By January, I'm a new man. Well, actually, I'm not new at all but I smell like a delicious Italian deli. And that's a fine way to start the New Year.

So all this month I'll look back over the year and re-post my four favorite journals. Today's selection generated the most e-mail responses of all the journals in 2006. I just now read it again, and was inspired to run my garden hose from outside into my kitchen and give myself a little flush. Wow! It's cold out tonight. If you try this, let your garden hose get up to room temperature before using. Good times.

Okay here is the journal which originally appeared in this spot on February 8, 2006 while I was covering the Winter Olympics in Italy:

First off, I’d like to thank all the West Virginians who e-mailed me jokes about my own foreign country, Ohio. Hilarious stuff. I swear Ohio is the funniest state in the Union. Several of you sent me the Jeff Foxworthy list of “You know you’re from Ohio when…”. FYI every Ohioan has sent that to some other Ohioan at least once in the last five years. I’ve received it 50 times from friends. And every word of it is true! It was a great place to grow up. I loved it. Wouldn’t trade it for gold.

Okay so I walk into my hotel bathroom in Rome or Florence or Rapallo, Italy, (take your pick) and there is an extra porcelain object protruding from the wall between the toilet and the sink. It looks like a toilet but has no seat. It also has a faucet (of sorts) pointing upwards at an angle...with hot and cold running water.

I jokingly said to Andy, “Boy the sinks are awfully low in Italy.” He didn’t laugh either.

I knew it was a bidet (pronounced “happybuttwasher”) but I had never used one. Intellectually I understand it. A clean butt is a happy butt. But emotionally it disturbs me to imagine myself using something of this nature when ten thousand strangers have used it before me. And probably one or two last night!

I know, I know. I use gas station bathrooms on trips and a jillion nutcases have sat their unclean fannies there before me. This is different.

Dictionary.com says this about bidet: “A fixture similar in design to a toilet that is straddled for bathing the genitals and the posterior parts.”

After reading that I immediately started thinking of how advertising firms marketed this contraption… and with such astounding success… in Europe.

I’m a very visual guy. Most guys are. But I have extra “visual” genes. Ask anyone who knows me. And these types of images can leave permanent stains. Hmmm, another poor choice of words.

Anyway, I talked myself into using one. Yes. Old dog, new trick.

Sadly I had not read that Dictionary.com definition before I used it. In the definition “straddle” is the key word. You are not supposed to make actual butt-flesh contact with the rim. Sitting back on it like a toilet can lead to some serious pain from the faucet-like fixture. And that porcelain is refrigerator cold. Seriously. You could store butter in that thing.

I can tell you that getting the water temperature right is more key than you can imagine. Seriously, what feels warm to your hands is actually too hot for other more sensitive portions of your body. And if it’s too cold that’s a shock and well let’s just say a man’s pride is on the line.

Anywho, I eventually got it right and enjoyed myself. I don’t know the history of why we Americans don’t install them in our homes or hotels. Curious. Maybe the toilet paper lobby has more influence over congress than I know. Sounds like a 6NEWS Investigation to me.

Alrighty folks, I have to take care of some business.

Ciao!

Mike Redding