Have You Ever Wondered?

Here’s a situation which may sound familiar, at least to most guys out there. A friend of yours, let’s call him Ram, meets up with you and the gang at school during recess time, and excitingly declares that he has a new tape. A ‘tamil’ movie he says with a wink. He says he got it from his neighbour, who, in his infinite wisdom, quietly stole it from his elder brother and taped it himself. Your friend, realising the value of the movie, records a copy for himself as well. Ram asks if anyone wants to borrow it next, but of course, he didn’t really have to ask. He knows every single guy in the gang would want his turn. All 15 of them. So, the gang draws lots, and you of course draw the shortest straw (in more ways than one!). So, you wait and wait and wait with anticipation.

Ram gives the tape to Lee, who records a copy for himself, then passes his copy to Tan. Tan also doesn’t want to miss out, so records a copy for himself, then passes his copy onto Suren, who copies it then passes it to Faroukh, and so on and so forth until you finally receive the tape some two months later (by which time everyone has spoiled the movie by revealing the ending!).

So, after school, with the tape in bag, heart pulsating, you cycle home like you’ve never cycled home before. You reach home, have lunch, and suggest to your mom that she needs to go to the supermarket to top up on milo and ice cream. As soon as she’s gone, you turn on the TV, put in the tape, and press PLAY. Ooooh yeah… you start rubbing your hands (to warm them up for their upcoming duties…) and watch… a blank screen. You press stop, and press play again, to no avail. You eject the tape, knock it on the video, put it back in and try again, but that accomplishes nothing. Damn.

A very similar thing happens with photocopy machines. If you take a plain white piece of paper, photocopy that, take the output, photocopy that, and repeat a thousand times, you’ll end up with a black piece of paper. That’s because everytime you copy something, you add a bit of unwanted noise to the output. Repeat this a thousand times and the output is totally dominated by noise. Hence the black photocopy paper output, and hence the blank tamil movie.

But how is this related to death? One would say that not being able to watch the tamil movie is almost like death, but that’s not really my point. My point, or my question is : why do humans die from old age?

The fact is, there is no part of our body that is older than about 3 years of age. That’s because cells continously renew themselves by getting replaced by younger, hungrier ones. This happens throughout a human’s lifespan, regardless of age. The cells have a maximum lifespan of 3 years, and most of the time they get replaced by then. So, the next time someone asks "how old are you?" your answer is "it depends which part of my body".

So, if an 80 year old man has cells that are on average, the same age as that of an 18 year old, why does the 80 year old man die sooner? Well, one theory is that the aging process is a side effect of the copying process - each time old cells are replaced, they are not replaced by an exact copy, but by a slightly degraded copy of itself. So, if the cells keep getting replaced with inferior copies, well, at the end you end up with crap. Much like the photocopy output. Much like the tamil movie.

Continuing my obsession with disgusting topics, today I ask : Are our hands really cleaner after washing? Should we take the effort to wash our hands after a quick pee?

I hear a resounding YES.

I personally have ridiculed many a man for not turning on that tap after taking a pee. But are we just echoing our mother’s voices? Is there any logic to the washing of hands? Let’s take a closer look shall we?

The first reason to wash our hands is to get rid of any dirt on it. Especially any bulk faeces or urine. Our body goes thru all the trouble to expel these materials, let us take the hint and not let them get back into our system.
The next reason to wash our hands after going to the toilet is of course to get rid of any germs that may have attached themselves to our hands. Germs that have already been screened by our body, and have been found wanting. The poor misunderstood germs. The rejected germs. The outcasts. The germs that can only lead to bad things. We do not want to let these mean spirited vengeful baddies back into our bodies. Hence the need for washing - agreed?

Yup. That’s all fine and dandy.

But what if, we take a quick pee? No bulk faeces, and if we are careful, no traces of urine. Do we still need to wash our hands?

Of course. Why? Because germs from the unmentionable areas can somehow find their way to your hands. So, we turn on the tap, and wash our hands. So, no matter how big a business we do in the toilet, we still need to wash our hands. So far so good.

