anus

ANALOGUE 78 KÖLSCH—Once again, beer keeps me out of trouble

My Fellow Inebriates,

When WordPress let the following comment through, I thought its spam filters must be drunk.

…stop using your harsh bathroom tissue. Buy premoistened wipes or pads instead. Do you use garlic at home?…

But Holly Hayden’s message actually  made sense in response to 5 Ways to Help Your Anus Thrive. Goodness, she was actually proposing help for the ragged anuses at LBHQ.

“Stop using your harsh bathroom tissue.”

Given that throughout history people have used everything from leaves/twigs to corn husks to wipe away their nightsoil, TP doesn’t seem so harsh. But point taken. Miss V in particular dislikes the harshness of Kirkland Signature toilet tissue, a product we’ve taken to buying in bulk at Costco because she enjoys unspooling entire rolls into the toilet while nobody’s looking.

“Buy premoistened wipes or pads instead.”

Done and done. Almost no one with young kids can avoid prepackaged wipes. In just the way disposable diapers sneak into the diaper bag, especially with a second kid, premoistened wipes assert their must-have status in short order. You get to the point where, if somebody else’s kid sticks a hand down a diaper and emerges with a handful of excrement, and the parent doesn’t have a premoistened wipe, you think they’re a total asshole.

farting guyBut according to an itchy-bottom expert, wet wipes can cause rashes. Especially in body areas that transition from external to internal, “such as the lips or the anus,” or indeed the lips of the anus, sensitivity to methylchloroisothiazolinone/ methylisothiazolinone (MCI/MI) or kathon CG, the chemicals most often found in wipes, may induce mind-bendingly awful ass rashes, which then devolve into further hell as you “treat” them by wiping instead of using TP.

I did an informal poll of LBHQ to see who exactly is using these wet wipes.

Miss P: No. Miss P likes to squat and dash, using nothing, and leaving everything behind for later discovery. Hemorrhoids? No.

Miss V: Yes. Miss V feeds wet wipes to the toilet despite their obvious indigestibility, making for later surprises of the plumbing kind. Hemorrhoids? No.

My dad: Refused to be interviewed. Hemorrhoids? Not that I know of, which is to say, inconclusive.

My mum: Yes. Takes wet wipes to the park so other parents won’t think she’s an asshole. Hemorrhoids? “None of your bloody business,” but no.

Scarybear: Shits in the woods, he says, which means outside by the cedar trees. No one has ever seen him leave the house. Hemorrhoids? How could someone as ornery as Scary not have hemorrhoids?

“Do you use garlic at home?”

For what? OMG, my fellow inebriates, what is my spammer suggesting? What would one do with garlic vis-à-vis hemorrhoids? Insert them up one’s ass??

I had to know, so I clicked on Holly’s link.hemorrhoid feedback form

My WordPress spam filter might have tied one on, but gmail’s was sober. It put my “H Miracle Alternative Remedy Handbook” straight into the spam pile. And when I retrieved it, it was just a tease.

hemorrhoid miracle end of sample

Luckily I don’t have a functional anus, but I know most of you do. Should you insert garlic into it?

My new friend Holly may have been reticent to share her hemorrhoid wisdom without a credit card number, but Lainey Penninger was not. Her instructions were as follows:

Insert the garlic clove into your rectum like a suppository. Adding lubricant will make it easier to insert. Simply use your index finger and insert the clove inside the rectum approximately two inches. Leave the garlic suppository overnight… Repeat three times per week to decrease hemorrhoid symptoms. The garlic clove will naturally be expelled when you have your next bowel movement.

Holy crap, people, I’d never thought about doing this. Have any of you ever done this? Would you like to?

garlic cloveWe have garlic in the fridge, but none of the humans wanted to be a guinea pig. So I thought I’d find Scarybear and insert some garlic up his cavity while he was busy watching The Matrix for the hundredth time. But I got distracted by a bottle of PHILLIPS ANALOGUE 78 KÖLSCH. Unbeknownst to me it had arrived in a Phillips sampler pack that included DR. FUNK DUNKEL, a beer my dad found so awesome that he asked my mum to buy it again, little knowing that she would instead abide by the LBHQ beer-tasting agenda and buy a four-variety pack so we won’t run out of brews to review and have to post two weeks of cat pictures again.

