A PEON CONFIDENTIAL CNN TOILET EXCLUSIVE!

Fellow Peons,
This is one of those profound moments in a blogger's life when you realize that it's all worth it. All the struggle, sacrifice, late nights, finger cramps, worn-out pajamas and coffee breath.

For today a faithful reader and valiant news spy sent me the above photo.

Yes, it appears that CNN has a deep commitment to the environment. What you're looking at here is a recycling bin, complete with "newspaper only" sign...IN THE MEN'S RESTROOM AT THE TIME WARNER CENTER.

Now, I have a few observations about this situation:

1. Despite a drop in circulation, print journalism clearly isn't dead. There are some places you really don't want to bring your ipad, laptop or Kindle.

2. Contrary to popular wisdom, people aren't terrified of taking a dump at the workplace. Quite the opposite. What this recycling bin says to me is that professional men are grabbing the NY Times or USA Today from the newsroom and heading straight to the bathroom. This is pretty much announcing to your co-workers, "Good day, colleagues! If you'll please excuse me, I'm about to unleash my fecal matter right here in our place of business."

3. Do you think there was a staff meeting to determine if the men's bathroom really needed a recycling bin? Did they weigh the pros and cons? Who brought it to the higher ups attention that there were stacks of crumpled Shit Lit all over the place?

It's astonishing how much deep thought can be generated from one photo.
So, thank you Toilet Photog! You're a lion among men...Or you know, a guy with a cellphone and a sense of humor.

Which is even better, if you ask me.

TOILET PAPER TOUR OF THE WORLD

Some people collect decorative spoons or thimbles from their trips to foreign lands.
Me, I collect toilet paper.
Actually, I don't even collect it personally.
No. Since I have the best friends a girl could ask for, I am able to wipe my ass with toilet paper from lands I've never visited.
In the photo above, you'll see a roll of toilet paper all the way from Amsterdam.
That's right.
When I wipe my ass with this toilet paper, I can almost see the beautiful tulips and smell the hash smoke wafting out of a quaint cafe on the Leidseplein.

So, if any of you are planning any overseas trips, I urge you to think of me and my International House of Toilet Paper. You'll be helping this broke writer travel the world in my own special way.

Much obliged.

AN ASSAULT ON MY TOILET SENSIBILITIES

I'm not sure how it happened exactly, but I have the dubious distinction of being the go-to person for all of your toilet related issues. This includes breaking news updates, jokes and the above photo. One of you sent it to me yesterday with the note, "This would look great in your bathroom, next to the porn pole."

SIDE NOTE: For those of you who have never seen my bathroom, I made lemonade out of lemons by decorating a particularly ugly pole with a collage of pictures from a 1980s Playboy magazine I found on St. Mark's Place. The best part? Joan Collins is the main attraction.

While I'm grateful for this bit of decorating advice, I have to say that this item is one of the most appalling things I've ever seen. I actually flinched when I looked at it. It's truly offensive. I was so disgusted that I asked myself these questions:

1. Who decided that wiping one's ass should be whimsical jaunt to Jolly Olde England?

2. What the hell is this butler wearing? Is that a half shirt? What's going on with his stomach?

3. Why is his finger so damn long?

4. When did it become acceptable for a butler to hold his nose with his freakishly long finger, thereby insinuating that my shit stinks?

5. How did I get to a point in my life where someone sees this repugnant item and automatically thinks of me?

GLOBE TROTTING TOILET PAPER

It has been well-documented that I am a heinous toilet paper thief.
Evidence of my crimes can be found right here: EXHIBIT A.
When I steal these paper goods from restaurants, bars and quaint bistros, my friends usually just shake their heads sadly. Sometimes they sigh and mutter, "Oh, Saara." I can tell they're wondering how their lives got so far off track that they're stuck with the likes of an unrepentant asswipe criminal rather than an esteemed Astrophysicist or a witty Pulitzer prize winning author.

