Meet my butt:

Butt and I have always had a great relationship--one based on trust and mutual respect.

As my body's primary exit orifice, Butt has the very important job of getting all the stinky gas and poop I've accumulated out of my system. This is by no means an easy task, especially if you're my butt because my daily diet consists of cheddar cheese and coffee. Most butts would have quit after a day, but Butt is different. It thrives in challenging situations, and practically welcomes them. Got a rock-hard doot kernel that won't fit through your butt hole? Butt will squeeze it out--even if it means it has to sit on the toilet for 10 minutes, and push so hard your face turns red and your body sweats bullets. Sudden gas attack when you're in a crowded room? Not only will Butt release the tension without making a sound, it will do it with such force that the toxic fart will smell like it's coming from someone else.

Despite all the great things Butt does for me, I can't bestow it with the title of Awesomely Awesome Butt of Awesomeness. I'd like to, but I can't because unfortunately, it has one very unpleasant flaw:

No, I don't have a problem with my butt having sharp teeth (whose doesn't?). My problem with Butt is that it likes to eat toilet paper.

It happens randomly. I'll be wiping myself clean after taking a satisfying dump, and Butt will suddenly take a bite out of the 2-ply:

I don't understand where this behavior is coming from. Butt and I have always worked according to certain rules, one being "no clenching during a wipe." And it's usually very mindful of the importance of obedience, which is why I find this occasional rebellion so shocking...and disgusting. Sure, Butt's happy about having a snack, but what about me? I mean, there's a scrap of toilet paper up my butt. What am I supposed to do? Leave it there? It's probably got crap on it! I've got no choice but to do the unthinkable before this doodoo tissue rots in my ass--i.e., I have to pick it out.

And forget trying to have a heart-to-heart with Butt. It never listens anyway. I bet it'll just blame me for causing its snack attacks.  

Damn you, Butt. Damn you!

Unless you have an aura of scary/shadiness, a complete stranger has probably asked you to watch his stuff him while he ran a quick errand:

I call this type of favor Stuff-Watching Duty because I am clever, and because when you’re on Stuff-Watching Duty, you’re watching someone else’s stuff while that person is away.

Those of you who have been approached by a stranger have probably said “yes” at least once. I would say “yes” too—and I have on a number of occasions. But my willingness to go on Stuff-Watching Duty has changed. It happened when I was at the Taipei airport waiting for my flight to board. As a result of my crappy packing skills, I wound up carrying two bags of stuff along with my pillow, purse, and laptop.

Twenty minutes before boarding, I had to go to the bathroom. But I didn’t want to lug all my things around because (1) it was a pain in the ass, and (2) I knew some of my stuff was going to end up on the floor—something I was totally opposed to. Putting things anywhere on a bathroom floor is disgusting enough, but the toilets at this airport were all squatter-types. That meant there was a good chance the floor had layer of dried pee. Placing my bag of snack cakes would effectively turn them into urinal cakes.

So instead of bringing everything with me, I put the pillow and bags on some seats located outside the restroom. There was a woman sitting there, and I was tempted to ask her for a Stuff-Watching Duty favor, but something suddenly occurred to me: if someone actually stole my items, could I really expect the woman to do anything about it? She was doing a favor for me, a person she’d never met before and will probably never see again. Aside from maybe reacting in horror, what more could I expect her to do if a thief ran off with my laptop?

That train of thought led me to realize this: when someone asks you to watch her things, she doesn’t mean she wants you to literally keep an eye on them. What she’s asking you to do is make sure no one tries to take her stuff while she’s off squatting over a smelly urinal or whatever. But what if, in your attempt to keep suspicious-looking people away, someone actually takes the very thing you agreed to watch?

I’ll use an example. Let’s say I’m at school 45 minutes early because I have miscalculated how long it would take me to travel 3 miles (note to self: I do not have to leave my place an hour early) am super enthusiastic about my education. I end up sitting in the classroom by myself for about 20 minutes before a fellow student shows up. I have never spoken to this person before, and yet she asks me if I would watch her purse for her while she is away. I agree to do help her out because I figure: it’s not like I’m doing anything or going anywhere anytime soon, so what’s the harm in watching her purse for her? Plus, it’ll give me something to do to with the 25 minutes left before class starts. Damn my super-enthusiasm!

