How to Wipe Your Butt

With a title like that you’re, no doubt, wondering whether or not to read on. It probably seems like there is just a lot crap to follow. Well, not exactly. There are a lot of fine details to consider in the execution of this seemingly mundane skill.

First, if you’re using standard toilet paper you have the choice of whether you should wad or fold the paper. Either can be effective if done properly. However, either one, done poorly, can result in quite a messy situation.

Let’s start with the wad. Pull off a length of paper and wad it into your hand. Make it a big one though. If you wad too small, you run risk that your fingertips might pick up a stain from being too close the dirty work. On the other hand, if you get the wad too large then your toilet isn’t going to flush with more than a couple of wads deposited into the water. What you can do, though, is flush the toilet after about every other wipe. That’s not a big deal. It’s kind of like doing a courtesy flush if you’re making a deposit while someone else is in the shower.

I remember that the first apartment that my wife and I had as newlyweds. It didn’t have very good plumbing. Being a sensitive man, I would always try to hold off on personal toilette if my wife was in the shower. However, sometimes, it just can’t be helped. To make matters worse, when I would try to hold off, the pressure just intensified so that the second that the back door gave way to let out the load, the rush would fill the bathroom with the airborne effects.

Immediately, I would hear my wife’s voice scream from the shower to “flush the damn toilet.”  In sincere effort of harmony within our small shared abode I pushed the chrome handle behind me.  Swoosh!

This would always result in another scream. “Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!”

“What happened?” I would always feign sincere innocent concern.

“You know what happened, you asshole. You scalded me again!”

Now back on topic. We have drifted. Let’s consider using the folded butt wipe.

Folding toilet paper is the only way to go for a tree hugger because it doesn’t require as much paper. This way, you kill fewer trees over the long run. Even better, there are no multiple flushes to waste water, unless of course, your spouse is in the shower.

A folded length of paper has another advantage in that it easily affords two wipes instead one.  If you start with a large enough fold-over, and things aren’t too gooey, you might even get three wipes. It’s really simple.

Fold over about six layers of tissue. Wipe once. Fold it in half to hide the first deposit. Politicians and investors will do this without effort. Make a second wipe. When you get really good at this you may be able to fold in half again and do a third wipe. Conservationists will love you.

Using the fold-over method, you can easily put four or five, even six or seven, wipers into to a toilet and flush only once without needing a plumber’s helper.  There is need for caution, however. If you have too few layers on your first fold-over then you run the risk of a perforated wiper.

Now if you’re thinking that you can simply wash your hands to remedy this problem then you must consider some other things. First, do you really want to touch your clothing before you go to the basin to wash? Then, even when you do wash, do you really think that you can get your fingers perfectly clean? Think about that the next time that you pick your nose or bite your fingernails.

The next thing to consider when wiping your butt is whether to reach under or reach through. A reach under is when a person rocks over onto one side and reaches under the high side to do the job. It works fairly well unless you’re using those paper toilet seat covers in a public restroom.

The paper toilet seat cover sometimes sticks to your butt.  Personally, I think that somebody ought to find a way to ensure that one side won’t stick to anything and then mark it THIS SIDE UP.   That way, when you rock over to do a reach under, if it sticks to anything, it will be the seat instead of your butt.

The reach-through method is done by shoving the toilet paper between your legs and past the intimate personals to reach the goo spot. The trouble is that most everyone does, at least, one or two pull-backs. A pull-back is when you pull the paper back out to do a fold-over or to see what kind of a deposit was made according to what you have on paper.

Some people might deny ever doing a pull-back for any reason at all.  To that I say, the proof is the in the skivvies. If a person has brown streaks in their skivvies then I’m not hard to convince that they don’t do pull-backs.

The trouble with pull-backs is that a perfectly simple one-hand job becomes a two-hand job for men. How else are they going to keep the jewels clean? They’ll have to guard the jewels with one hand while doing the wipe and pull-back with the other. If you're one those who takes a beer with you everywhere that you go then you're really going to have your hands full.

I have just one question for women who prefer the reach-through. How could you ever expect your partner to perform a certain intimate act for you after you fumble a reach-through and pull-back combination? It’s just not what one could call having good scents.

Disclaimer:  While reading the first draft of this article, my dear wife took offense to the reference of personal experience when we were newlyweds.  Thus, I must confess.  It was fiction.  We rented a duplex rather than an apartment.