YOU know I try to keep you readers on the cutting edge of technology, but I've recently learned of a product that is just a little hard to describe. When ya gotta go,
take the Easi way outAnyone with an ounce of good taste would simply throw the press release for this product in the rubbish can and move on to more worthy matters.
Anyway, the name of the product is "Easi Pee" and it is a gizmo that allows you relieve yourself when you aren't around an bathroom or porta-potty.
I thought the press release was a hoax, even though there was one of those little "R"s with a circle around it in the name "Easi Pee (circle R)," meaning that this is an officially registered product name with the U.S. Department of Important Sounding Names, Protective Division. Having the little circle "R" tells people two things: 1) you know how to spell but intentionally spelled "Easi" with an "i" and 2) you think your product is so great that you suspect other people are going to try to steal it and you want them to know that the entire weight of the federal government is behind you.
(I've found that the entire weight of the federal government always is behind me and, frankly, it feels weird.)
Being an investigative humorist, I called the number of the marketing company on the bottom of the release and talked to an actual human being who confirmed that the product was real. In fact, all the honchos in charge of "Easi Pee" were attending a huge trade show in Los Angeles at the very moment we were speaking. Granted, this human being could have been some jokester working out of a telephone booth, but she seemed legit. In the column-writing biz, that's good enough. This ain't Watergate or anything.
So "Easi Pee," besides being heaps of fun to write, refers to a disposable toilet bag for men and women which can "also be used as a vomit/air sickness bag." You gotta like that.
I don't want to belittle the product so I will quote the exact description of "Easi Pee":
"The disposable toilet bags contain a small pouch of highly absorbent substance that thickens urine and other liquids into a gel. After use the bags can be securely closed (much like a Ziploc bag) for sanitary, odorless, leak-free handling."
I don't know about you, but this would seem to provide quite an opportunity for mischief. Do the words "14-year-old," "tall building" and "bomb's away" bring anything to mind?
The marketers say that "Easi Pee" is great for hiking or camping, although it always seemed to me that the beauty of hiking and camping was being able to do your business wherever you wanted. I don't see the beauty of going on a hike and having to haul all of your bodily emissions back down the trail.
But there have been times when something like "Easi Pee" might have come in handy. When we were kids on cross-country automobile trips, my father wouldn't pull over to let us boys out to pee unless my mom put a gun to his head. That's an exaggeration. But barely. Fathers simply have an unrealistic, not to say inflated, opinion of how large an 8-year-old's bladder is. I would have killed for an "Easi Pee" back in those days. We were basically told to use empty Coke bottles, but I don't want to get into the details or the long-term psychological damage that kind of a program can have.
"Easi Pee" sounds suspiciously like your basic Ziploc baggie with some secret absorbent junk inside.
But it only costs $5.95 for three bags, so it might be worth it if you are prone to locking yourself in your car or if you live in a tall building.