My 14 year old son asked for a bidet for his birthday. I had to admit his logic was airtight: “Dad, if you got poop on your arm or face, would you just grab a dry paper towel and wipe it off?”

I don’t know how my face got dragged into this, but he had a point.  Avoiding poo on the hand might be worth a spew on the tush? I could at least try.

So I bought a bidet.

Not a cushy, heated, electric Toto model that will blow dry your scrotum, bleach your anus and coif your pubic hairs. No, a bargain basement model, the “LUXE-Bidet NEO120.” A cold-jet-to-the-butthole model that connects directly to the toilet’s cold-water inlet.

I live in Wisconsin. Cold tap water is cold, especially in winter.

The temperature turned out to be a non-issue – in fact, I found the experience pleasant — at least after I figured out the pressure controls. There are four pressure settings controlling the jet of water aiming at your anal sphincter: “Invigorate,” “Perforate,” “Eviscerate,” and the twee-named “Easy-Peezy-otomy.”  Whether a design flaw or just my water pressure, I quickly learned to stop at level 1 to avoid shredding my taint. But the cold was no problem.

Maybe the hardest part was learning how to “twerk” to get the stream to hit the right spot. A little tricky. Not rocket surgery, but not intuitive, either. After a few wiggling motions I had a focused beam of water scouring my nether regions, leaving a crime scene immensely cleaner than dry paper can… Ooh… what… the…?

At a very specific angle, the water-cannon found my butt-hole like Luke Skywalker bulls-eyeing a womp-rat, or putting the fatal shot to the exhaust port of the Death Star – the Death Brown-Star.  (“Close your eyes. Trust the force!”)

The water entered, filling my “rectal vault.” Who named that, by the way? “Rectal vault?” Death Cab for Cutie sings, “The glove compartment is inaccurately named,” but for my money the “rectal vault” is guilty of far more egregious false promises. Like we’re storing jewelry and art in there?

I felt an intriguing inflating sensation.  I “observed” it, in that extra half-second one always has when first processing a new, or traumatic experience.  But, not knowing how far one wants a power-washer enema to proceed upstream, I snapped out of it and shut off the water.

Then, I daintily ejected the water, draining the balloon my colon had become, into the toilet. I spritzed myself with the bidet  — externally — one last time for cleanliness, and wiped. 

Or should I say, “delicately patted my shiny-clean anus dry, using substantially less toilet paper than previously.”

Bidet 3, TP 0. (No poop on hand. Less TP used. Free prostate massage.)

I stood to flush, and this is where things turned. 

This is when I was reminded that I am not a physicist; that “fluid dynamics” are a mystery to me.

Well, except for the way the concept was demonstrated by Jack Klugman playing “Quincy, M.E.” on a 1970’s TV show I watched as a kid. Quincy was the L.A. coroner. He would investigate suspicious deaths each week, doing forensic detective work that invariably uncovered a weird new way to die or kill someone. Quincy gave birth to every subsequent forensic investigation program, like CSI, or NCIS. But I digress…

One case, though… hoo boy, almost killed him! He was stumped and embarrassed.  He had taken to a bar to drown his sorrows. A few drinks too many, and he starts shouting at the bartender. Flailing his hands, he knocks over a glass.  His eyes widen, case solved! A “Eureka!” moment.

The liquid spilled forward toward the bartender, but Quincy (oh… Quincy, that observant son-of-a-bitch) … he noticed that while the drink spilled forward, some of it actually flowed backwards toward him. He leaped to his feet, shouted “Fluid Dynamics,” and ran to his car — to drive through downtown Los Angeles — drunk, as any good law enforcement official would do.

But I re-digress. What was my point? You think a liquid will behave one way, and you’d be wrong, unless you’re drunk Quincy after a Eureka moment.

Try another example. Think of a sprinkler. Not a fancy one with gears and waving parts. No rotating heads, or auto-return ratchets chittering back to the left, four times faster than they travel to the right.  I mean the humble, cast-iron jobby, with a single, circular hole in the top.

You turn on the hose, and through some miracle the water swirls out through that perfect circle hole – not in a pristine stream, like a drinking fountain — in a wide cone, covering an amazing amount of grass in consistent spray.  

Dammit! I thri-gress. Let’s get back to the regularly scheduled show.

Previously, on “Bidets of Our Lives:” our hero had “daintily” ejected bidet-water from his rectal vault, in what he presumed was a targeted, pristine stream.” 

I stood, turning to flush the toilet, to discover that I had indeed been storing “art” in my vault. The entire toilet bowl was covered in flecks and spatters of… of…. “my medium”…  distributed everywhere, in a random, equal spray.

It was as if Jackson Pollock had painted the bowl. Title: “Quincy, Solve This!”

== == ==

Oh, I see the way you’re looking at me.  Disgusted on multiple levels. Well, that’s on you.

I sold that Pollocked toilet the next day for $4.2 million dollars.

I received a patent for a sprinkler shaped like a middle-aged man’s ass.

And my anus is clean enough to eat off of!