Dicaeologia (di-kay-o-lo’-gi-a): Admitting what’s charged against one, but excusing it by necessity.
My wife bought me a bidet for Father’s Day, or I should say the downstairs bathroom. It is made in France. Somebody told me that “bidet” means “crack spritzer” in French. I doubted that crack spritzer was true, so I took the time to look it up and found out it means “spincter fountain,” although it cleanses the entire crotch—anus and genitals. Anyway, I prefer to think of it as the “Dream Sprinkler.”
My bidet has a remote control. a heated seat, a blow dryer and a turbo washing option. The heated seat has driven me to spend an inordinate amount of time on the bidet. The temperature is just right—not too hot, not too cold. It reminds me of sitting on a warm sidewalk, in the summer, growing up in New Jersey where everything was beautiful and I had yet to get involved in crime—that happened when I was twelve when I sold stolen merchandise that had “fallen off a truck.” Yes, we actually said that as part of the sales pitch. At any rate, the warm sidewalk feeling was overpowering. I felt like a kid again.
When I got up early in the morning and the house was cold, I headed for the bidet and the heated seat—the sweet heated seat. I would pull down my pajamas, get centered and slowly sit down. Ahhhh. Just right! I had a TV and bookshelves installed in the bathroom. I would read or watch TV while I waited. Sometimes I would have a cup of coffee to help things along. Then, if things were moving really slowly, my wife would bring me breakfast, usually bran flakes, and serve it on a TV tray table.
Finally, there would be a windy trumpet blast, things would move, and I’d be done, except for the turbo rinse, the pièce de résistance. Picking up the remote control with a trembling hand, I press the turbo button. The bidet makes a whirring-clicking sound, and let’s loose with a steady powerful stream of warm water. Yes! Warm water! Seeking out and hosing away the fragments of excrement left by the main event. Now, it is time to activate the blow dryer. The bidet makes its whirring-clicking sound again. Then, the warm swooshing breeze begins. It’s like riding with your head out a car window on a hot summer day, like you did when you were a kid, before they started making rear car windows that only go down half-way. I put the remote on the stool by the bidet and sit and enjoy the warmth of the seat for another half-hour.
Some people say I’m crazy for spending so much time with my bidet. I admit that’s an easy conclusion to draw, but when I am seated on the heated seat, I am riding in a maelstrom of memories, making new memories of the sensual pleasures experienced every morning by the bidet’s glorious fulfillment, which are only partially fulfilled by a standard toilet and the barbaric and disgusting practice of cleaning yourself with a piece of paper. Who wouldn’t spend four hours every morning in the bathroom, taking heed of the warm enchanting call of the bidet? Surely, I would die without my beloved bidet. Please try to understand. I will not go quietly you paper-wiping oafs.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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