The wonders of a simple bidet

Who’d have guessed back in March that one of the best things to come out of this covidcrisis would be my discovery of the wonders of a bidet?

Remember how there was a wild run on toilet paper early in the pre-lockdown phase? My solution was to buy a 48-roll box from Who Gives A Crap. It’s bamboo TP — better for the environment, as bamboo is an eminently renewable resource — and not expensive. Great find, I thought, because I hadn’t been able to source inexpensive bamboo TP locally. Thanks, Facebook ad!

But then one day, when I was out, my partner — you can find her at Falcon & Acorn — installed a new Tushy Classic Bidet.

“What the hell is this?” I said, upon walking into the bathroom.

“It’s a bidet,” she called out from the kitchen.

Okay, I thought. I mean, I’d heard of bidets, and I had a general idea of what they do, but I’d never used one.

And now I hope never to live without one. In fact, when we hit the road for nomad living next year, I am already considering how we can replace the bidet portably.

What’s so great about it?

  1. Cleanliness. Without getting too gross, I’ll just say that my post-poop cleanups are not necessarily the most ideal situations, so a bidet truly helps with that. And psychologically, it’s nice to be confidently clean. Also, can you say, “Mini enema”? Yup, and it was easy to enable, once I was told about the technique. Talk about clean!
  2. Drastically reduced need for toilet paper. As I implied in #1 above, I may use more toilet paper than the average person, so reducing my TP use is a very nice thing, both from my wallet’s perspective and the logistics of ensuring toilet paper is available in the house. (Hey, it’s the little things that make my life easier.)
  3. Reduced need for showering. You may thing this is a grody idea. However, my primary reason for showering is to wash my junk and my trunk, plus the armpits. However, I’ve found my armpits can wait. Also Gold Bond spray, or the Walmart equivalent, works great for me under the arms. As for the junk, it seems to do okay without such frequent showering. As does my hair, btw. So, then, a shower every third day — or fourth day, or fifth day… — instead of daily, is good for the environment and it is probably good for the skin overall. And the bidet uses a lot less water than a shower.

As I said earlier, I’m very happy with the Tushy Classic Bidet. It was, I’m told, easy to install, and it’s worked well for 8 months now. Our water is pretty hard, so I expect it to wear out at some point sooner than later, but even if it needs to be replaced now, it’s worth the $10 a month that it has cost. Easily.

Skeptical? Get yourself a bidet, use it, and then tell me I’m wrong!