Analog-78At first my dad was disgruntled at receiving only three DR. FUNK DUNKELS and nine randoms. I suspected hemorrhoids, but you can’t blame those for everything. No, my dad thought he’d tried the Phillips sampler before and hadn’t liked it. Which was a total hallucination, as the box has never been in our house before. Again, I suspected hemorrhoids—this time the hallucination-inducing kind. This he denied, so I guess I got my interview.

Fact is, when we got those Phillips beers chilled, they were damned fine. ANALOGUE 78 pours silky straw-colored with a film of white head and quick bubbles that waft bakery crust, faint citrus notes, and earthy hops. The aroma falls within typical parameters: nothing outlandish, just crisp and uncomplicated.

On the palate ANALOGUE 78 is clean and refreshing with peppy carbonation, easy bitterness and restrained malt. A quintessential summer beer, the stuff is more quaffable than its marketing materials (“our version of the long-play album”) purport. It was gone in a blink.

Needless to say, any thoughts of garlic were also gone. Not that stuffing garlic up Scary’s ass was one of my better ideas…

PICT1812

A probing review of ARC DU RHONE

My Fellow Inebriates,

Occasionally I get asked to weigh in on subjects like the Shroud of Turin, sustainable agriculture, NAFTA, Vatican II, etc., so when Emily of The Waiting mentioned colonoscopies, or rather, #colonoscopies, I promised I’d write about that topic next. You’d be amazed how many people are tweeting about this ass-invading medical procedure. Rectums are twitching, stomachs are growling, and people are talking about their conditions in succinct little <140-character offerings.

Ketchup allowed for what??!! OMG!!

If you’ve been following, you know I don’t have a hole (at least not yet), so I haven’t had the pleasure of a colonoscopy, but my parents should be hitting the right age any day, if they haven’t already, at which time we’ll certainly post graphic, personal pictures, especially of my dad.

I had no idea preparing for a colonoscopy was as involved as it is. For three days you go on clear liquids, which I read as “gin.” One day before the procedure you flush everything out with laxatives and fluids, the goal being to “clear the colon of solid matter.”

You have to get special training if you want to perform colonoscopies.

Before the endoscope goes on its dark voyage and unless you live in a non-sedating country like Norway, you might score some fentanyl and laughing gas. Depending how anaesthetized you are, you might then watch the instrument toilet-snaking its way through your anus and on to even more exotic internal locales.

Wait, you say. How big is the endoscope? I’m not sure I wish to have any sizable instruments probing my ass.

By the looks of the scopes advertised on 1800ENDOSCOPE.com, which buys and sells endoscopes, they are pretty big-ass devices with an alarming length of tubing, a worrisome nozzle-like terminus, and of course a waterproof camera.

You wouldn’t want just anybody snapping on gloves, digitally probing your sphincter, then urging that thing through the rectum into your colon. You’d want somebody with medical talent, and you’d probably want them sober. You wouldn’t want them to have just finished a bottle of ARC DU RHONE (2010). Even the bottle says to “savour responsibly”—i.e., not right before performing a colonoscopy.

Vinified from Grenache Noir, Syrah, and Carignan Noir, ARC DU RHONE is unoaked and bursts with fresh berry aromas. Soft and luscious on the palate, this wine is a gorgeous, full-bodied exemplar of southern Rhone Valley wine. Weighty and boasting a substantial 14% alcohol, ARC DU RHONE promises and delivers ripe fruit, subtle black pepper, and smooth tannins. The finish is lingering and delightful.

Unfortunately, if you are booked for a colonoscopy within the next three days, you’ll have to pass this one up. Gloriously opaque, it would probably darken your colon and mess with that little camera’s imaging.