Being on Stuff-Watching Duty, I’m required to keep this purse safe from being stolen. If a suspicious-looking person gets too close for comfort, however, the most I’d probably do is give a verbal warning.

Yes, I imagine suspicious-looking individuals to look like Mayor McCheese.

But what if Mayor McCheese ignores my warning and runs off with the purse? Am I supposed to chase after him and get it back? I wouldn’t expect anyone to do that for me but, for all I know, I could be the only person who feels that way. And then I'd be held responsible for letting a scary, walking cheeseburger steal someone's purse.

To avoid the possibility of confusion, I’ve decided to make strangers who want me to be on Stuff-Watching Duty sign disclaimer forms. The form will let them know that I am limiting my duty to verbal warnings, and will not be responsible if any Mayor McCheeses choose not to pay attention to my existence.

Let’s see how many times I can talk about pubic hairs without actually calling them “pubic hairs.”

There was a time when I had no interest in any form of pubic landscaping…but then I got my period. Ah yes, there is nothing in this world that will jumpstart your anti-pube movement like the experience of finding a menstrual clot hiding in your forest. And you won’t even know it’s there until you take a shower, when the water washes a dark red Man O' War-like mass out of your pubes.

I started out by shaving off my bush, but upgraded to waxing when I noticed that not only did more hairs start growing out of my pants, they were thicker too. I don’t know why people say the shaving/thicker hairs thing is a myth because I’ve seen it happen, and there is a huge difference between pre- and post-shaving pubes. The strands from my bush were so thick you could use one to pry open a window.

The moment I strayed from the path of the Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia Pussy, however, I knew there was no return. None. I know because I’ve tried to live with a beaver a number of times. Each attempt ended with me sitting in awkward positions, trying to tear out any strand of hair I could see being reflected in a mirror that was practically up my butt.

The problem stems from the thick hairs that now plague my va-jay-jay area. They are extremely prickly, and if I get lazy and let them grow to a quarter of an inch, they become too long to fit under my panties. At the same time, they are too thick to break through the fabric, so they instead are bent downwards, where they stab at me in protest.

They only attack when I’m moving around—you know, because of friction and stuff—and it can become extremely itchy. Can’t scratch your pubic area without looking like a pervert with some disease, so I end up having to deal with it by walking bow-legged in an attempt to minimize the hairs' movements as much as I can. This solution, however, also has a negative attribute:

But at least it’s not so damn itchy!

So, until I save enough money to get laser treatments, I’m pretty much stuck with waxing—it’s either that or I learn to get used to looking like a pervert with some disease. Hmm…I choose waxing. I give myself a Brazilian bikini wax every 6 weeks or so, and am constantly on the lookout for any suspicious underbrush that might try to take root on my private plot. Any wayward pube I find is going to get torn out one way or another because my garden is a no-pubes zone.

The downsides to waxing: it is a time consuming process that is generally messy and painful, and which has resulted in occasional skin and blood loss. When this happens, I have to go back to walking bow-legged to keep my tore-up va-jay-jay from stinging me.

Argh! Why can’t I win? Why? Why? Why?

I actually do visit other websites besides Xanga, and one of my favorite ones is www.foundmagazine.com. Found Magazine is an online collection of random pieces of paper people have, well, found. Visitors are encouraged to submit things like, “love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles,”—basically any interesting paper scraps they just happen to come across. The site takes these submissions and posts a “Find of the Day,” which will easily be the most entertaining thing you will read that day.

My favorite submission, and which I think is the funniest one ever posted on the website, is a piece of paper that looks like it was part of a high school test or something. I would seriously consider becoming a teacher just so I could see things like this:

Not sure if you can decipher the handwriting, but the student wrote:

It’s curvy, with a higher bit at the end and a rather aesthetically pleasing slope downwards towards a pretty flat [straight] bit. The actual graph itself consists of 2 [straight] lines meeting at the lower left hand corner of the graph, and moving away at a 90° angle. Each line has an arrowhead on the end.