But I have one friend who doesn't seem to mind. He just came back from Italy. I saw him Saturday night and he presented me with a beautiful gift...a stolen roll of toilet paper from his hotel in Rome. As you can see, I even took a photo of this treasure. This toilet paper traveled across the Atlantic just to be in my bathroom. This toilet paper was packed and carried through customs. Then it was carried into a nice Upper West Side restaurant and presented with a flourish.

Just in time too. I was on my last stolen roll and was preparing for the hunt.

THE TOILET BULLY STRIKES AGAIN!

EXTRA EXTRA! It's a breaking news Peon Confidential EXCLUSIVE!

A spy sent me the above photograph and this horrific eyewitness account:

"A sewage pipe has burst at TWC streaming raw sewage onto 58th street...it is currently moving downstream towards 8th Avenue. A little too much fiber in the LKL diet?
It's really gross...it's a river of shit...as I walked back into the building, it reminded me of those videos we've all seen of 3rd world countries and their polluted rivers."

Now, I don't know if you remember, but a few months back Peon Confidential leaked an internal memo about bathroom vandalism at the Time Warner Center. We even tried to guess this crazed vandal's identity.

So I'm thinkin' that whoever it is has taken it up a notch. This hooligan is unstoppable; careening to the next level of depraved toilet rebellion.

Something MUST be done about this situation. How many lives have to be ruined by overstuffed toilets and rivers of sewage before the culprit is apprehended?

It's time to take action.

TOILET DREAMS

So-
Last night I was battling some sort of stomach flu till 3am.
Highly unpleasant, clutching that bowl like Rush Limbaugh to a hamburger, vomiting non-stop.
(It's kind of fascinating to play CSI detective with your own barf though, trying to recall when you ate corn.)
But if I had a toilet like the one above, I doubt I'd be complaining as much. I'd be blinded by the crystals.
Cleaning it would be a delight. I'd whistle while I scrubbed it. I'd take laxatives just so I could spend more time on it.
My life would be filled with sunshine if that were my toilet.

Well.

Now that we've cleared that up, happy Friday!

CNN PEON EMERGENCY: DETECTIVE WORK REQUIRED

Are you sitting down?
Because a Peon Confidential spy just sent me the above photograph, thus alerting me to a tragic turn of toilet events.
As the go-to recipient of all your toilet concerns, I was shocked to see that danger is afoot at the Time Warner Center restrooms.

Some rapscallion committed a misdeed so heinous, so destructive, that management had to slap up CAUTION tape over the crime scene.

So listen up all you Colonel Mustards, Miss Scarlets and Professor Plums, the question is...what kind of evil is lurking behind that CNN stall door? And who is responsible?

Possible Suspects and Crimes:

1. Lou Dobbs: Flushing an illegal immigrant down the toilet

2. Anderson Cooper: Using that stall as a closet

3. Nancy Grace: Holding her producer Elizabeth hostage in that stall

4. VJDutton: Haunting that stall like "Moaning Myrtle" from Harry Potter, mourning my dead CNN career

5. Larry King: Hiding in that stall, fearing world domination by Ryan Seacrest

Do you sleuths have any other theories?

TIME WARNER TOILET PROPAGANDA

Today I am again humbled by the thoughtfulness of our Peon Confidential readers, for I found this photograph of a Time Warner toilet poster waiting for me in my inbox.

To quote CNN's resident justice avenger Nancy Grace, "Thank yeeeeew, friend."

It is more proof that when people see anything fart or toilet related, my face immediately comes to mind.
This is an honor right up there with being the spokesperson for Activia.
Which prompts the question--
Jamie Lee Curtis is married to a lord. She's a successful children's book author. I can't imagine she needs the money.
Why does she shill for that shit? It's a step below Lifetime movies.
And you can't tell me that she's hell bent on spreading the gospel of bowel churning yogurt.

Anyway, what I noticed first about this toilet poster is that it looks remarkably like Communist Propaganda. Compare it to the actual propaganda posters I've added. Note the strong, bold lines, the wrench held like a sickle. The plunger held aloft in worker's unity. The rallying call to arms...