As for your talented medic, he/she could certainly enjoy ARC DU RHONE—just not before scrubbing in. It would make a good thank-you gift if the doc is gentle (and if not, keep it for yourself).

Best of all, this bottle is only $14.99, so you won’t feel like the liquor store is ass-raping you—just your doctor.

ω

ESTRELLA DAMM INEDIT—As perplexing as a lightweight Ben Wa ball

Very occasionally my mum and her friends talk about interesting things, which makes me prick up my ears for tidbits that go beyond the ordinary childrearing conversational din. This happened today at the mention of Ben Wa balls, although the context and lead-up eluded me. One minute she and her two buddies were talking about some teacher-student spat; the next they were discussing marble-size balls that one might insert into oneself.

Needing to know more (while remaining deliberately blind to any context involving my mother), I hit the Internet. What on earth are these mysterious Ben Wa balls?

Turns out they have some very respectable medical uses (in which case they usually get renamed “Kegel exercisers”) as well as some hedonistic and even perplexing uses. You definitely need a cavity in which to place them, which makes my research strictly academic.

I know my fellow inebriates are very well informed about a host of subjects and therefore do not need a play-by-play description of how to thrust foreign objects into either nether region and then retrieve them. You all know how to do this, I’m sure. Unlike yours truly, you have healthy orifices that may or may not be receptive. So I can dispense with the obvious, which leaves (maybe arbitrarily) the following:

  • Insert one ball at a time; it’s not a race, people.
  • If a ball slips out in public, look around vapidly and say, “Oh look one of my kid’s bouncy balls—where did that come from? Does anyone have any jacks?” Then, if planning to surreptitiously slip it back in, give it a wash.
  • If a ball doesn’t want to slip out, try jumping around, bearing down, or forcing a sneeze. If you’re fearful they won’t ever come out, consider purchasing a retrieval cord. (Incidentally, this is a good option for rear-entry Ben Wa activity, in which—unlike front-entry Ben Wa activity—balls can go MIA indefinitely.)
  • The heavier the balls, the more likely they are to fall out. Latex ones are lighter than metal—but porous and less easy to clean. Metal ones clean up better but they do set off airport metal detectors.

If you didn’t gather it from the foregoing, or you’ve missed any previous laments about the fact, I do not have an anal cavity. Which means all this information is…a gift. If you find this gift dubious, then here’s a beer review:

ESTRELLA DAMM INEDIT, a Spanish one-off purchased by my dad, comes in a slick-looking bottle. The word “inedit” means “never been done before,” an always ominous phrase, especially when the beer in question sports no more than 4.8% alcohol. Nevertheless it comes in a big honking bottle promising a wheat-lager style mix-up with citrus topnotes and coriander supporting notes. This sounded like a decent gamble to my dad when he bought it, and it was in the sense that, as soon as my mum got one taste of it, she handed her half over. Dad got twice the beer he bargained for and probably ten times as much as he wanted. And me—I got swacked out of my head, which is what happens when either of my parents lets some undesirable booze languish on the counter.

What was so objectionable about ESTRELLA DAMM INEDIT? It pours hazy and straw-colored with little foam to speak of. Wafting lemon predominantly with yeast and coriander, its stated objective is to pair with “the most exquisite and challenging foods.” These include, per its marketing materials, asparagus. (Do you like “challenging” foods? Do you like foods that make your pee pungent? OMG, what effect would asparagus pee have on Ben Wa balls?)

My dad, even though he gutted it out and eventually finished the whole bottle of ESTRELLA DAMM INEDIT, thought it was a pretender—light, watery, and wheaty with some weird, competing fruit notes—like a wannabe Unibroue beer, except not.

I think any beer that offers less than 5% alcohol is suspect. It’s like a lightweight Ben Wa ball that feels really odd going in, but then you forget all about it and it doesn’t have the weight to just drop out on its own, so if you don’t have a retrieval cord, eventually your doctor will find it. That’s exactly what ESTRELLA DAMM INEDIT is like.