Good Bidet, Sir. I SAID GOOD BIDET!
Craig Sweat
Apologies to Willy Wonka for co-opting and corrupting his catchphrase. It was, alas, irresistible
as both our stories have chocolate factories at the center.
I know, dear reader, you’ve unwittingly heard from countless friends, family members, and
random strangers on transcontinental flights of the delights of bidets and their innate cleaning
superiority so I will not rehash them here, though they are legion. Instead, I’d like to provide
context for the bidet’s inevitability and why they are humanity’s genetic destiny and your
birthright.
Here goes. Like the internet, life is a series of tubes. Or to be geometrically precise, tori. Donut
hole-like openings extending from a mouth-part to an exit strategy through which all manner of
substances pass. Unlimited breadsticks, Xanax, and an assortment of things one wouldn’t put in
one’s mouth-part if one really thought about it, all with the intent of extracting nutrients and
expelling the rest.
Consider the worm. In one end and, with no regard for when or where, out the other. That
simple model holds true for most of the animal kingdom. Whatever grand design might have
guided evolution, it paid scant attention to excretory consequences.
The model works. And to be fair, it’s not all poop and run. Many species leave encoded
messages in their dropping for the benefit of their compatriots. (You know, like Twitter.) But
when you get to higher-order mammals, well, cracks begin to appear.
Think of the buttocks as a Venn diagram. One cheek represents fur and the other fecal matter.
The intersection, though small, should not be entered lightly. It’s an unhygienic apocalyptic
miasma of irritants and odors that threaten not only health but one’s social standing.
Nature has provided a variety of coping strategies, though with varying appeal. To see this in
action consider household pets. Cats are cursed with the worst sanitizing methodology of all: a
flexible spine and an abrasive tongue. Effective? One supposes, but at what cost to dignity?
Fortunately, it’s a strategy not available to humans apart from a few elite Cirque Du Soleil
performers.
Dogs, on the other hand, have acquired the ability to scooch, a skill anyone with carpeting
knows well. Unlike the cat’s spine/tongue trick, scooching can be accomplished by a reasonably
fit human. Though any human practitioner may falter socially. Forget swiping right, scooching is
swiping wrong.
For humans, solutions to the sanitation problem have relied on our large prefrontal cortex,
standing upright, opposable thumbs, discovery of fire, use of tools, the inventions of pottery,
plumbing, and paper (two-ply!), mass manufacturing, and advertising. It’s a lot. But considering
the aforementioned pet strategies, worth it. Yet our ingenuity need not end with a roll of
Charmin. Did Las Vegas didn’t stop with the cocktail napkin? No, Bellagio’s fountains are far
more impressive.
While no toilet needs to replicate Geneva’s Jet d’Eau – a 125-mile-per-hour, 130 gallon-per-
second stream shooting 450 feet in the air – do we not all deserve a moment of solitude at the
end of our labor to reflect on the genius of humanity and to bask in our creativity, letting it
wash warmly over us, clearing our minds and raising our spirits while blasting every last clinging
Oompa Loompa from our nethers? We do; do indeed.
If you enjoyed today’s moot, check out Craig’s website. If you are feeling generous, consider donating to the Southern Center for Human Rights, Craig’s charity of choice.
*For each moot, we generate a cover image using DALL·E, an AI art platform that generates images using natural language processing. This image on the right was generated using the title, 'Good Bidet, Sir. I SAID GOOD BIDET!' in the style of Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, Craig's artist of choice.*

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