Pasty CNN employees beware. Plumbers of the World Unite! No hand towels in the toilet!

CNN SCANDAL

A Peon Confidential spy just forwarded me an internal CNN memo:

There have been a number of incidents involving vandalism in some of our restrooms, including clogging toilets with hand towels to kicking in doors and removing screws to remove doors off hinges.

This has become a serious problem over the past few months and we have notified Security and they are investigating. If you have questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Security directly...

Any guesses on who this toilet bully is? I've got my money on Ali Velshi.

A SHITTY EXCUSE

Jackass of the day:

NORWALK, Conn. - A New York woman has filed a $100 claim against Norwalk saying a family outing to the Maritime Aquarium was ruined by dog feces. The woman claims her child's shoes, along with the entire outing, were ruined when her 1-year-old stepped in dog feces outside the Maritime Garage.

City attorney M. Jeffry Spahr said the official response is that her claim is denied and in his words, "poop happens."

Kelly DeBrocky, of Mahopac, N.Y., wants the city to reimburse her for $54 she spent replacing her toddler's ruined shoes and the expenses for parking and aquarium admission on April 5.

Honestly--
I've come to the conclusion that some people's lives are just one long hunt for an excuse to be irritated.

SUNNY SIDE OF LIFE

Just read this today, after leaving the bathroom:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A New Zealand man got the fright of his life when a runaway SUV crashed into his house and knocked him off the toilet, a newspaper reported Friday.

See, already my day has improved. I had no idea that I should be grateful for the luxury of having an uninterrupted morning poo.Forget about walking a mile in another man's shoes. Sometimes you have to shit on another man's toilet to really see how good you've got it in this life.

BOWEL MOVEMENTS: TAKE ME HOME

Tragedy has struck:
There is no winner for the Name That Peon contest.
This is most upsetting, so I will not dwell upon it. I wanted to give out a t-shirt, thereby garnering publicity for Mama D's and offering a gym t-shirt for someone else.
Alas, it was not meant to be.

Anyway,
I was talking to a former CNNer the other night, and I came to a truly fascinating conclusion:
My bowels prefer their home base toilet.
It's true.
It's as though they have Toilet GPS. They know! Only my own toilet will do.
When I am on vacation--I will be stopped up for days.
When I am at work--never happens.
At a friend's house--no way.
The only other place my bowels will accept is the Lord and Taylor bathroom on 5th Avenue.
How fortunate this is for Lord and Taylor! It's like they won the lottery.
But does any one else have this problem?

Yeah.
Wow.
I wonder if Al Gore is pleased to know that his invention has spawned discussion about Toilet GPS...

Happy New Year, by the way.

NO MORE PISSING IN THE STREET

So-
As I was walking home from work late Monday night, my retinas were accosted by a horrific sight:
A woman with her pants pulled down, screaming at her boyfriend, pissing in between two cars in Midtown. The weird part was there was a bar just a few feet away. A shitty bar, but a bar with a toilet. And she wasn't even squatting. Just hunching. I guess she didn't want her hoo-hoo too close the the dirty New York street. That ass was high in the air and the piss was just gushing out all over the place...
Now before anyone starts thinking that this is an isolated New York problem, read on. Apparently, some high tech geniuses aim to prevent this type of behavior, at least in the fine city of London:

A new service promises Londoners they'll never have to spend much time looking for the loo.
Westminster City Council, which covers London's bustling Oxford Street, the West End, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, on Thursday launched "SatLav" — a toilet-finding service for cell phone users. Tourists, theatergoers, shoppers and pub patrons in London's West End can now text the word "toilet" — and receive a text back with the address of the nearest public facility.
The system, which covers 40 public toilets, pinpoints the caller's position by measuring the strength of the phone signal. The texts cost about 50 cents, and most of Westminster's toilets are free.
The council said it hopes the service will stop people from urinating in alleyways, saying some 10,000 gallons of urine ends up in Westminster streets each year.

