"You all know the feeling..." She's wearing a long skirt, has a British accent, and oozes downmarket Good Taste. Her pitch is that "everyone" feels uncomfortable moving one's bowels "in public", or at least in the toilet of an intimate friend, if not in a Plexiglas booth in Times Square. Her solution? A oily spray that makes a 'scent barrier' on the face of the water, thus keeping the detritus of your latest foray in Taco Bell private from the rest of humanity. Who cares if it makes the toilet harder to clean, at least you're safe.

Truthfully, I find her cooing, slightly non-U accent more offensive than any skunk.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, people didn't seem to notice this kind of thing, It's hard to believe, but most of the 20th century, people went around merrily farting, pissing, and crapping (in appropriate receptacles) without so much as a thought. If you farted before the Queen, it was Her duty to just keep smiling, lesser women found the ladies' room ideal for confidential chatting by the sink: the unspeakable was indeed unmentionable.

Somewhen in the late 60's, however, things began to change....

While, in more puritanical times, one spoke of happiness as being like being as lucky as "a pig in a four-leaf clover patch", clover being, factually, one of a pig's favorite grazings, we now, more carefree, talk about "a pig in shit", or if one wants to be coy "...in doo-doo". On the news, Ana Kasparian can talk about Black Friday as being "the day people go and buy a lot of shit". Indeed, there's no conversation in which you can't throw the word in, playfully, and not sound as if you're being breezily sophisticated, the kind of person who doesn't care what someone else thinks, and who speaks in all due honesty.

It seems somewhat ironic, therefore, that people who would find it unremarkable to use such terms would be at all embarrassed about the literal fact. Human beings do it, along with the rest of the animal kingdom higher than a sponge, modern plumbing has gifted us of the First World with clean, pleasant, and private places in which to do it, that should settle it. Instead, in these past few years, I've heard all manner of people who are afraid of excreting a) at work, lest someone hear or smell them, b) as a guest, lest you pollute the air or the 'atmosphere' of the host's domicile, c) at a party, lest a whole room full of people, who may have excreted themselves in the past few hours, start playing the game "What's that smell?" and "Who dun it?", games much less interesting than the classic "Murder".

Bathrooms, written to code, have ventilation, either fans or windows. At home, this is why you light one of those expensive jar candles (one reason, at least), and keep it burning when you feel like setting a mood. People enamored of malodorous food should do so prudently, preferably in like company. Stories that begin "And then I ate..X....and when I went to take a shit, I..." should be kept in the company that you would eat this food in.

If this stuff is going to be marketed at all, let's call it what it is. "Shit Buster." Advertise with some grizzled truckers and have them shaming a fellow man during the Super Bowl. In a roadhouse.

After all, aren't we past all that?

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