Dear Oral B

I recently purchased some replacement brush heads, but I had a bit of a problem. It's the same problem I imagine millions of your customers have. I had no idea which brush head would fit my electric toothbrush. This was not helped by the fact that nowhere on my toothbrush is there anything which says what the model is. It put me in a rather impossible position where all I could do was fork over $13.60 and cross my fingers. It turned out I lost this ridiculous game of roulette and my brand new brush heads were about as useless as flyscreens on a submarine. Perhaps you could come up with a better system than this. Why not make one type white and one type silver, or stick a star on one or really do anything which doesn't rely on me remembering the details of a 30 second purchase I made 10 years ago? While I think of it, here are a few other suggestions. Why not design the brush heads without the holes in them? These only serve to flick bits of frothing toothpaste all over my clothes and bathroom mirror. I'm really tired of cleaning up after your stupid design flaws. Your packaging is also far from environmentally friendly - it includes about enough plastic to build a Barbie Dream Home. Is there really a need to make the brush heads harder to get to than a Pharaoh? I will be a tad less disappointed if you send me some replacement brush heads. This time you get to guess what model of toothbrush I have.

Virgin Mary Sex Doll

When Charlie Hebdo published a cartoon mocking Mohammed, there were all sorts of possible responses. Ignoring it could have been one. A strongly worded letter may have been another. Unfortunately, someone decided to go with the option of loading up some machine guns and shooting the shit out of a whole bunch of people.

It seemed a tad disproportionate and any sympathy I had for those who were offended by the cartoon quickly dried up. I think if Islamic fundamentalists want to win people over they really need to be a bit more creative and thoughtful in their responses.  

I believe in this instance they should have made Virgin Mary sex dolls. Just imagine it. All the Christians would have been horribly offended and then everyone could have agreed that mocking others' beliefs is not very nice.

Then everyone would live happily ever after... or am I being too optimistic?

One Ply

One ply. Cheap, nasty, arse-shredding one ply. $300 per night and they expect me to wipe my most delicate parts with this? One ply is for truck stops, correctional facilities and those really nasty public toilets, fitted out with blue lights so the junkies can’t shoot up. It really has no place in posh hotels with marble foyers and a 4.3 rating on Tripadvisor. It’s not right.

Who came up with this idea? Who was the miserable tight-arse with no consideration for anyone else’s arse? Do they buy one ply for their own family? Of course they don’t – their family would walk out on them, because no one deserves to be treated that way. Hotel guests don’t deserve it. Truckies don’t deserve it… I guess a few people in correctional facilities may deserve it, but only the really fucking evil ones.

I want multiple plies. I want air-weave, pillow cushion, silk caress comfort. I don’t want to feel the current texture of what was formerly my buffet breakfast. Toilet paper technology has come a very long way since those terrible dark days when one ply was standard issue. These advances have benefited humanity far more than putting a man on the moon. Whoever it was that invented Sorbent Cotonelle should be far more widely celebrated than Neil Armstrong whose sole contribution was stepping out of a spaceship while fluffing his big line.

When I visit a posh hotel I can avoid the overpriced peanuts and the tiny $10 bottles of spirits in the mini bar. I can go without the rip off Wi-Fi. But a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. Normally time on the thrown is a mildly pleasant, satisfying experience, however when I take hold of that cheap, scratchy piece of one ply I can’t help but get extremely angry at the greedy corporate bastards who wouldn’t fork out the extra few cents for the sake of my posterior comfort.

I start to get really wound up. To bring myself back to a state of calm I then force myself to think “this is such a first wold problem…  there are billions of people who don’t even have proper sanitation. There are children who don’t even have the food to start this whole digestive process, let alone end it. There is a war in Syria where thousands of people are literally getting their arses blown off.”

Then I feel sad.

Then I feel like a monster for getting so angry about a first world problem.

Then I see that little survey card that says “Did you enjoy your stay?”

Then I realise there is just not enough space to have a proper rant on one of those hotel survey cards.

Everything is a medical condition

Have you noticed how no one is ever thirsty anymore? Instead everyone tells you that they are 'dehydrated'. There simple desire for a drink has suddenly turned into a medical condition.

