January 14, 2014.

Happy Birthday to my brother Mike. Before I get into tonight's topic let me touch upon something I just realized. When a woman says “We'll see” it doesn't mean that the matter in question is either pending or up for review. “We'll see” pretty much means NO. I know I should have realized this sooner but lets just say that I’ve had an epiphany.

The rest of this post will be fairly blunt and if you're easily offended “What the hell are you doing here to begin with?”

We were at a wallow this afternoon when one of the basic liveaboard topics came up. Head issues. Somehow the conversation morphed into more of a head habits chat. There are two distinct camps when it comes to what constitutes legal flushins'.

One side of the coin argues that if you didn't eat it, don't flush it. I can understand that but I never really gave it a lot of thought. You see, I never realized that toilet paper was still on the table so far as the debate goes. I've had friends in the past say that they don't flush their toilet paper. I had always pictured that little piece of tissue that women use to clean up after taking a pee. Now it's sitting in a little basket reeking faintly of urine, kinda like pee pee potpourri. I always thought....quirky, hygienically disturbing, a basket of urine soaked tissue lying about. But it's their boat, whatever makes them happy. With enough Glade sprayed about you can hardly tell....

Today it was explained to me that this non flushing of paper also includes the tissue used to wipe ones ass. Excuse me? It had never dawned on me. Who in their right mind would keep shit covered Scotts for a moment longer than they had too. I LOVE my wife and not having to look at her “shit tickets” is just one more reason I love her. The plus side would be her not being able to claim that the foul smell in the head was me missing the bowl while there was a pile of shit covered Cottonelle in the corner of the 9 square foot room.

Christ, from now on whenever someone throws their garbage on the fire I'll be running a mental checklist as to whether or not I know if they're flushers or savers. You won't flush it down your own head but you'll bring it to the beach and share it with everyone at the firepit.  What is it with this irrational fear these people have. Calcium buildup brutalizes head hoses and clogs everything. Toilet paper dissolves into nothing, it's not an issue.

A good portion of these sailors were doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs but they've still been duped into saving shitty TP. I doubt that they feel the same compulsion to save their toenails, boogers and earwax, because THAT would be irrational. But that stack of shit tickets in the corner....thats just savvy seamanship?

And while I'm at it lets talk about the toilet paper itself. For a about a week we used that “special” TP designed for marine use. The 4 pack at West Marine was over 6 bucks so Christy devised a little experiment. She took 4 Solo cups and filled them with salt water. 2 sheets of Scott went into one while the other 3 cups got Cottonelle, the West Marine marine friendly type and some Charmin.

She let the paper soak overnight and every 20 minutes during the evening she gave each cup a quick stir. The next morning the Scotts had dissolved into nothing. The other 3 cups all contained globs of mush that any marine head would make short work of. So its Scotts for us here on the boat and with our devil may care attitude, when we're done with the job, we flush the paperwork too.....