A Wet-Wipe Manifesto

Imagine visiting a friends home for dinner and afterwards you offer to help with the dishes. You friend welcomes your help and tosses you a roll of paper towels. They explain that they don't use water or soap to clean their dishes and utensils, they simply wipe them down with a dry paper towel and put them back in the cupboard.

"What about bacteria that surely grows on the food remnants? What about germs that undoubtedly remain after a simple 'dry rub'?"


"Wow, I get nearly the same shine with none of those nasty soap spots!"

Your friend explains that they have decided washing dishes is gross. They don't want to get their hands all wet and they'd rather just use dry paper towels to rub them down. Their kitchen smells disgusting, but at least the plates are out of sight in the cupboard, prior to use.

Disgusted, you vow to never eat at their home again. In fact, you decide you would rather avoid their home all together as surely this disgusting practice is evidence of a total disregard for cleanliness, and probably even personal hygiene.

Imagine what they do with their ass?! Do they simply wipe it down in a "dry rub" fashion after using the toilet? You can't imagine; the thought of such a practice is frightening. Imagine a world where people clean their feces covered bung holes with nothing but a dry rub from some paper.

Welcome to America.

Europeans have been using bidets to clean themselves for nearly 300 years. They evidently thought that spending the day with feces attached to their anus was gross, and they preferred to wash it off. (seems simple enough)

"OMG you guys, Europe was SOOOO amazing. In the bathrooms they have these water-fountains that double as beer coolers, so you don't have to use the tub!"

America evidently missed the memo on cleanliness. Most have never even seen a bidet. And while they were preoccupied visiting dentists and inventing cocaine (watch the Washington video), the Europeans were revolutionizing the art of wiping.

So what do you do now? How can you help save America? What if I was to tell you that the solution is not in buying an expensive bidet, but found at your local supermarket?


Yes, Baby wipes. No longer will babies be the sole members of the clean bum club. Why are they called baby wipes anyway? Who decided that with age your desire to have a clean ass goes away?



"It's all fun and games until someone thinks that dabbing these kids with a dry towel makes them clean."

Having presented this argument on more than a few occasions, we found that there were a few key responses that people would use, which we'll cover in our FAQ, below.

FAQ:
Q: I don't eat off my ass and neither does anyone else, so i think your dish analogy is stupid. What else you got?

A: I highly recommend looking into what an analogy is ("Obama isn't like Rex Grossman! Rex is way younger!") But mainly what I'd like to ask is: do you even wipe at all right now? Why? By your logic the whole idea behind cleaning the area AT ALL is silly. So if we're gonna do it, why not get clean?

Q: I feel like I'm already pretty clean/clean enough down there, so why bother using anything but the dry rub?

A: If you slipped and fell in crap and all you had was a McDonald's napkin to clean off your bare elbow (for instance) would you shrug your shoulders and go "clean enough" or would you be dying to get home and wash with water? Even your dirty dog knows that cleaning that area and using moisture is imperative, and while I think we both would object to his methods we as humans we can accomplish the same thing without the gross licking.

Q: I already shower after I go, so why should I use wet wipes?

Well first off, congrats for not minding that your friends and coworkers see you as an obsessive compulsive (even "anal"). I find this "every time" thing highly unlikely, if not impossible. Anyway though, certainly you agree with us then that we need a changing of our cultural cleanliness standards. Use wet wipes for emergencies and tell your friends.

Q: Ew, the wet wipes they use for babies? GROSS!

A: While that's not really a question, it's worth saying that whatever weird revulsion people have for soft, tightly knit moist cottony fiber it's hard to see how it's any grosser than actual human excrement. At worst the ends justify the means.

Q: what made you guys want to go public with this?

A: We were inspired by Richard Dawkins. We realized that some of the barbaric irrationality in our society was really expressed and perpetuated in the bathroom as well as the church.

Q: Noone goes there on me, so I don't have to worry.

A: If you stepped in shit with your bare feet and it squished between your toes, would you just grab a single napkin real quick since "no one licks your feet"? It's not just about going there- sometimes it's about going NEAR there. Plus, it's nice to be clean.

Q: Why isn't everyone doing this if you guys are so right?

A: Good question. People probably made these arguments when modern toothbrushing was brought to the fore. A combination of defensiveness for their antiquated practices, stubborn refusal to change, and a simple lack of understanding. At root though, I think it's because 99% of the population (us included) really kind of hates talking about this... um... shit. That makes it hard for change to come about. We're hoping that the semi-anonymous realm of the internet will be enough

Feel free to (anonymously or not) leave other questions or comments about this for us to see. First though, consider this as the answer to your question:

Are you saying that between two choices, one which involves having more shit on your body and the other less, you're picking option "more"?

Yours in pro-cleanliness solidarity,
Matt and John

EDIT: An Astute reader suggested that we recommend flushable wet wipes rather than baby wipes, as baby wipes aren't meant to be flushed. There are some links in the comments of sites where you can buy various wet-wipe products, some flushable.