The Annals of An Anus
November 5th. With each new morning, each sunrise, I find myself moving wistfully into the dusk of my life in Asia. Each day I awaken spirited and don a fresh appreciation for the unique minutiae of everyday life, but one that’s hewn to an undergarment of anticipated grief.
Today, for instance, I spent the day abuzz in the hustle and bustle of Naha City, the capital of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa. My day commenced with a 7am hotel breakfast buffet that had me jockeying with sharply dressed businessmen and slow-motion pensioners for morsels of semi-sweet egg, sauteed cabbage, and miso soup that damn-well scalded my covetous tongue. Afterward, I would contend with droves of fellow shoppers in my favorite Japanese stores, all of us together in pursuit of just the right article for our wanting satisfaction.
Today I’d be flying back to Taipei, and so before long I found myself en route toward the airport for my departing flight. A simple and scenic path to the airport, the monorail is a popular means of transport, and so I squeeze sardine-like into a tightly packed car alongside my fellow passengers. From years of living in densely populated areas, I’ve grown comfortable with being in close proximity, and letting my imagination go in an easy drift from one announced station stop to the next, it takes me a minute to realize that my body is so enmeshed with my neighbor that I might just as well be wearing his clothes, his cologne, sweating his remnants of last night’s inebriated fun.
Upon reading of my trials through crowded spaces, you might imagine my relief at finishing a long day of enduring the teeming masses, at last getting checked into my flight, and finally seizing a few moments to relax in the solitude of…the toilet. The Japanese airport toilet—a refuge so valued, so deeply respected, that it’s always kept immaculately clean and comfortable. Abiding there, delighting in feeling solitary and very nearly noble, I thought I might never want to leave the shelter of this stall.
The pinnacle pleasure, however, the joie de vivre of this esteemed (and heated) seat, is undeniably the spotless and perfectly adjusted washlet. And for those unfamiliar with that particular term, I’m writing of that jewel of the washroom: the bidet.
If you haven’t yet been initiated, allow me to insist: the comfort of a squeaky clean anus is incomparable, and it’s a state of supreme ease that I’m absolutely terrified to part with when I leave Asia. Consider for a moment the opportunity that life affords us, the tranquility of breathing freely and rejoicing in the countless wonders that abound—and then consider how drudging around with a dirty anus must be nothing short of a cursed stain on this most precious god-given life! Better to eat without tasting! Better to wander blindly among the wheat fields! Better to surrender one’s very capacity to laugh and sing and instead succumb to an existence sullen and mute!
O washlet, let’s savor our final moments! Let’s splash and love and shine in the purity that is our birthright! Let’s celebrate our union—one so unlikely, so unexpected, and all the more precious for it! O washlet, what I’d give if that we could never part! Can't we remain together forever, O my beloved washlet!