There was gas in the water line for the bidet. Got your attention? It sure as hell got mine. We don’t have a “real” bidet in our place, but it’s a sprayer attachment on the side of the toilet. Works great, though. The fact that I have a bum sprayer, let alone that I use it, still kinda boggles my mind. But it’s good. The sprayer is a fairly new addition, I put it in about a year ago after we got back from Brazil. Brazil is what changed it all for me.
My wife and I went to visit her family and we stayed at her mother’s place. It’s a beautiful home and when I first used the bathroom I noticed the sprayer next to the toilet. Now, I knew what bidet’s were and being a good Mid-Western boy there was no way in hell I was going to use water instead of toilet paper to clean myself. No. Way. In. Hell. I don’t know what my aversion really was. Although, if I’m being honest, it may be left over from attending junior high and high school in the 80’s where if anything came near your butt you were called gay and you were endlessly teased about it. And I didn’t want to be teased back then. So, maybe, on some level, I was still associating a bidet with being gay. Which is stupid on so many levels, ’cause, I mean, c’mon, who hasn’t at least been curious about exploring back there? Guess I’m still learning about my biases. Well, that’s the first step to changing them : )
So anyway, I didn’t use the sprayer at my mom-in-law’s place. Then we went on a vacation while we were on vacation. We went to Jericoacoara. A beautiful place and I highly recommend it if you’re looking for somewhere to visit. The main point about it is that in our hotel bathroom there was a sign next to the toilet that said something to the effect of, “Please do not flush toilet paper down the toilet. The town’s sewer cannot handle it and it will back up.” Well, “fuck that,” I thought and I used my TP and flushed it down the toilet. There was a little trash can next to the toilet/sprayer for you to put the TP you used to dry yourself. I’ll be honest, it took me a second to realize that’s what it was there for. My first thought was that you were supposed to wipe yourself clean and put it in there instead of flushing. Which seemed absurd. Then I realized I was the absurd one. So I flushed my TP down the toilet and wet some more and placed it in the basket. I certainly didn’t want the hotel staff to think I was flushing it down the toilet. I know how to get away with stuff.
Then I felt bad. What if it backs up? How badly can this TP mess things up? Does it really screw up the sewer in the rest of the town? ‘Cause the plumbing in the hotel looked pretty new. And then I realized I was being a stupid, selfish American. The next time I used the bathroom I used the sprayer. Not gonna lie, it was fuckin’ weird. But over the next week, I got used to it. My wife said she wished we had one at our place. “That’s easy enough to do,” I told her. So I put one in. She was happy. I scored points. It was all good.
So now, I use one every single day. I love it. It’s refreshing and clean and we’re saving a ton on TP. The problem is, once I got used to using my bum sprayer, things got pretty sensitive back there. Normally, it’s great. Traveling, however, is the worst because I have to use TP, and it’s typically the cheap, rough stuff. Can I just say, “Damn!” After a day or so I feel scraped raw and when you’re walking around with your bum hole feeling raw, it makes everything else less fun. This is a common complaint amongst my family when we travel. Oh, well. I spend more time pooping at home than anywhere else, so it’s totally worth it. And, while it may seem awkward and weird to most of us Americans, in the end (ha, ha), I’d recommend trying one.