years. But I can do that!

With errands to run, I stopped at Walmart, which has a full grocery store – two birds, one stone. Saving precious resources already. I meandered the meats and seafood but thought they looked long on preparation and dirty dishes, so I grabbed a what I thought was a name-brand frozen pizza. When I got to the register, my first clue should have been that it rang up for $2.89. Seriously! A large pizza. I should have taken it back to the freezer section immediately. But then I thought, maybe I was about to discover a new delicious, low-cost meal. Maybe it is good. And besides, the frozen food section is way over there…

When I took it out of the box, it looked very segmented. Not at all like the picture on the box. A glob of frozen sauce here, some meat there, and fake cheese in an altogether different location. At $2.89, you don’t get mixing. That internal voice in my head told me to abandon ship and go to Zaxby’s, but being a man, I shunned reason and baked it.

I don’t know what price-point the people at Walmart are afraid of. Maybe the $3.15 pizza guys really have the market cornered. But this thing was nasty. The crust was cardboard, the cheese rubbery and the ranch sauce tasted like the antifreeze that dripped into my mouth once during a car repair gone wrong. I seriously considered calling poison control.

I threw it out and left a scathing review on Walmart.com which I am sure will cause them to change their ways. I made a condiment sandwich and turned on the TV to catch a Survivor episode where they were standing in chest-deep, shark-infested water fishing with twine.

And although I cannot master bachelorhood, I knew in my heart that I could totally do that.

*feature image credit:Lwp Kommunikáció via CCI

How the Squatty Potty Has Me Doubting Everything I’ve Ever Learned

February 22, 2017.Reading time 4 minutes.

It started as a joke. I had never heard of this thing called the Squatty Potty, but anything with such a name must be investigated. When I went to Amazon and read the reviews, I was hooked – laughing my butt off. I slowly found myself believing that this might be a revolution in elimination. As a sample, I offer this haiku left by a satisfied user:

“Oh Squatty Potty
You fill me with endless joy
Yet leave me empty.”

There are many more – some that will make you howl with laughter and maybe pee a little, although the squatty potty won’t help with that. My research even led me to Dookie the Unicorn and this compelling ad:

Then I saw the price and this is where I leave you. I am not about to spend $25 on a piece of plastic no matter how funny and glowing the reviews! I made my final decision and thought it was over. Along came Christmas. I’m one of those people who is impossible to buy for. My dresser is full of bright t-shirts with pithy sayings. This year, my daughters went in together and, you guessed it, wrapped up a Squatty Potty for me. It was a joke, but no one’s laughing now.

Everyone tried it and let me just say, it works – Big Time! Believe the hype. I’ll spare you the details unlike some of those hysterical reviewers.

I do, however, have some major complaints.

First – Toilet time for a man with four children has always been somewhat sacred. I have done some of my best thinking in the lavatory and believe that I could have solved some of the world’s greatest problems had life not beckoned. And now it is gone. Average time with this product leaves just a few seconds for coherent thought.

Second – The thing is like a magnet. We have four toilets in the house and yet I find everyone moving to and in mine. The packaging should include a lock for the door.

Finally, and most importantly – Using the toilet was one of the first things I learned to do way back when my feet dangled from it. Now at the age of forty-nine I have discovered that I have been doing it wrong all along. What’s next? Is this an isolated situation? What else am I blundering?

Have I been breathing wrong all this time? Maybe if I had learned better I could breathe underwater… or through my ears.
Perhaps I walk wrong and if I perambulated differently, I could do it faster… or longer… or on my hands.
Would my penmanship could be neater if I had learned with my feet?

This is where I have a major issue with the Squatty Potty! It has me doubting everything I’ve ever learned. The very foundation of my life’s instruction has been shaken to the core by a little stool – okay, a lot of stool – and I’m not sure how to reconstruct my existence.