This just in from a confirmed source in the Roseville,
California municipal system: Some people are almost too dumb to breathe.
That wasn’t actually the news item – that’s just my
takeaway. You’ll agree with me soon enough.
Please understand, I am not making any of this up. The
Roseville municipal system put out an alert to the city employees to be aware
that they have fielded multiple calls of hopelessly backed-up sewer pipes.
Multiple calls. At multiple locations.
How many is multiple? I don’t know, but a single one of
these incidents is far more than ever should have occurred.
What happens to be clogging these sewer pipes in Roseville?
Shirts.
“Shirts?” you ask, confused. “Did you mean to put the R in
there?”
No accidental misspellings here. Shirts.
“Shirts?” you ask again, still confused.
Yes, shirts.
“What do you mean, shirts?” you ask, still trying to wrap
your normal brain around this information. “Like pieces of shirts?”
No, whole shirts. Details were not given as to the types of
shirts involved - whether they were the T-, under, button-down, polo, sweat, or
Hawaiian variety, but one thing was universal in the reports – it was the whole
shirt.
“How does a whole shirt get into a sewer pipe?” you might
ask aloud, still violently perplexed. “Surely, no one would try to flush an
entire shirt down the toilet.”
Yes, yes, that’s exactly what’s been happening – on multiple
occasions in multiple locations – in the town of Roseville. People are wiping
their butts with a whole shirt, and then somehow flushing the entire shirt down
the toilet.
So many things remain unclear regarding this story. One would
be inclined to assume this situation is arising due to the nationwide psychotic
phenomenon of COVID-19 toilet paper hoarding and the resulting scarcity of TP,
however, we are dealing with people who intentionally flush an entire shirt
down their own toilet, so I don’t think we are safe in assuming anything here.
However, for the sake of argument, let’s say the shirt flush
was a result of being out of traditional toilet paper. Are they also out of facial
tissues? Paper towels? Fast food napkins? Baby wipes? Newspapers? Magazines? Printer
paper? Old toilet paper or paper towel rolls? Gift tissue paper? Leaves? Cotton
balls? Swiffer duster refills? Post-it notes? Old receipts? Junk mail? Corn
cobs? Small pets?
And those things off the top of my head are just better alternatives
to traditional toilet paper than a shirt. But what about the bidet option? I
mean, Roseville is in America, so no one there has a bidet, but the phenomenon
of running water being able to clean body parts is not foreign. At least, not
to you and me. It might be to a shirt flusher.
I’m just saying, chances are these toilet paperless future shirt
flushers were sitting on the commode looking at a shower or a bathtub the whole
time, and apparently, they were completely unable to put number two and two
together.
Also unclear is the question of the shirt itself. Regardless
of type, was it the shirt they were wearing when they went into the bathroom,
or did they plan ahead and bring a separate wiping garment?
And again, back to the fact that the shirts are being
flushed whole. Let’s suppose you are so unimaginative that you have decided
your only option is to wipe your butt with your shirt – are you also so
insanely dense as to not tear it into smaller strips first? Obviously, the
answer is yes.
These are strange times in our history, made ever so much stranger
by the startling revelation that there are people among us, some maybe in the
next town over – a town you used to think was completely normal – who turn out
to be whole-shirt flushers.
Is it a sign of an impending apocalypse that will start in
our sewers? Only time will tell.
I am choosing to look at it as a reminder - a reminder that
no matter how odd and disjointed our lives may have become, we non-shirt flushers
are doing just fine, comparatively.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2020 Marc Schmatjen
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