I started watching the X-Files last night. Yes, for the first time. Yes, I realize that the show is nearly 20 years old and just now getting around to watching it - especially given I was an adolescent during its run - is tantamount to admitting that I'm only now learning to wipe my ass (more on that in a minute).
There's something endearing about watching a show that "old" given the technological changes the first-world culture has undergone in that short amount of time. How many times did it occur to me "Oh, that'd be different now that everybody has smartphones" whenever Mulder raced to find a phone. Or the warmly familiar sound of Scully's computer literally dialing up to the internet when some hacker was thieving her reports. How many nights did I sit around in my parents' office as a teen with that digital nocturne as my lullaby?
Given my nostalgia for the technology of 1993 (I didn't even know what an Internet was back then), it served as a perfect reflection for how quickly the digital age has grown in a very short span. Smartphones, 4G LTG explosiery, cloud here cloud there, none of that stuff hardly scratches the surface. The Large Hadron Collider, insectoid drones, stem cell livers, Cassini images of Saturn's moons, laser hair-removal, a Starbucks in every bathroom, a complicated eye gesture that will transmit your credit card information to said barista so you don't have to suffer the grueling task of taking out your wallet - it would seem that we can't even keep up with science these days.
And if for any given moment you ever believe that humans are keeping up with technology, I implore you to look no further than behind you to prove yourself wrong.
Immediately behind you. Your behind, even. There: that fleshy coral of a skin-knot hiding between the two plushy hams of fat you call your ass. Yes, I'm talking about your anus. Butthole. Asshole. Rosette. Brown eye. Whatever you want to call it, that little stinky wad of dermis that makes shit deposits for you (if you're lucky) is why this technological age will never impress me.
Well, it's not exactly the asshole; it's how we react after having shat out of the asshole. Scientists talk about discovering the so-called "God particle" and building a colony on Mars yet here we are, still tending to our freshly shat-out asses no better than we were before we ever came down from the trees. The only difference is we've moved from folding up maple leaves to now counting out squares of Charmin Ultra. The fact remains that at least once a day (again, if you're lucky) you still have to stick your hand between your asscheeks and literally wipe and rub away at the dangling, unseparated shit hanging out of your anus with a wad of tissue until it literally is rubbed so thin against your ass skin that you can't wipe away anymore.
Why is toilet paper still acceptable let along considered to be the most fucking hygienic or even effective method for a post-defecation ritual?! Jesus, can you imagine if we treated other bodily functions with such carelessness? Wash your hands with dog saliva instead of soap. Brush your teeth with cauliflower. Substitute a handful of crushed up saltines for a condom. WE'D NEVER SURVIVE IT. Each and every one of us would instantly become a walking capsule for anarcho-noroviruses that would effectively rend this planet habitable only to the creatures that already thrive in shit: pigeons, squirrels, flies, cockroaches, etc.
In fact, we're lucky we haven't incurred such a fate already given how carelessly we've continued behind this fantasy of toilet paper.
That technology has neglected this bio-bomb just waiting to go off is shocking to me, especially given that there is at least one technological alternative that currently exists: the bidet. Yes, it is a strange fucking sensation to feel what is virtually a commode pissing up your asscrack. Yes, it's been completely maligned in the francophobic American culture as some strange, emasculating semi-fetish that threatens the socially destructive chromosome in Americanism known as masculinity. But who cares. I'm tired of this shit. Literally.
Why stop at a bidet, though? Today even that seems as antiquated as a telegraph. We have moved beyond the atoms and into the realm of the subatomic, so bring our ass habits up to speed. Hell, car washes have more advanced washing technologies than we've reserved for our own asses. Why hasn't Proctor & Gamble come up with some type of non-touch dung removal pressure light that steams off the dingleberries and converts them into a nice aerosol possessing the scent of lavender with a hint of mint? Aromatherapy and healthy bowel movements. You'd never again feel embarrassed about taking a shit in the only bathroom at a well-attended party. People'd probably thank you for dropping a load, really.
Yet, we do not have anything close to this. That the developed world, and especially America, has resigned itself to the disgusting habit of manually sandpapering mushy pebbles of shit off their asses is embarrassing and unforgivable. If a regular if not bi-daily (if you're lucky) hand-to-sir-reverence contact is what keeps you an American, fuck that. I renounce any citizenry if it means I'll get to live well past the rest of you assholes once you've succumbed to volcanic eruptions of hepatitis A. Keep your shitty hands to yourself and let me inherit a world less swollen with your crap-spawned diseases.
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