Apparently Our Things Need to be Polite Now

Dear Proctor & Gamble:

I am sure you have read the most recent news stories detailing the importance of manners and politeness in our things. According to one well respected technology company (an oxymoron I know), the most requested attribute in any future ‘smart’ product is politeness. It seems that you have fallen a bit behind the times in both the ‘smart’ and polite categories with one of my favorite products, Charmin Ultra Soft premium toilet paper. I have yet to see a smart version hit store shelves but I am certain the brainiacs in P&G R&D have been working on it. I am writing this letter to give you my view from the consumer perspective (real VOC!) of what I would like to see in this innovative new offering.

First, I would like my toilet paper to speak in a robotic sounding voice, like the kind you used to hear in sci-fi movies from the 1950s. You know the type, they speak in short staccato bursts and rarely conjugate verbs. “I am Charmin Softie. I am the best ultra soft toilet paper on the market. May I be used to wipe your butt? Please apply me to your anal opening and move in a swift bidirectional fashion from top to bottom with gentle pressure ”, that sort of thing. Notice how C. Softie (cute name don’t you think) said please and may I. That is the sort of politeness I will require in my smart toilet paper of the future. I will also want it to rate the effectiveness of my butt wiping technique. IWS (insufficient wipe syndrome) is my constant companion and I find myself with streaked and smelly undies on a regular basis as I use my clean pair as surrogate toilet paper many times throughout the day to make up for my shoddy work the first time around. I would suggest a series of hints and words of encouragement. Helpful hints might include such phrases as “Oh no, please return to the toilet and wipe again, you did not apply enough pressure”, or “that was a wet one, you probably need another square”, or “Don’t wipe too aggressively, nobody likes butt rash”. Encouragement and praise might come in the form of “Excellent work human, you wipe like a pro, your butt is now clean”, or, “You did a good job, for a human” or, “you get an A for effort but will need to work on your grip”, or “uh-oh, somebody needs to wash their hands twice." A nice to have feature would be for it to provide health and dieting advice based on the appearance and texture of your fecal matter though I can see that some persons might be worried about data security and the potential implications if their fecal morphology based health evaluations were to be made public.

I am sure my new Charmin ultra soft will be smarter than me, what with AI, and artificial neural networks, and machine learning and all that jazz. It will no doubt know exactly what to say for every wiping situation any person might ever encounter. I hope you remember though that no matter what, C. softie needs to always have good manners. I wouldn’t want my toilet paper erasing all the hard work I put in with my kids drilling all that mind your manners shit into their dumb little heads. Of course, I would never let my children anywhere near the Charmin ultra soft premium toilet paper. They get Wal-Mart brand rough & ready 120 grit toilet paper and they like it. I figure it is better to prepare them for their college and working bathroom experience. If they can build a good foundation of anal callouses now things will go much better for them when they are older.

Thanks for your attention,

Anonymous parent

p.s. Please tell