Everybody’s talking about it, and if you work in the media business, like I do, you kind of have to react. I know it’s controversial, I know the thing’s already jumped the shark, I know there are a lot of heavy questions going around for the individuals involved. But as someone directly implicated in the scandal that rocked the globe last night around 10:30 PM Eastern Time, I need to say something:
Yes, I chafed my butt yesterday.
You can stop talking about it now. You can cease the memery. You can quit writing your op-eds connecting it to every other issue in the world. I chafed my butt, my butt is chafed, I discovered it last night.
It had been creeping on me all day. You know how when you come down with a cold, it kind of grows and grows until you notice it, but once you notice it you realize it’s been there a few hours? Such it was with the butt. And by the time I noticed, the chafing was intense.
Yesterday was not Wear Your Swimsuit to Work Day at The Barking Crow. That’s laundry day. Yesterday was Wear Your Swimsuit to the Pool Day. I wore my swimsuit to the pool. But, to make my intentions known to the household, I wore it all day beforehand.
Not to get too graphic, but I’ve had issues before with the mesh lining inside swim trunks, dating back to childhood when the jaws of life were needed to…well, I said I wouldn’t get too graphic. Anyway, I wear underwear under my suit, and—ironically—in an effort to lessen my day-to-day chafing, I recently bought a few new pairs. Thought I’d try out something different.
These—the new underpants, the ones meant to help my skin—were the underpants I was wearing yesterday when, after church, thinking nothing of it, I donned my swimsuit and proceeded to do various chores (assembling a table, washing all the pizza cutters I used this week, dislodging slipper after slipper from the mouth of a bored dog). It was like a children’s book where a kid wants to go play but they have to do chore after chore after chore before their parents let them, and at the end of each chore they say, in a singsong rhythmic pattern, “I want to play! Mom, can I go?” and their mom says, “Not until you [sweep the floor], Theodore. No!” (sweeping the floor is just an example here that’s why I put brackets around it the mom isn’t obsessively telling her son to sweep the floor every few pages or anything that would be really messed up and not something to put lightly into a children’s book I mean that would be outrageous, concerning behavior)
Finally, we went down to the pool, and the water was freezing and the sun had gone mostly behind the roof so I just sat on one of those chairs where you can either sit or lie down and I watched NASCAR on my phone, which was pretty great, honestly. Then, back upstairs, where I started realizing it was chafing. Then, walking the dog, where I finally acknowledged the chafing externally (“Fargs, my butt’s getting’ a little raw, bud”). Then, recording a podcast, where the chafing did not come up. Finally, well, you all know what happened. That’s why we have to talk about this.
I’m not positive it was the underwear, though it may have been a bad underwear/swim trunk combo. We’re conducting an investigation, we’ll let you know where it goes. I’ve heard the hair theory. I’ve heard the sweat and sleep theories. We’re looking into all of it. The bottom line, though, is this: Yes, I chafed my butt yesterday. Yes, it hurts. No, I didn’t realize we still had all that baby powder I bought five years ago when I was biking more often. Yes, baby powder is the best. No, I don’t want to keep talking about this. No, I did not bring it up. No! It was the media! It was the media!! I didn’t do this! You’ve got the wrong guy! I’m just sitting here with a raw tush trying to get through a day of blogging while the faint smell of baby powder wafts around me, refreshing its strength every time I go to the bathroom like some febreeze freshener plugged into my shorts! I’m innocent! Innocent, I tell you!
The important thing to remember here is not that people are going through more than you see on their exterior, or that you’ve gotta be careful with hair. The important thing to remember here is that you’d rather baby powder too early than too late. So, if we’re going to learn one thing from all this, let that be the one thing.
This post was not brought to you by Johnson & Johnson. Talc-based baby powder has been linked to aspiration pneumonia, granuloma, and ovarian cancer. Please consult your doctor before buying new underwear, wearing it under your swim trunks while you assemble a table, and then wearing the whole getup down to the pool. The Barking Crow is not responsible for any injuries or life-threatening diseases incurred in the chafing arena. If you sue us we’ll sue you back. We’ll sue you in multiple countries. We’ll try to extradite you somewhere where we bought off a judge but we didn’t actually buy off the judge we just convinced the judge we had because the judge doesn’t really understand how Bitcoin works. Don’t sue us. It’ll make this all a lot easier. We’re dealing with enough already.