A few thoughts:
1. I don't think it is the "tourists, theatre goers and shoppers" that are pissing in alleyways. I am having a hard time visualizing some family from Ohio purchasing a Union Jack tea set on the way to seeing " Les Miz" and then deciding to whizz in tandem behind the gift shop. Let's be honest. This is something drunken revelers do. And if the New York woman is any indication, knowing that a toilet is just steps away won't help. Drunk people simply like pissing in the street.

2. 10,000 gallons! Who calculated that figure? Was there a staff of statistitions hired by the British government? How do they know? Did they round up or down? Which kinds of measuring instruments were used? How can they just throw this figure out there with no explanation?

3. I suspect Larry Craig would appreciate this service, don't you? Except in England they call soliciting gay sex in a bathroom "cottaging". Isn't that cute? Ah, I love those quaint English collquialisms...Well that and the fact that men call other men "c*nts".

WORLD TOILET SUMMIT

See this vibrant poster? Well it's from a wonderful organization I'd like to share with all of you...

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Delegates from dozens of nations gathered in India on Wednesday to open a World Toilet Summit aimed at finding low-cost methods to give billions of people access to sanitation.

The founder of Indian toilet advocacy charity Sulabh International, Bindeshwar Pathak, opened the meeting by calling for a war footing in the effort to meet 2002 Millennium Development Goals.

"To achieve the goals, what is essential is that technology needs to be urgently developed that is suitable and simple of implementation. Sewers or septic tanks are not the solutions."

Pathak, inspired by Indian freedom icon Mahatma Gandhi, began to build simple toilets in India in the 1970s and has developed a low-cost system that turns waste into water, fertiliser for crops and biogas to run generators.

The conference is being jointly organised with the World Toilet Organization, which was founded in 2001 and aims to make sanitation a key global issue. It now has 55 member groups from 42 countries.

Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization, and former Indian president Abdul Kalam were among the opening speakers.

Pathak and Sim have been widely lauded by organisations such as the United Nations which has named 2008 as the "UN Year of Sanitation."


Okay...I admit. I'm a little bit childish. And I am aware that functioning toilets are a necessity for health and sanitation.
However:

1. What kind of swag does a delegate come away with from the World Toilet Summit? Are there t-shirts for this event? And where can I get one?

2. Bindeshwar Pathak was inspired by Gandhi to build toilets. The next time I see his statue in Union Square I will think of that.

3. Jack Sim is the founder of the World Toilet Organization. Naturally, they have a website: WORLD TOILET ORGANIZATION
If you click on that link, cast your eyes on the cartoon toilet with the snappy phrase: "Give-a-potty. Go on. Ease them..."

4. Also note on the website that there is the opportunity to attend World Toilet College. I think this is a viable threat to use against kids who won't study for the SAT:
"Billy, if you flunk the SAT you won't be going to Harvard. You won't be going to Tufts. Hell, you won't even be going to that dumpy community college next to the Waffle House. You're headed straight to World Toilet College."

5. According to the experts at the World Toilet Organization:
"World Toilet Day has been declared to be on the 19th of November each year. The purpose of having this day is to have people in all countries to take action, increase awareness of toilet user’s right to a better toilet environment, and to demand for it from toilet owners. As such, it is also the toilet user’s duty to contribute towards its maintenance, cleanliness and hygiene. The public marks the day to practice toilet etiquette, the restroom community-at-large celebrates with a new declaration for the forthcoming year."

I SMELL A THEME PARTY!!!

5. The UN has proclaimed 2008 the "UN YEAR OF SANITATION". Beautiful! Now I know what my New Years toast will be.

UPDATE:
I just took the "What kind of toilet paper are you?" quiz on the Toilet Entertainment section of the World Toilet Organization website.
Turns out I'm the fancy quilted kind! Who knew?

A MEA CULPA FROM THE POWDER ROOM

I have a confession to make. This egregious sin has been haunting me, weighing on my chest for a long time, and it's time to set it free:
I'm a thief.
The worst, most devious kind of low-grade thief:
I routinely steal rolls of toilet paper from restaurants and bars all over Manhattan.

And once in Brooklyn.

