The Bung Fodder Of The Future

There exists a form of bloggage that I've never quite plumbed before - crap blogging. Acidman, rest his soul, was the undisputed king of the format. The surviving contenders are clearly, in my feeble mind, Og and Ellison (aka Mr. Debonair). A couple of recent posts by The King of One Hundred Word Stories prompted this memories from the dank, evil depths of my bowels. While this really doesn't qualify as crap-blogging as the masters of the form practice, it's about as close as I'm willing to go, if you know what I mean, and I think that you do.

I take a lot of online surveys. It's mostly a method of Time Wastage. It's hardly worth the effort - I've scored some DVDs and other junk with reward points, and probably netted about sixty bucks over the years. But, it can be fun, and on rare occasions, they'll send me products to test. Sworn to secrecy, of course. The bung fodder test was about five years ago, so I doubt I'll burn in marketing hell telling y'all about it.

I was asked some questions about tp in general - what sort of thickness and strength I preferred, if I ever had any "events" where my the toilet paper failed and I dirtied my finger, or if it became so wet the structure fell apart (a question for the wimmen folk, I'm sure), and how uneasy the whole thing made me feel. I think I answered that I preferred a stronger high quality and didn't suffer from many fears. I am a Charmin man, FYI. There were also other questions dealing with my environmental concerns about excessive usage of asswipe, plus inquiries into my own average "consumption" of the "product," how many sheets and how many attempts were necessary for the successful completion of the mission. My answers qualified me for a top secret test of a new kind of toilet paper.

This definitely caught my attention, so it was with some anticipation I awaited the delivery of the revolutionary product. These shipments are usually Fed-Exed, so when I got home and found a package waiting for me, I was thrilled. It was four rolls of tp, packaged in a plain clear wrapper within the FedEx box. Enclosed was a sheet of instructions with some large print informing me to read them before just hitting the can for a test wipe.

I was instructed to tear off one sheet and examine it. I was informed it was triple ply, and to see that it was. It was indeed triple ply. The texture was a bit rough.It also was slit in an expanding mesh pattern. By pulling on the edges, the toilet paper would expand like aluminum mesh, and the three layers overlapped so there was no direct holes through the sheet. Each ply was relatively thick, particularly compared to the quality stuff at a Motel 6, for instance. They recommended using only three sheets at a time - tear off the three sheets, pull them apart, fold over and pull again. This resulted in a fairly large fluffy wad. A bit of dexterity was required to keep from pulling it completely apart, but it was very easy to learn the proper tension and the stretching limits. So, by doubling up, six plies defended my pristine fingers from being defiled.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. I suffered no indignities that lesser tp had subjected me to in the past. When the vicissitudes of life sent some extremely loose movements my way, well, the test fodder performed admirably. Getting it "wet" didn't affect structural integrity. My mind's Chief Engineer was not called upon to warn me: "She's breakin' apart, Captain!" The shields held under the various malodorous assaults. Even the Klingons were held at bay, which was an engineering marvel when observing the rather fragile appearance of the hygenic revolution. I shared the vision of a new high tech version of the old standby. Unnamed toilet paper technicians had no doubt been working many long hours to see their solution to a minor world's ill come to fruition.The extra steps of another ply! The additional cuts, placed so cunningly! Would the world be able to accept less paper material to do more?

My followup questionaire was quite explicit in winkling out my concerns about the durability of the product, was three sheets enough, my comfort levels, if I feared the failure of the protective layers, and if I felt residual Klingon occupation was a problem. I did not, and answered in a glowing fashion. I hoped to see the bung fodder of the future on the shelves at the local Wal Mart, but, apparently it was not to be. I expect the expanding mesh toilet paper was an idea before it's time. Perhaps others didn't have the faith in the fodder of the future as I did. After the followup online quiz, I still had a couple rolls left. In retrospect, I should have saved one for posterity, but, caught up in the moment, I used 'em up. Hey, it was free, why not?

So the Bung Fodder of the Future passed on to the Great Septic Tank in the Sky. Sniff....