Great Moments in Fat History: Enter the Comfort Wipe

So it's come to this. Sweet, creepy Jesus, IT HAS COME TO THIS.

It's no secret that obesity is a growing problem in America. So much so that, "Obesity - A Growing Problem™" is actually a copy-protected slogan registered by Amlagamated Puns Enterprises/Service Humor International Trademarks. And believe me, the folks at APE/SHIT know what they're doing.

It's also no secret that America has apparently decided to simply accept this and adapt to it accordingly rather than actually fight the problem (hence my attempt to force the euphemistic phrase, "shaking the hook" into the popular culture). I guess fighting takes too much effort. You actually have to get up off the couch, put down the Ben & Jerry's, and do something. It's easier to just blurt around on your Obesity Scooter, sitting around after having given up. In fact, "sitting down and giving up" are pretty much the only two things you have to do in order to succumb to your new status as a member of the Hutt family (well, that, and eat half your weight in Western food every day.)

But never have "sitting down" and "giving up" combined in quite so hopeless, so cynical, so downright OBVIOUS a fashion as they do in the Comfort Wipe.

Used to be that years ago, "he has to clean himself with a rag on a stick" was the sort of news that elicited clucked tongues and sorrowful head-shakes from people who can't imagine how anyone could possibly let it get that far. But now? These pitiful wads of clarified lard aren't shameful cautionary tales. Heavens, no. They're an under-served consumer niche that can be marketed to! Just watch!



I don't know about you, but I'm having a hard time deciding what's funniest/most horrifying about this:

A) The voice-over lady's liltingly musical delivery.

B) The copywriter's delicate dance around the concept of, "this is something you wipe your ass with."

C) What the talent agency's ad must have looked like that sought to recruit for the role of the guy who shows up at the 40-second mark.

D) The fact that the woman who pops up at :45 is obviously well-taken care of (and from the looks of her, probably even has a advanced Dance Performance degree from Juilliard), yet we're still expected to believe that she's so elderly and infirm that she previously needed assistance swabbing out her brown-eye before the Comfort Wipe came along.

E) The subtle, probably until-now-unconsidered fear-implantation aimed squarely at squeezing additional sales out of the OCD/germophobe crowd ("If you're someone who just doesn't want to touch DIRTY TOILET PAPER...").

F) The idea that you can and should give this stain on the dignity of Western culture as a gift to "someone you love," and that their knee-jerk response WON'T be to use it to beat you to death with.

G) That we're supposed to believe a plastic stick (and a bonus plastic stick with a pair of suction cups attached to it) is somehow a steal at twenty bucks (plus S&H), because the two of them together represent a "$50.00 value."

H) The understated, in-context acknowledgment of the eternal "crumple vs. fold" debate.

I) They want us to believe this thing is somehow "sanitary" when you KNOW that in the hands of the sort of person who has trouble wiping his or her crack normally, it'll no doubt wind up more smeared with shit than GG Allin during a curtain call.

No matter what, I just want to send a very clear message to all of my treasured Diary co-contributors and readers:

I know I'm not the most in-shape guy in the world. But if my personal physical condition ever gets so beset with tragedy that I'm forced to drop a Jackson on a special stick just so that I'm not waddling around from buffet to buffet reeking of stale excrement? PLEASE MURDER ME. Just walk up and launch the business end of one of those gas-powered livestock-killing spikes like Javier Bardem toted around in "No Country For Old Men" directly between my eyebrows. Then, print out this entry, bring it into court, and allow me to exonerate you from beyond the grave. The gigantic, diamond-mine sized grave they had to use a backhoe to dig before bulldozing my Steinway crate into it.

"I just done you a solid, friend-o. That was for your own good."

You can do whatever you want with my shit-stick after that.