The Single Most Useless 'As Seen On TV' Product Ever

1 Poofume

I want to fold up my laptop and just smash it on the heads of the people in the commercial for this product and somehow make that experience -- the visual, the sound, the feeling I get and the feeling they endure, be this entire article. I need you to really immerse yourself in this. But I can't. Words, don't fail me now.

Poofume, a name that gets less and less clever every time you hear it, is a spray you use before laying out a deuce. You take this stuff into the bathroom and you spray it in your toilet so it coats the top of the water. It just lays there on your turd-bowl meniscus, vaguely citrusy and oily, and waits for a dook to crest the horizon. Your dook. Your dook that smells so bad that you preplanned a way to make it smell better. Because apparently Poofume creates some kind of impenetrable force field of anti-stink that keeps turd gasses from escaping the bowl, for however many seconds or minutes you plan on leaving that turd to stew.

The infomercial presents us with a typical scenario -- you're a girl in your 20s, about to have your fiance over for dinner, but just as company arrives, you realize your father just laid waste to an entire village of mud bunnies, and apparently that means your house needs to be put under quarantine. Surely your future husband will take one step into the house, smell the wickedness that is genetically linkable to you, and punch your mouth before leaving forever. Same old story.

But wait! Mom to the rescue! Turns out we have Poofume, so dad's asstronauts won't be an issue! The day is saved and romance can triumph over dad's Ganges trout. Then it goes on to sing the praises of this silly ass product before offering up an address and phone number from which you can shamefully order some, if your innards have been a constant source of despair for you lo these many years. And this is where I start asking questions.

Why Does This Exist?

I feel like a traveler abroad, lost in a land in which no one speaks my language and also sprays something in the toilet before they let loose with the colon chowder. I get that some people are probably less comfortable with their colorectal bouquet than I am. I understand on a basic, manly level that poop is going to stink. That's its job. It comes from butts. Maybe other people live in denial of this basic truth, I can't say for sure, but haven't we managed pretty well so far? Humanity, I mean? It's 2015. We have cars that can drive themselves. Is your poop stank such a handicap that it's slowing you down in life? Is it causing the wallpaper to peel? Did it stunt the growth of your children? I need answers.

What's Wrong With You?

I'm pretty confident that, like beautiful snowflakes and fingerprints, everyone's personal crap factories break down sloppy Joes and Yoo-Hoo in their own unique ways, creating something equally yet distinctly abysmal from everyone else's, but come on. If your own brand of chum is so awful it requires this level of accommodation, you need a doctor. Your insides shouldn't be a prop from a horror show. If you find your eyes watering or neighbors routinely evacuating as panicked screams fill the neighborhood, then maybe your problem is bigger than Poofume can deal with. And if not, then just chill out, you olfactory candy-ass. No one expects a turd to smell like fresh-baked bread; don't go making mountains out of molehills.

Floaters?

The dynamics of butt babies is not something we need to really plumb the depths of as adults. We've all run afoul of the Bristol Stool Chart; we've all spent a day in our youths consuming nothing but hot wings and cost-effective malt liquor that caused us to marvel at what our insides wrought. I don't need to be juvenile and describe the various and sundry corn massacres that one could befoul a toilet with for you to get my point. But I will go this far -- if Poofume creates a seal on top of the water, then how on Earth does it succeed in its duties if faced with a beast that breaches the surface?

Like the white whale rising threateningly to mock Ahab, so too will your keister cakes occasionally be of such magnitude and prowess that they refuse to nestle quite timid and well-heeled into the tiny chasm at the bottom of the bowl. Maybe they're puffed up with pride, maybe just swamp gas, but some will rise to the surface and stay there like chocodiles, silent and ominous in the murk. What strength does Poofume hold over this foul creation? None! And you can't predict this occurrence, but you can be damn sure it's less rare than spotting Bigfoot in the wild. Common enough that you're probably wasting your time Poofuming up the bowl ahead of time, anyway.

Why the Subterfuge?

Who is this product for, you or your imagined, offended friends and family? I submit that, left to our own devices in a world of loneliness and despair, if we never expect company and have given up on truly caring about the opinions of others, most of us will degrade to an ape-like state of chaos and dishevelment that could best be characterized by us reveling in our own filth and maybe spear-hunting other humans for their precious gall-bladder as the fluids held within will keep the spirits from cursing us in our fitful sleep. So, clearly Poofume isn't for your own precious sensibilities.

You are not beholden to other people's opinions of what goes into and out of your ass. Put that on a slip of paper and keep it in your wallet. It's a credo for us all. A person's ass is their castle, and let no one cast aspersions upon it.

If your sea pickles reek of ambergris and 7-Eleven taquitos, then so be it. Lift your head high; don't cower in shame on the toilet. Your family complains if they have to use the toilet after you? Well, why don't they get a job and buy their own toilet, then, the privileged olfactory tyrants?

I staunchly refuse to believe that whatever your ass can produce is going to settle into the atmosphere of your bathroom like some kind of fecal poltergeist ready to subject each and every new occupant to a fresh hell. Just flush the damn thing and wait five minutes. It's been good enough for the rest of the world for years now; it's good enough for you. Which brings us to ...

Timeline and Proper Use

Is it possible I use the toilet differently than the rest of the world? It seems entirely unlikely, but what if I do? What if I'm some kind of hygienic, indoor-plumbing revolutionary and no one else has any idea what I've discovered?

To put a stop to this potential reality right now, I offer up this tip -- flush your bog wraiths. This is what the rest of you do, right? I must make no assumptions, because you know what they say about assumptions. They say, "Stop that, you twat."

It seems to me the greatest cure for stink is no Poofume or, dare I say, even perfume, but actually making your tater tots go away before they reek up the joint. How much can your bathroom stink if you flushed? Much like hiding the bodies after you get emotional or moving once you've filled the basement with empty beer cans, you flush to make the smell of your shame go away. It's really quite simple and efficient and requires no late-night infomercials.

A New Paradigm

Do you want to live in a world where you associate citrus with pooping? Is this the Pavlovian connection any of us need to make? You have a glass of orange juice for breakfast and immediately think, "Oh, fresh squeezed. Out of someone's ass."

Your bathroom shouldn't smell like citrus at any point, unless you're eating oranges in there. And if you're eating oranges in the bathroom, stop it. Never eat in the bathroom. The only time you should eat in the bathroom is literally during a tornado when you're hiding in the clawfoot tub and it's been a few hours, but you're OK because you packed graham crackers.

Your bathroom should smell sterile and cold. It should smell like linoleum and bleach and 60-watt, white light bulbs. Spices and fruits and various flavorings have no business in there, and do you know why? Because those smells are going to mix with the smell of steam weasels. It's inevitable. What the hell is Poofume doing to stop the smell of your literal ass? It's still there, hovering above the water like the world's worst claw game, ready to drop another terrible prize as soon as you press the button. It's where the stink came from. Poofume is like a fire extinguisher you use while chasing after a guy with a flamethrower, trying to put out all the shrubs he's setting ablaze. You're dealing with the symptom here, not the problem.

All bathroom-related destinkerants should be required to list the fragrance and write "plus poo" on the label, because that's what it's going to smell like.

Everybody poops. There's a book about it. You can't not do it. You don't need bears snuggling your toilet paper to make it easier, and you don't need scented ass spray to make it more palatable. Because it's not palatable. It's supposed to be gross. It's the elimination of the worst parts of food your body can't find any use for. Just live with that. Be one with that.

For more from Felix, check out 5 Things People Claim to Hate That Are Suspiciously Popular and 7 Shockingly Bad Slogans Major Corporations Went With.

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