Lets Talk Bums and Make You The Biggest Winner

Throughout my life, I’ve never been a big winner. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t classify myself as a “loser”, per se, either. I’m referring to winning things*. It could be track meets or class presidencies or even the lottery. None of those things has ever brought me the big prize. My brother, on the other hand, was always a big winner growing up. He had such a knack for winning radio contests, (you know the type, “be caller 9 and win a pair of REO Speedwagon tickets…”) that he had to make up fake names to collect the myriad prizes he somehow won. But not me.

In the last couple of years, however, my luck has changed and I have won things. In 2012, I won a free pass to the Dad 2.0 Conference in Austin and in 2013, I won a free stay at the Four Seasons in Houston for the Dad 2.0 conference.  Oh, and did I mention that going to those two events changed my life?

Why am I telling you this? Because this is the final week for you to write a hi-larious haiku for Cottonelle’s Let’s Talk Bums contest. 2 more finalists will win $200 Amazon gift cards next Monday, November 4. They’ll be added to a pool with 5 others for a shot at the Grand Prize: an all-expenses paid trip to Dad 2.0 in New Orleans next January31-February 1, 2014. Even better than that, you’ll get to meet me there. What could be better than that, you ask? I know — REO Speedwagon tickets. 

Seriously though, here are the 5 winners so far. Think you can match wits with the best and the brightest of the Dad Blogger world these Dudes?:  

Please keep in mind that some of these winners are veteran bloggers and some are rookies just called up from the minors. Experience doesn’t matter. Humor does.

Keep the Haiku(s) clean, like the Cottonelle Care Routine does for your bum.  What’s that again, you ask?  The rad double wiping system to keep your bum fresh and happy. You start with dry paper and then cool down with some Cottonelle Fresh Wipes. Like Colt .45, they work every time.

So give it a shot. Tweet your Haiku now through Sunday morning, November 3 and it could be you flying the freebie train to NoLA, with extra cash in your hand to buy all your new friends Beignets at Café du Monde. I’ll take two.  

For full contest info, visit wipingpoetic.com. (Make sure your Tweeted Haiku have both the #LetsTalkBums and #Haiku tags to be entered!)

Disclaimer: I need to come clean (see what I did there?) and tell you that I was compensated by Kimberly Clark to participate in this campaign, but all opinions expressed in this post are entirely mine, for better or worse. 

*I did win a Chaka Khan album on a radio call-in once, but the winner had to pick the record up from the station and I was only 12 or so and couldn’t drive. No record for me. 

Privatizing Public Pooping or How Cottonelle Saved My Bum

Many moons ago I worked for a very large company in a very tall building. It was one of those buildings where you needed a keycard to access different floors for security reasons. It was also the building used as Nakatomi Plaza in the original Die Hard movie.  And on more than one occasion after a greasy lunch in the commissary, I had a feeling that I might literally die hard if I couldn’t find some relief, pronto. 

But the awkward thing about handling your business in your place of business is that everyone around is all up in your business. On the long hikes to and from the restroom, one’s privacy can quickly dissipate. And given the odds that your cubicle-mate could also be your stall-neighbor, it can lead to very uncomfortable situations.

As someone looking to maximize the value of a job that I was bored with by noon on my first day, after a couple of these potentially embarrassing episodes I figured out a creative workaround to relieve my literal and figurative levels of discomfort. I started using my keycard for afternoon jaunts to the 14^th floor. Being a dozen levels above my colleagues led to much more pleasant expulsion experiences for me. I intentionally chose a floor where I wouldn’t have to worry about running into anyone I might have to deal with professionally, and felt much more comfortable with my afternoon delights.

Speaking of comfort, public restrooms rarely leave you feeling either well-rested or entirely clean. The cheap perforated balsa wood they try to pass off as TP is something our military wouldn’t even use to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay because it’d be considered cruel and unusual punishment. One thing that I think the next Presidential campaigns should call for is mandating the Cottonelle Care Routine in all bathrooms.

 In case you forgot, the Cottonelle Care Routine is the way to maximize your post-poop comfort level via a two-step method of dry wiping with Cottonelle toilet paper and then wet wiping with Cottonelle Fresh Wipes. Your bum will thank you. No, I don’t mean Larry the guy wearing footie pajamas and suspenders hanging out in front of your local Starbucks. I mean your built-in bum that you use as a portable seat cushion every time you sit. It treats you well and you should reciprocate. Keep it nice, clean and fresh. I wish they’d had the Cottonelle Care Routine when I worked at Nakatomi Plaza. Then I truly would have been comfortable in the lap of luxury.

To help make you even more comfortable with this touchy subject, the rad folk at Cottonelle suggest we break down the toilet-talk taboo and are sponsoring a Haiku contest called Lets Talk Bums.

Three people have already won $200 Amazon gift cards for Tweeting a haiku about their bathroom habits and four more will win over the next few weeks. Here are the winners so far:

Winner #1: @dad_strangeland
Did you wipe? I ask / My four year old shakes her head / Pants already raised.

Winner  #2: @jesteram
Cottonelle sheets, wipes— / like yin and yang for your butt: / Two forces, one whole.

Winner #3: @DeadTurkeyBlog
Please try Cottenelle. / Like wiping with a pillow. / Without the divorce.

