Losing, Then Finding, One's a) Shewee and b) Mind

It is after the second or third hipster beer, in our experience, that the really tough questions make themselves known and demand to be taken into consideration. For instance, portaloos with a flush are obviously a game-changer, but where do they place on the grand scale of human endeavour? Are they on a par with fire and penicillin, or further down, more towards the level of Billy the Bass and duct tape? What would Abraham Maslow say? We predict that philosophers will be spending centuries hashing this one out.

We have many habits here at the Privy Counsel, some of which are healthy and many of which are downright deplorable. One habit of which we are not only particularly fond but which we like to think is positively edifying, is having beers with the friend we like to call Nerdy Beer-Obsessive Friend. We happened to be having beer and bewilderingly complex pizza with Nerdy Beer-Obsessive Friend the other day at a place called Benchwarmers, in Helsingborg, and were very pleased to come across this festive and also clean and coat-hook-enriched toilet, especially in light of the inevitable fatigue following upon a) a hard-hitting debate regarding the human condition in relation to portaloos, and b) pizza that requires an inordinate amount of cognitive effort just to figure out what the hell is on it, and why.

We're assuming that the flamingoes are ironic, but the thing about the modern age is that one can't tell the difference between even a joke and a bona fide news item. What chance do the flamingoes stand, in this climate, to signal the presence of irony, or lack thereof?

For those who enjoy almost seeing people, there is a special label just for you.

If you find this picture soothing, there may well be something wrong with you, but at least you're not the only one.

Attentive readers may remember our last post, even though it was published several days ago and nobody among our acquaintance has any memory left of anything occurring this side of 1994. Be that as it may, Shewee Fiend Friend, coming across the illuminative and edifying picture we were sent by Feisty French Friend, was moved to inform us of the changes that have recently occurred in her private life. She reported:

I sent [Male person in Shewee Fiend Friend's life] the beard/mullet toilet roll hanging model from your recent blog and he loved it

In the past year he has converted to full time beard-style hanging and his criticism of my hanging is so intense that I’ve now mostly given up and submit to your and his joint pressure

The funny part is, he believes he has always hung it this way. He has no memory of a time when chaos ruled his life and he did it differently every time, and when I tell him about that time, he claims I am lying

(Read more about this man's incomprehensible approach to bog roll here.)

Reader, this left us reeling. In a frightening and ever-changing universe, Shewee Fiend Friend's misguided stance on toilet paper is one of the few certainties keeping us grounded. What even happens, we asked ourselves, if she has started hanging her bog roll the right way round? As in, cosmically? Will the stars come loose from their sockets and wander about willy-nilly, will the oceans roil and roar to the rhythm of low-quality rockabilly, will the earth quake and maybe even spontaneously combust? Thankfully, Shewee Fiend Friend assured us that: 

[This] doesn’t mean my beliefs have changed. I just now deliberately hang the roll wrong.

After this emotional roller-coaster, we naturally needed a drink. Thus we let ourselves be persuaded to visit a beer festival in Malmö, against our better judgement. You may imagine our relief when we discovered that the hygiene facilities, despite the high concentration of hipsters at this event, were neither portaloos nor ironic toilets reminiscent of a cattle shed, but perfectly civilised facilities offering soap, coat-hooks and spare bog roll. (There was however a sink for filling one's water bottle which was, inevitably, constructed in the likeness of a cattle trough.)

There are actually two different kinds of soap here but as Nerdy Beer-Obsessed Friend pointed out, at least one of them smells terrible.

Normally we'd quibble with the placement of the hook (too near the toilet), but on this occasion we were just so grateful, among the onslaught of various hipster horrors, that there was one.

You can just about spot the spare bog roll, unhygienically placed on the floor. Again, we were just so grateful that there was one.

There is another heartwarming story we've been meaning to tell you about a thing that happened outside some portaloos in Helsingborg in probably 2017, but God only knows where the photos are and we can only promise to bring the subject up again in the unlikely event that - no, we can't even imagine what improbable occurrence might cause that story to be told. Let us swiftly move on to these lovely photos from Jonny, containing the message referenced in a previous post, regarding the Twelve Days of Cistern. The thought of this future event is the only thing currently enabling us to view the darkening days and approaching winter, with its attendant emotional carnage and horror clowns, with anything resembling equanimity.

What can one even do, except maybe sigh and possibly clutch one's throat? Well, quite.

In a clear parallel to Margaret Mitchell writing the last chapter of Gone with the Wind first, we constructed the title of this bog blog post before composing the actual post, and are now left with an obligation, however imaginary, to write something about the trauma we experienced the other day when we could find neither a) our Shewee nor b) our back-up Shewee. Reader, it was rough.

Festive Video: Tré Burt, Know Your Demons

 

Related reading

On the Nature of Academic Friendships

All posts featuring duct tape

All posts featuring Nerdy Beer-Obsessive Friend

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend

Moving Heaven and Earth: Polarisation and Proto-Indo-Europeans

That time when Shewee Fiend Friend went about the countryside reclaiming her womanhood and urinating all over everything: SISTERS STANDING UP FOR THEMSELVES

All posts featuring Jonny 

All posts featuring pheasants 

Why do hipsters require sinks shaped like cattle troughs?

All posts featuring Shewees