Hahahahahahahaha^{1 trillion}!

At first glance, I thought this kid was just trying to BS his way through a question he had no idea how to answer. And judging by the red marks, the teacher seemed to think the same thing. The more I read (and laughed) at the answer, however, the more I thought he was a brilliant genius who deserved full credit. Although he spelled “straight” wrong twice—which is amazing since he was able to correctly spell the word “aesthetically”—he did answer the question, i.e., he described the slope of the graph. Sure, it would have been better if he had used the words “mass” and “time” in his answer, given that they were part of the graph’s description. And yes, at the very least he could have written something like, “mass decreases as time increases until it reaches equilibrium.” But the funniness of his response—and the pleasure of laughing yourself to death at the thought of this student actually turning in his exam with that ridiculous answer—makes him worthy of an A+.

While I was in Taiwan, I saw a lot of commercials for those fancy toilets that have butt rinsing functions. The toilets have water jets built into them, and sort of look like this:

When someone activates the function, the jet appears under the person’s butt and cleans it off with a stream of water. I’ve used a peach to illustrate this feature because a piece of fruit is undeniably cuter than a crusty butt hole.

I know, I know, the stem and leaf are at the wrong end, but drawing them in their correct places would have made my peach look like it had a twig pee-pee and a ghetto ass leaf loin cloth.

Anyway, since my butt doesn’t drink water, and I’m sure yours doesn’t either, my question is this:

Where does the water end up after it rinses someone clean?

I know it ends up in the toilet, but what about that water jet? It’s still underneath the person’s butt, isn’t it? Doesn’t that mean some poop wash ends up on the spout? If so, then the next person who takes a dump and activates the rinse function would end up getting washed off by water that has been tainted by someone else’s doodoo bits.

That can’t be how those toilets work!

I’ve had the pleasure of receiving a “first!” comment on a few of my posts. I’ve only ever seen them on websites with very high-traffic, and have thus always regarded them as a sort of prestigious honor given only to the elite. So to have someone care enough about my blog to actually leave a “first!” comment is seriously an honor that I appreciate immensely. I even feel a bit guilty sometimes because I don’t think I deserve such an accolade. It’s like giving me an Oscar for successfully lying to my parents, or awarding me with the Nobel Peace Prize for breaking up a tussle between two angry sea cucumbers—I feel so unworthy! 

If you've ever been in a name-calling battle, then you know that the key to beating your opponent is having a talent for quick and reflexive thinking. And if you've been regularly reading my blog, then you also know that I have no talent whatsoever for such quick or reflexive thinking.

Ah well, the satisfaction of winning a name-calling battle is definitely something you should experience at least once in your lifetime.

The 3 battles I’ve won were those where I was clearly the victor. The outcome of the last one, however, is not as clear. I think it should count as a win towards my record, but others have disagreed. You be the judge:

Personally, I think calling someone a kraken kicks total ass. First of all, it’s completely original. Most people go with the oh-so-typical arsenal of cuss words, and then try to mix-and-match them as if that will somehow make up a new word and garner them more points. At least by calling someone a kraken, the sea monster of yore, I’m showing that creativity exists in my thought process.

Secondly, krakens look like this:

I'm so sorry about the delay in posting, but I've been in Taiwan for the past few days and haven't been able to access the Internet. And some Typhoon Morakot has been looming nearby and is making a real mess of things. Anyway, I'll try to post as soon as possible--been writing something on bits of scratch paper, and hopefully it'll be done by the time the weather calms down.

I wanted to write a post about a recent conversation I had with a dumbass, but found that drawing it out was a much better way of conveying the experience.

I'm going to add this A.T.M. machine conversation to my ever-growing list of crappy moments. That I even have a list makes me think I'm destined for a lifetime of unpleasant experiences--which, in turn, means I will have blogging material until I die. I don't know if that's a good thing for any of you, though, because most of my experiences seem to involve doodoo. I'm pretty sure this one did as well. If the guy didn't see the problem with saying "A.T.M. machine," then I'll bet he was also drinking a diarrhea latte and enjoyed it.