Today everyone is an expert with a desire to blame every tiny little thing on some sympathy winning medical condition. If I go to the wrong address, turn up at the wrong time or call the wrong number it's generally because I wasn't concentrating. However if someone asks me why I stuffed up, I tell them I'm numerically dyslexic and all is magically forgiven. Mostly people will say that they are also a bit numerically dyslexic too.

When Tiger Woods got caught screwing a dozen different woman, he didn't say he enjoyed sleeping around - instead he said he had a sex addiction. Whenever a rugby league player tries to drink his urine, punch someone or molest an animal they don't say they are just a horrible human being - they inevitably blame it on an alcohol problem.  If it is a medically diagnosed alcohol condition that caused them to disgrace themselves, it is suddenly more forgivable.

I don't know how many people have told me they are a little bit ADHD. They generally just do this as an excuse for ignoring you whilst playing with their phone. Their only real condition is rudeness.

World Championships of Farting

Men are generally fascinated by farting and anything which is competitive. It’s almost incomprehensible that no one has put the two together and created a large-scale event.

I envisage the World Championships of Farting would be held in the elevator of the Empire State building. (qualifying events could be held in other tall towers around the world). The competitor would enter the elevator along with three judges. The doors would close and the competitor would have the entire journey up to unleash their worst.

50 per cent of the score would be awarded for the volume and duration of the farts. The other 50 per cent would be awarded for aroma.

I imagine the TV coverage would be packed full of special segments covering each of the competitors and what they ate and drank in the lead up. I'd go German with a lot of beer and sauerkraut. 

I was thinking of competing under the name Gaseous Clay before converting to Islam and becoming Muhammad Arseleak. Being white I then decided it may be more appropriate if I compete as Rocky Bowelblower.

  

The decline of children

When I was a kid there was a magical place you could go and get presents even when it wasn’t your birthday or Christmas. This magical place was called the tip.

I once got an awesome scooter from the tip. When I say awesome it was old, rusty and fairly beaten up but it had all its wheels and it went completely fine. Why would anyone throw away such as an amazing object?

While I dreamed of one day getting taken to Uncle Pete’s Toys, the tip had that added element of excitement and danger. There was the rank smell, the risk of tetanus and the very slight chance you might come across a severed body part like in the start of a Law & Order episode.

I did eventually get to go to Uncle Pete’s Toys one day, but as much as I nagged I don’t think I actually got anything. At the tip you could take home whatever you wanted (provided it wasn’t a manky severed arm or something).

The tip was a breeding ground for more than just germs. It also bred ingenuity and creativity. Old prams were in high demand because you could take off their wheels and make billy carts. You could then race these billy carts down very steep hills, dramatically crash and then spend weeks picking at all those lovely scabs.

At some point all the tips got closed down and from then on you never saw billy carts. Gradually kids become softer and more annoying and then Justin Bieber appeared and it all went to hell. 

Why it is time to panic and lose your shit

At the beginning of 1637 Dutch investors were paying many times a typical annual salary for a single tulip bulb. In February of that year, the boom came to a sudden spectacular crash and tulip-mania became a famous cautionary tale about the perils of paying stupid amounts for things.

It’s now 2015 and someone who clearly never learnt about tulip-mania has just paid more than six million dollars for an ugly house in Chatswood. This big brick box of a house was built at the very dullest point of the 90’s and stands in a bog standard suburban street. The backyard has a large lawn and a Hills Hoist but appears not to include a pool, a tennis court or a magic tree which money grows on.

Clearly this price makes no sense and when prices start making no sense it is time to worry.

I have spent many years living in Chatswood and it never struck me as the kind of super special suburb where six million dollar homes would ever exist. Chatswood has gargantuan shopping malls, great yum cha and a Korean hairdresser who will give you a decent hairdo for just eighteen bucks. You will however struggle to get harbour views or a deep water frontage, which are usually part of the package for a six million dollar joint.

Logically this buyer would have been far better off purchasing their own tropical island. This secluded piece of paradise would not be as close to all the fancy clothes shops, but when you own your own tropical it’s fairly simple to adopt a nudist lifestyle. With the money left over it would also be easy to employ a Korean hairdresser, a personal chef and some surly Shirley to wheel trays of chicken feet and steamed buns around on a Sunday morning.

While I can’t fathom the buyer’s reasoning for spending such a stupendous amount of money for a big box in Chatswood I do hope they enjoy it. Perhaps they will decide to pretty up the garden by planting a few tulips.