As if that’s not enough, those winners are being entered into a drawing for the Grand Prize: An all-expenses-paid trip to the Dad 2.0 conference in New Orleans, February 2014.  And to top that, they (or you??) will get to meet me there.

Tweet your haiku (make sure to keep it clean, like your tush) and be sure to use the #LetsTalkBums and #Haiku hashtags to be entered. Visit wipingpoetic.com for all the details, awesome haiku and more. Then come visit Cottonelle on Facebook and Lets Talk Bums. Larry won’t mind.   

Got any good bathroom misadventures to share? Please leave 'em in the comments below. 

Disclaimer: I need to come clean (see what I did there?) and tell you that I was compensated by Kimberly Clark to participate in this campaign, but all opinions are entirely mine, for better or worse. 

Cleaning Up in the Bathroom

Earlier this year, we finally potty trained the Little Dude. He’d already turned 3 and we’d talked about doing it about 8 months sooner, but life got in the way. After a whirlwind weekend of rushing him to the bathroom every 10 minutes, he quickly got the hang of things and was eager to move on to his next stage of life: wearing Big Boy Underpants.

I was ready, too. As his brother had arrived a few months earlier, buying diapers for two was not ideal. And when he refused to wear even a nighttime diaper on the second night of potty training, I praised his independence, even as I feared for his sheets. But my son didn’t let me down, and his sheets have happily stayed dry every night since.

But there was one little thing that I didn’t take into account independence-wise. Even though he was regularly using the toilet for both primary and secondary bodily functions, there was still the duty of cleaning up the doodie after he was finished. Yes, I’m talking about wiping. It’s a dirty subject and some  even consider it taboo, but the truth is everybody does it. (Or at least all men, as I’ve been told women don’t poop, but that’s a story for a different day.)

The Little Dude was under the impression that toilet paper is something to use as a way of hiding the evidence, before it’s flushed away. Truth be told, after trying TP on him a few times, I gave up. It never quite did the job it should have. So on one trip to the store, we picked up a packet of Cottonelle Flushable Wipes. I didn’t know such a thing existed. I also didn’t know that regular wipes weren’t flushable, but I learned that the hard way. I theorized that if “baby wipes” had worked on him to that point, why stop just because he was a “big boy” now?   Then I figured if he’s a big boy and he could use wipes, perhaps I should also explore the option, as a bigger boy with bigger, um, needs.

Needless to say, I was thrilled to recently discover an extremely logical system for bathroom cleanliness issues: the Cottonelle Care Routine. Simply put, the CCR says that you should first wipe with dry toilet paper and then have a second level of cleaning with their wet wipes.  It’s like how you wash your car with soap before you go over it a second time with a coat of wax. Doubling up leads to a far shinier end product.  The Cottonelle Care Routine, when executed correctly, also leads to a far shinier end product. And a cleaner feeling.

The truth is that I’ve already been a big Cottonelle fan for many years (I’m partial to the fluffy kind in the purple package), so I was thrilled when they asked me to spread the word about the magic of Cottonelle wipes & their “Let’s Talk Bums” contest. As a true believer in the magic of a clean bum, I want to encourage you to give it a shot, too. And what could make this more fun than a contest where we talk about bathroom activities? (In a clean way, both literally and figuratively.)

So what do you have to do? You’re going to put on your thinking caps and come up with some Haiku, yes Haiku, about how Cottonelle Flushable Wipes and the CCR do things like change the way you think about cleaning yourself, your bathroom habits and other formerly taboo subjects. Let’s keep it clean, but make them funny, witty, clever, punny and full of entendre. You are going to post those Haiku, with the hashtags #LetsTalkBums and #Haiku on Twitter, but you can also share them on Instagram, Facebook and all the other places you already hang out while pretending to check your email at work.

“But Dude, I don’t remember what a Haiku is?”

Here’s a little refresher course to go along with your refresher course (see what I did there?):

At its most simple, a haiku is a 17-syllable poem separated into three lines; the first and third lines comprise five syllables each, and the second has seven. In order to differentiate these lines, you can either add a line space (using your Enter key), or a “/” at the end of lines 1 and 2.

Here’s an example of my first Haiku Tweet:

So what can you win? Well, each week a panel of experts (me and a half dozen other Dudes) will select the best #LetsTalkBums Haiku Tweet and its Tweeter will win a $200 Amazon gift card. Not bad, right?

At the end of the contest, one of the 7 weekly winners will be chosen at random to win the Grand Prize of an all expenses paid trip to the Dad 2.0 Conference in New Orleans January 30-February 1^st, 2014. 

That’s right, airfare, hotel and a conference pass to hang out with some amazing people, and yours truly, can be yours for thinking of 17 clever syllables. Make me and your 10^th grade English teacher proud and Tweet away.

There’s also going to be a Twitter Party on Monday, September 30, 2013 from 8:00-9:00pm EST hosted by the inimitable @whithonea where they’ll be giving away an iPad Mini and some $50 Amazon gift cards. What do you have to lose? Let’s talk bums, and have fun doing so. Full contest rules are at wipingpoetic.com.

Here’s one more Haiku to get you in the mood:

Come join me, get clean / You could go to New Orlean / Everybody Poops

Disclaimer: I was compensated by Kimberly Clark to participate in this campaign, but all opinions are entirely mine, for better or worse. (And yes, I really use Cottonelle products that I pay for.)