My life of crime takes on a multi-cultural slant that would impress any UN delegate. I have stolen from Korean Barbeque joints, Irish pubs, French bistros, and Spanish tapas bars.
It's surprisingly easy. And I have to assume that New York is relatively devoid of thieving toilet paper scum like me, because these places make it too tempting: they leave stacks of toilet paper rolls out in the open, ripe for the nabbing. And if I don't have a big bag on me, I will coerce my pals to stuff their voluminous bags, thereby aiding and abetting my thug life.

It isn't that I cannot afford to buy toilet paper. It's that I can never remember to buy it. And there is nothing worse than sitting on the john and realizing there is no toilet paper. This means making the pants-'round-the ankles dash to find a stray cocktail napkin. Consequently I have wiped my ass with Bachelorette Party salutations, Pink Elephants, Jolly Jack-o-Lanterns and Frosty the Snowman.
Not sure what it says about me, but even when there is no butt wipe at my place, there are always cocktail napkins.
Priorities, see.

Well...
I feel better now. Very cathartic.
But the question is:
How many Hail Marys do you think my crime deserves?

LITTER BOX LOONS

There are many days I wake up and feel like a complete loser.
I manage to get through the day by taking solace in the little things.
For example:

1.) I am not responsible for the creation of the Squirrel Circus

2.) I have never dated anyone who referred to any part of my body as my "lady ham" "sugar walls" or "beef curtains". (Actually, now that I think about it, I'm probably wrong about the last one. But I think it was meant in jest.)

3.) I don't own any music purchased from a TV infomercial

But today, I stumbled upon a dork-infested goldmine. I have bookmarked it for when I am feeling particularly useless. A woman named Pam Johnson-Bennett has a blog about cats. Fair enough. That's a reasonable endeavor. By the looks of it, she is very successful in her field. But what got me was a post called "Is Your Cat's Litter Box Big Enough?"
The responses were unbelievable.
These people take cat love to a whole new level. A level filled with lunatics.

When I was a kid we had a cat called Big Ed. (He's pictured above with my mom.) He was a tough mother fucker, and we loved him. This cat took his shits out in the woods, wouldn't come home for days at a time, and when he did his ears would be torn up from fights. We rarely bought food for him because he hunted and ate whatever he could find. There was a mutual respect between us. I think if Big Ed had to live with some of the people who responded to the litter box post, he'd have figured out how to use a shotgun pretty fast, and then casually slipped out the back door when the police came around.

A sampling of these litter box responses:

-Help! About once or twice a month, my cat will leave me a little kitty tootsie roll way outside her clean cat box. Sometimes there is a little streak leading up to the tootsie roll, but usually it is just on its own. The other day it was on my bed...

-Kitty may be constipated and is "wiping" to remove the offending "dingleberry."

-Also try trimming the hair around your kitty's rear-end. I keep Harley trimmed because he has long, dense hair and it sure helps. I use cuticle or mustache sissors.

-I have to take my baby in twice a year for an "anal expression" because when she poops the anal sacs don't get squeezed (because she doesn't have a lot of hard poops -- mostly semisoft) and so they fill up and get uncomfortable

-I went to Wal-mart and bought a childrens sandbox and filled it with 10 5 gallon containers of kitty litter. B.B. loves it. The bad part is the dining room table and chairs had to go. Oh well no comes to see me anyway.

MULTI-TASKING AT THE URINAL

A Peon Confidential reader e-mailed me last night with this heartfelt message:

"I thought of your blog on Sunday night at the movies. My friend dragged me to see Fantastic Four. But that's not why I thought of your blog. When that piece of shit was finally over, I went to the bathroom. There was a guy taking a piss at the urinal. He was checking his Blackberry with one hand and holding his dick with the other. Is anyone really that busy?"

In the words of CNN's Nancy Grace, "Thank you, friend." Your thoughtful e-mail underscores something that I've said before and I'll say it again: This type of dangerous multi-tasking has GOT to stop.

ALLIED FORCES: POOPING YOUR WAY TO A NEW YOU!

