Talking shit

Walking past the chemist the other night I noticed an enormous display in the window. Gleaming hospital white and nature green, a proud ‘Dulcolax’ logo was stamped matter-of-factly across an image of a young, attractive woman throwing open some curtains. Everything about it said ‘airy’. It was the ‘lightness of being’ personified. She wore a white cotton dress and a gleaming smile. A breeze ruffled her hair as she stepped out into the sunshine of the outside world. You kind of got the feeling that she had overcome great hardship recently, and everything was going to be alright from now on. I trusted her.

Of course, this was an advertisement for laxatives.

Knowing that, there was something about the ‘throwing open of the curtains’ that worried me. Did they symbolise her emerging triumphantly from some strange, curtained toilet? Or were the once-tightly-closed drapes a literal symbol of her coight?

What’s more — who the fuck is the target audience here? It’s certainly not the nymph-like, barefooted, granola-munching ballerinas they’re pretending use their product. Chronic constipation is a heroin addict’s game — who are they trying to sell to here?

As a matter of fact, why does a laxative company need push sales at all? People don’t take laxatives like they drink cans of coke. I can’t imagine walking past a chemist and being swayed into purchasing a pill exclusively designed to grease the wheels of the big brown train inside us all. I have far better pills in mind for Saturday nights. Besides — surely your intestinal duress has to far outweigh the awkwardness of buying laxatives before you’d even consider walking up to the pretty pharmacy assistant and asking her if she has anything that could pass a basketball through the eye of a needle. Depending on how attractive the assistant, my poos could grow to be the same size and weight as small family vehicle before I’d dare try it. Laxatives are only bought, over the counter, when they’re truly needed.

Now I’m no expert — but I would assume beautiful, cotton-dressed women don’t just go around dropping Dulcolax and dancing between curtains. No, no — the reality is much bleaker.

You can just imagine it, can’t you? Some bulging troglodyte in an Anorak who knows nothing of fibre walking around with their bowels full of the dangerously compacted squab they’d inhaled weeks before. Someone who eats red meat and butter until breathing becomes difficult. Someone in desperate need of an epidural before the foetal poo they’ve been gestating for the last fortnight becomes sentient and starts kicking.

Then out of the darkness, a shiny, bright green beacon of hope. Dulcolax. One pill and you’re cured.

They hobble inside and buy a pack without making eye contact with the girl behind the counter, before rushing home to take the lot of them. Seismic shifts in their gut warn of the literal impending shit storm mere minutes later. Running to the toilet — with very short steps, mind you — they worry they may not make it in time. They worry they may need a midwife.

The Dulcolax works like you’d imagine a chimney sweep’s brush might. Birds take flight from every tree in a five kilometre radius as the red dwarf of shit finally hits porcelain. They clutch onto the sides of the bowl to stop themselves from taking off like a rocket. Tears running from the corner of their eyes as hot gas that’s been imprisoned behind their gigantic, homegrown cork is finally released. After what seemed like an eternity of sweaty hell, a new addition to the Bristol stool chart has been born: type negative-one.

There’s no triumph. There’s no celebration. The curtains stay shut. They sit, shaking and sobbing on the toilet for the next six hours before finally crawling into the shower. They lie awake at night haunted by the memory. They drink to forget. Dulcolax lied.

Well fuck, Dulcolax. And fuck their marketing team. If I’m ever constipated you can guarantee I’ll be doing it the proper way and fixing myself up with a greased spoon and some amyl nitrate. Like the experts do after a good heroin bender.

And how about Kleenex? I honestly have no words.

Fuck it, yes I do. I have a few more.

Like Dulcolax, Kleenex also work in the poo industry.

They claim to sell the softest toilet paper imaginable. Your poor, Dulcoloax ravaged rump knows no greater luxury. While the competition sells habanero flavoured sandpaper, Kleenex sell tiny square duvets of the finest down feather. Paper woven by rare silkworms of South East Asia. You simply cannot use anything else — life is too short for single-ply.

So how do they show just how soft this miracle bog roll actually is? Who should they employ to spread the good news? Kleenex decide to go with a puppy. A tiny, month-old Labrador heralds the benefits of something you use to clean up your own shit. Then people try and pretend like I’m the strange one for wondering what it might be like to swipe a snow-white puppy between my cheeks after I’ve finished sending Mr Brown off the the coast.