Scatology 101 by R. Kinch

From: "Richard Kinch" <dkinch@wi.rr.com>

To: "'linda_stengel@hotmail.com'" <linda_stengel@hotmail.com>

Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 03:07:37 +0000

Subject: Scatology 101

Message-ID: <7e4477608cd2108023a008579f7fde61425eedd5@webmail>

During this Period of Inconvenience you may have noticed the increased interest in and extended inquiry into topics up to this time little discussed by those who discuss things. I refer of course to jigsaw puzzles and toilet paper. In the past these two items went their quiet ways, little noticed because little regarded. (These two themes are united, by the way, in a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle of stacked rolls of toilet paper. The puzzle is called “TP Hoarding” and is available from Funwares.)

Since the beginning of the pandemic and its consequent restrictions, my home has not been without an active jigsaw puzzle. It encroaches into our living space (we live in a crowded cottage) and absorbs our free time, which, as you know, must be abundant these days. Pieces stick to my sweaty elbows and are discovered in the bathroom or the kitchen.

The subjects of jigsaw puzzles vary (often bucolic or excessively patterned), as do the number of pieces – my favorite is 1000. There are several manufacturers and vendors, but the elite is Wentworth Puzzles, a British firm that makes their puzzles out of wood and features several paintings by classic artists, e.g. Waterhouse, Constable, Sorolla y Bastida. According to their website, Wentworth will deliver, rather a distinction in these times of unexpected demand. Other providers list many Out of Stock and plead for patience while they try to fill orders. I ordered four from Original Puzzles on 15 April and have yet to see them, despite my frequent nudges, which (my friends would be appalled) grow less polite over time.

Still, for wasting time, devotion to a jigsaw puzzle is harmless, quiet, absorbing, more intelligent than television, and cheaper than drink. I wish Jorge Luis Borges had taken up the topic. He would have done it justice. (Here I will mention that I have resolved not to refer to Matthew Arnold in this message.)

I quite understand why folks might engage themselves in putting together a jigsaw puzzle. But about the interest in toilet paper I am quite confounded. There was a run on the stuff at the start of the Period of Inconvenience, and I still hear that retailers find their supply of papergoods to be uncertain. Most normal people have probably given little thought to the subject. There is of course the debate about single-ply and double-ply, or bleached or unbleached. I suppose there will always be jokes about corncobs and Sears catalogs.

But this is not really a subject for polite conversation. It’s like suppositories and hemorrhoid cream, honored in the breach but not mentioned when children are present. The Mexicans, you should know, are much more delicate than the crude and blunt gringos. To them it’s “hygienic paper.” Its use is regarded as an exercise in cleanliness. This in fact is a premise of what must be its major treatment in literature. I refer of course to Chapter XIII of the first book of Gargantua and Pantagruel, entitled “How Gargantua’s wonderful understanding, became known to his father Grangousier, by the invention of a Torchcul or Wipebreech.” (From this point the squeamish may wish to avert their gaze.)

What chapter 42 of Moby Dick is to menace, what chapter XL of Portrait of a Lady is to treachery, chapter XIII of Gargantua is to toilet paper. That is, it’s not the last word but it is the classic word. Any useful discussion of the topic must include reference to this classic statement. At the rear of any discourse on toilet paper, search the bibliography for this item.

The chapter is three pages of Gargantua, our protagonist, five years old at the time, extolling his practice of cleanliness by reviewing his search for the most effective and comfortable “meanes to wipe my bum, the most lordly, the most excellent, and the most convenient.” Gargantua enumerates and evaluates the many materials he has experimented with. I count about fifty: a gentlewoman’s velvet mask, one of her hoods, a cat, a pair of gloves, several herbs (fennel, sage, marjoram, spinach, parsley), sheets, coverlets, curtains, hay, straw, flax, wool, a pillow, a pannier, various hats (the best are shaggy). He prefers some items to others; some are disastrous, for example, a lady’s ear-pieces of crimson satin with golden spangles that “fetched away all the skin of my taile with a vengeance.” The cat, by the way, took its own vengeance.

Most interesting perhaps are Gargantua’s experiments with birds: a hen, a pullet, a cormorant, also a falconer’s lure, an attorney’s bag, etc. etc. But I feel the suspense mounting and will here provide Gargantua’s conclusion, “that of all torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bung-hole cleansers and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well douned.” There are additional details in praise of this discovery and setting forth technique. But I forebear.

So you see that this is not a new topic: its antecedents far precede the current stress. Our originality is in doubt. Nor can one easily imagine a discourse on toilet paper more definitive than this, nor, one might say, more Rabelesian. 

Richard Kinch

July 2020

Richard Kinch

3624 Sheridan Road

Kenosha, WI 53140

   tel.: 262/764-9968

   e-mail: dkinch@wi.rr.com

For making a garden, three things are needful: First, a good purse; Secondly, A judicious Eye; and thirdly, a skillfull hand.

                                                                                                                       John Evelyn