Stop Using Tiolet Paper

Google knows who you are. You have a Gmail address: they scan incoming and outgoing mail. You use their search engine: your searches are cross-referenced to your email address. You send text messages on your Android phone and you converse with other humans in the presence of your phone: Google listens and remembers and collates.

All this ends up in carefully crafted advertising suggesting you squirt yourself with a kitchen hose. In a private place.

I don't.

I don't know what it is.

Something creepy this way comes, I think. If you need a definition for Click Bait, here it is. If you've saved thousands refinancing your mortgage, lowering your auto insurance, and using One Weird Trick to lower your cholesterol, perhaps this product represents a new breakthrough in attracting Internet eyeballs.

I don't know about you, but I plan to use trees for their intended purpose: toilet paper. Deep in the Pacific Northwest row upon row of deciduous trees quietly photosynthesize for my own good. Hard-bitten reality star loggers slice them into manageable portions. Licensed and regulated truck drivers haul the logs to state-of-the-art factories. Eventually all this work results in a roll I can use.

Don't be surprised if your next visit to Home Depot or Lowe's or Panera results in a shiny garden hose that you use in the potty. Google thinks this makes sense.

I assume you connect it to the sink? Does it stay there when you brush your teeth? Do you call a plumber or a psychiatrist?

Does Google decide I actually want one of these things? What else can I expect in my ad feed?

• A cheese grater I can shave with
• A lawn mower I can grate cheese with
• Birthday/angioplasty balloons

Perhaps this ad represents the high profit item craved by all Internet bloggers. Maye it's a Platinum Premium Product we've read so much about. If so, we need to sell a lot of 'em. Let's spin up high volumes of bathroom cleanliness articles. Let's publish definitive screeds obliquely describing what should happen when the TP runs out. I know I will.

Evidently it's OK to ask you. Google AdWords graces us with hardware going where no yard implement has gone before, therefore all bets are off. Earning billions selling click-throughs for miracle cures isn't enough.

I checked: toothbrush, mouthwash, dental floss, soap dispenser, fluoride rinse, more toothpaste, eye drops, and no garden tools.

There's a lotta people in this world, some of whom will certainly welcome our new Bathroom Overlords. Even now self-help groups coalesce in order to support anyone who bought this thing. Government funding is probably available, as are seats on Jerry Springer and Judge Judy. The Evening News with David Muir plans a Very Special segment on Americans who eschew TP for a high pressure hosing down.

Will you click through? Will you risk something that can't be unseen? Somewhere in cyberspace percolates a web site specially programmed to convince you toilet paper is passé. You need to plumb the potty with something heretofore available in the K-Mart Garden Center. The site accepts PayPal and BitCoins because staying mostly anonymous might be a good idea in this situation. We don't want the neighbors to know why your water bill skyrocketed and men in flannel shirts with chain saws picket in your driveway.

Google approves. Perhaps you've already ordered one of whatever it is and another one with a coupon. I know I haven't. Perhaps you're willing to share general details from installation through deployment. I hope not, but this is a world without rules.

A good HubPage has a conclusion and so does this one. I conclude that Google misplaced its' collective mind. I didn't ask for a bathroom rainstorm. I didn't ask for and neither do I support any effort to undermine the thriving toiler paper industry.