My sister and I are visiting our parents in Hawaii for a few days, and we've only been home for about 48 hours when we made a most horrifying discovery!

It happened when I took our dog out to the backyard to play. We have a lot of mango trees, and our dog likes to run behind them and explore. When I took him out this afternoon, he had decided to check out this tree by our pool. I expected him to do his usual routine of smelling around in search of some baby mangoes that had fallen on the ground, but instead he looked at something in the dirt and then came running back to the house. That was really unlike him, and it made me think he had maybe gotten stung by a centipede or something. So I went behind the tree to see what was wrong and I saw...a giant clump of doodoo!

It was just lying there behind the tree, where is must have been for awhile because it was dried out. And it was huge. There was no way our dog laid that turd. He's a little Pomeranian; his entire doodoo chain is about the size of a house key. The poop pile in the backyard, however, was almost the same size as he was. What the hell, right? The last time I saw giant poop in the yard was back when our golden retriever Custard was still alive. He's in Dog Heaven now, and probably pissed that someone desecrated his territory.

Since I knew a Pomeranian couldn't have laid this mysterious giant turd, I came up with two theories about how the poop ended up in our yard:

1. My parents had secretly adopted a large dog and were hiding it from my sister and me for some reason.

2. Someone took a dump behind our mango tree (I had my money on this one because I couldn’t find a second dog anywhere in our house).

Anyway, I decided to ask my parents for answers. If anyone would know the origins of a random poop pile, it would be them because parents always seem to know the answers to everything. And I figured dinner would be the most opportune time to present my theories to them. But because the topic was about doots—which isn’t exactly the best thing to discuss while eating—I made sure to bring it up all sneaky-like.

DADDY: Is this today's newspaper?

SISTER: Yes.

ME: Speaking of newspapers...did someone make doodoo in our yard?

Okay, so my transition needed work, but you wouldn’t have thought so if you saw my dad’s reaction—or, rather, lack thereof. Instead of being shocked at the news that there might be human poop in our backyard, my dad instead calmly replied, “It was the pool guy. He’s done that a few times already.”

Um…first of all, I didn’t know we still had a pool guy. Our pool looks like it hasn't been cleaned in years: it is full of leaves, dead bees, and other random bits of debris. That is sort of the opposite of cleanliness, isn't it?

Secondly, what the hell is this guy doing taking multiple dumps on a client’s property? And what does he wipe with? I didn’t see any traces of toilet paper or sh*t-smeared leaves anywhere near the turd pile—oh no…please don’t tell me he washes himself off in the pool!

According to my parents, our previous pool guy—who was, by the way, extremely professional and always did a thorough job—stopped working for the maintenance company, and was replaced by this pop-a-squat new guy three months ago. This guy can't clean a pool to save his life. He did improve after my parents joined other clients in complaining about his performance, but he has recently started doing shoddy work again. I think it's pretty obvious this guy is a lazy ass. Hello! He took a dump on someone else's property!

My parents are 100% sure the pool guy is the culprit, but they won’t file a complaint until they have actual proof. Unfortunately, he only comes Wednesdays while my parents are working, and that means evidence is hard to come by. My sister and I, however, are going to be home for a few days and have decided to put an end to his disgusting doodoo-ing. He's scheduled for tomorrow, so we have come up with a few ideas on how to achieve our goal:

1. A Sign

We will make a sign out of a chopstick and a notecard, with a message written in pidgin. And then we'll stick the sign into the doodoo so that the next time the pool guy needs to take a dump, he will see the sign and realize we are on to him!

2. Surveillance Camera/Replay

For this plan, we will hide a surveillance camera somewhere in the mango tree and record the pool guy when he runs back there to crap.

Once we catch him in the act, we'll play the footage on a screen that will magically appear behind him. Not only will he see himself being a disgusting asshat, he will also realize we are on to him! 

3. Poopy Trap

And finally, our last plan of punishment is to set up a poopy trap. When the pool guy goes behind the tree and steps on a certain spot, it will activate a slingshot hiding in the branches. The slingshot will then hurl his dried up doots into his face, and he will know we are on to him!

So! Which plan do you think we should go with?