But here’s where I have a problem. Who says the tap itself is clean? The first thing we touch while our hands are dirty and full of evil germs is….. the tap. So, the tap is bound to have lots of germs as well. After washing our hands, what do we do? We turn off the tap. So guess what? The germs on the tap attach themselves to our hands - the very same germs we were trying to get rid of a few seconds ago! Moreover - and here’s what freaks me out the most - you don’t just get back YOUR germs, you now take on the germs of every person who’s used that tap since it was last cleaned (if it was ever clean) - you are now carrying germs from someone else’s bum!

So you leave the toilet with the extreme confidence that your hands are clean even though you are carrying a million germs from hundreds of bums.

And then you enjoy your delicious sandwich. Yum.

This is an article describing the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the hope of creating a classless society. Usually, this transition to a classless society has to occur via a ‘revolution’.

Now that we’ve got rid of the kiddies, let’s continue.

Every now and then, every week or so (try three times a day you lying bastard!) it occurs to me that semen is annoyingly hard to clean. Don’t ask me how, when or why this occurs to me, although you can probably imagine (some of my female fans are getting quite good at it!).

Anyway, as most of you should know, semen gets everywhere. On the sheets, on the tv, on the computer screen, on the mouse, all over the fingers, on the dashboard of the car, EVERYWHERE. Or so I have been told (heh heh). That’s not the problem though. The problem is that it is so damn hard to clean. But that doesn’t stop you from trying though.

Usually, the first course of action when cleaning is required is the good old tissues. Toilet rolls are perfect - no point wasting those aloe vera scented soft tissues on lousy semen.  You decide to wipe away, just like you would a puddle of water on the floor. You go for the tried and tested method of ‘circular motion’. Not a good idea. Instead of absorbing the semen, the tissues have now spread a nice thin layer of sticky stuff all over the surface that you wanted to clean. If this surface is your body, bad luck - your body hairs now form a circular pattern and they are stuck in place. Research has shown that this commonly occurs on the fingers where the tiny hairs, instead of streamlining towards one direction, start pointing towards each other.

You try another method - dabbing. This is particularly useful for areas where the above method is unsuitable (or potentially painful). So, you take your tissues, fold them to the required size and shape, and start dabbing. Dab dab dab. Ahh, nice and dry. Oh wait, what’s that?? Pieces of tissue? Stuck to the skin?? Great! You can’t just leave them there - you look like you have smallpox or something. But how to remove the bits of tissue? There seems to be only one way - scraping. There is only one way this can end - in tears - as you remember why you dabbed instead of rubbed in the first place.

Feeling sticky, with hairs on your skin facing every direction possible, with sensitive parts of your body looking like its wearing a red and white polka-dot jumper, you decide to go take a shower. If anything, water will get rid of all this stuff. You are of course, mistaken.

Water, it seems, makes things worse. Instead of feeling dry and sticky, you are now wet and sticky. Now only that, but the stickiness is spreading - the water is acting as a semen carrier! Great. At least the water from the shower is moving downwards - only your legs will get it (imagine those guys who take a BATH!). But, never underestimate the power of dirt and crap to propagate - you have forgotten that your fingers are dirty as well, and, if you had decided to wash your hair, or your face…

You decide to call on the last wave of resistance - soap. After all, soap cleans everything. That’s what everyone knows. But again, you misjudge the situation. Soap doesn’t clean - it just breaks up oil. Semen, on the other hand, is a cocktail of protein, minerals, hormones, and who knows what else (apparently it is healthy for you - a woman named Kim Kelly underwent a diet consisting of 6 teaspoonfuls of semen a day, no kidding!). But you don’t know this, so you scrub and scrub with the soap, but to no avail. Even the soap itself is losing the battle.

So, in the end, you give up, towel down, wear your clothes and hope no one notices the hair on your fingers. You also hope no one uses that bar of soap ever again!