The Prince of Ass (or So Many Wipes, So Little Time)

One day at 3 a.m. a resentful, sleep-deprived mother was changing her baby and using wipes as fast as they popped out of the holder. Soon there were seventeen wipes for this one tiny bottom that was now as clean and inviting as rose petals. The mother surveyed the sparkling plump cheeks. A light bulb went up over the mother’s head. Why should this up-all-night baby be the Prince of Ass?  I’m going to use these comforting moist sheets on my own ass?   This outlier began a revolution and now mothers everywhere are using wipes for their toilette and causing an unbiodegradable apocalypse.

Let me say something here about wipes in general and the new rules for cleaning up a baby’s bottom. I have seen mothers obsess about the direction in which the wipes must be used.  The rule starts at the elimination place or the “poop chute” as Tom Hanks called it in some movie. and moves backward, especially for girls.  Not only for poops but for peeps too. Mothers are now taught to regard the baby’s bottom as we would our dinner plate - it has to be fit to eat on.  It’s as if the entire report card on motherhood is weighted on wipe direction and quantity of wipes used. Suppose you’re half asleep, (it’s counter-intuative) and you do it the wrong way?  The baby’s butt is not going to fall off from gangrene.  Trust me, if it’s a girl, that butt will be there to torment her throughout her life.

In the pre-wipes middle ages when I had babies, I often put the kid over my arm, rump up and used the hand held shower in the bathtub,  Quick and to the point. Not sanitary, you say?  We’re all still here.  Asses in place.