Yesterday I received an e-mail from a Peon Confidential reader who sent me a link to the website for ALLI, a magic new weight loss pill. She wrote, "This was sent to me by a friend. I wasn't researching ways to blow out my colon...Why I thought of you immediately when I read this remains a mystery."
Well lady, I'm certainly glad you did. The ALLI WEBSITE is filled to the brim with hilarity. At first I really thought it was some type of colossal practical joke. Honestly, I thought, is anyone that desperate to lose weight that they will structure their entire day, travel plans, social events and wardrobe around shitting? Then I read the forum, where women with screen-names like "deprivedwife" ask earnest questions about whether they can have 15 grams of fat per day or per meal without experiencing "treatment effects". What are "treatment effects"? Why that's just ALLI's ultra-clinical euphemism for "shitting your brains out" and "embarrassing yourself at the PTA meeting by soiling your Oleg Cassini sweatpants with wet, oily, stinky farts".
This is truly the weirdest weight loss idea ever. It basically works on fear: "Don't you DARE eat that Whopper, because if you do, you will have to make a quick dash to the Macy's bathroom, where you will be hunched over, sweating, easing out greasy, nasty stools."

Note some of the handy tips on the website:

-YOU MAY FEEL AN URGENT NEED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM. UNTIL YOU HAVE A SENSE OF ANY TREATMENT EFFECTS, IT'S PROBABLY A SMART IDEA TO WEAR DARK PANTS, AND BRING A CHANGE OF CLOTHES WITH YOU TO WORK

(Wearing dark pants IS a smart idea. Because then when you poop your pants, people may smell it, but they can't see it...so no one in the office can pin it on you! Now that's using your noggin.)

-YOU MAY NOT USUALLY GET GASSY, BUT IT'S A POSSIBILITY WHEN YOU TAKE ALLI. THE BATHROOM IS REALLY THE BEST PLACE TO GO WHEN THAT HAPPENS

(Really? At my place of work, when we have to fart, we head to the center of the newsroom, raise our fists in the air and say; "Hey Carl, listen to this one!")

-YOU CAN USE A FOOD JOURNAL TO RECOGNIZE WHAT FOODS CAN LEAD TO TREATMENT EFFECTS. FOR EXAMPLE, WRITING DOWN WHAT YOU EAT MAY HELP YOU LEARN THAT MARINARA SAUCE IS A BETTER OPTION THAN ALFREDO SAUCE

(Dear Diary,
Last night I went on a date with Bill to the Olive Garden.
We were having a wonderful, romantic evening until I made the BIG mistake of ordering the Alfredo sauce instead of the Marinara sauce...well let's just say Bill won't be calling anymore. Let's also say that I'll be shopping for a new cream-colored Liz Claiborn pantsuit...And that I've been banned from ever setting foot in the Olive Garden again.)

THE POET LAUREATE OF THE TOILET

Quiz time:
The following pieces of shithouse literature, displayed upon various stall walls have been discovered at:
1.) A global cable news organization
2.) A local New York news affiliate
3.) A crappy Lower East Side bar

Can you tell which piece of literature comes from which place?


A.) Hello ladies,

Please I beg you, I beg of all the women using this bathroom.

When you flush the toilet, please take a moment to look and see if everything flushed.

If it did not, please take the time to flush again and keep flushing until it is all gone.

I am more than confident that no one wants to see someone else's mess when they walk into a stall.

We would all appreciate the common courtesy of a clean stall.


B.) Here I sit, brokenhearted,
Came to shit,
But only farted


C.) LADIES
 
PLEASE!!!!
 
DO NOT leave your hair or cosmetic spills in/on the sink. (clip art of sink)
 
MAKE SURE everything goes down before you leave the stall. (clip art of toilet)
 
Use air freshener whenever possible. (clip art of air freshener shooting out fumes)
 
And always remember...
 
If you sprinkle while you tinkle please be neat and wipe the seat. (clip art of toilet roll)
 
Let's have a little more consideration for the next person coming into the stall. (clip art of smiling sun)