I have a BMI of more than 50 – I definitely qualify as morbidly obese. I have no trouble wiping my own freaking ass with toilet paper. I have no idea how large someone must be to need the help of wiping “implements.”
I think it’s likely that’s not what’s going on here, unless this woman is just mind-numbingly overweight.
If your MIL has her over again, and no confrontation has happened, maybe she should try putting out some of those Cottonelle wipes. Maybe it’s a texture thing or an absorbency thing. Something tells me it’s more of a mental illness thing, though.
Bear_Nenno, David Sedaris is a humorist. In one of his short stories (I think it was in his collection Naked) someone in his family was wiping their ass with bath towels. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, honest to god.
I am sure it is very difficult for MIL and friends to confront Kathy. I don’t know that I could. I cast my vote for hiding the towels and providing paper towels and wipes.
I’ll tell you what though, wouldn’t this woman prefer to take a shit in her own home? And you know what else? If I couldn’t wipe my ass the normal way for some reason at someone’s home, I’d pull up my panties and deal with it later.
What I suggest in terms of getting the message out to Kathy is that people should start sharing similar, but secretly fictional stories of illicit ass-wiping on towels and then everyone can express grossed-outedness.
I’m having a really difficult time believing all of this.
How was your mother-in-law able to determine that Kathy is the phantom wiper? Did she just happen to mention to someone else in her circle of friends ‘When Kathy comes over to visit YOU, do YOUR towels have sh*t stains all over them?’??
In my experience, most women don’t like to poop when they’re at someone else’s house. They will clamp down and hold it until they get home. But Kathy must do this repeatedly, even though she supposedly can’t reach her bunghole. Why doesn’t she just hold it or make some excuse to leave?
Even if she did do it, why wouldn’t she just slip the towel into her purse and take it home with her? No one would ever know.
It would be easy to discover who the culprit is if you simply go to the wash room after each guest goes and check.
Not a difficult mystery to solve at all.
Everyone should save them and then mail them to her.
Yes, but then how would you know that the person doing the checking didn’t plant the towel? It’s possible that one of these ladies is trying to soil Kathy’s reputation.
You need to buy a spy camera to catch the offender in the act-
If it is my bathroom I know that before the get together there are no shitty towles.
Guests arrive.
Ann goes to bathroom.
After Ann goes, Zebra goes and checks. No shitty towles.
Then Babara goes, Zebra goes again and checks. No shitty towles.
Then Kathy goes. Zebra goes again and there is the shitty towel.
Kathy is the mad wiper.
I ask Ann and Babara if they expierence the same thing and they do.
You know, I think I’d take every stitch of linen, terrycloth, shower curtain, whatever out of there and leave dozens of rolls of toilet paper in their place. Leave so many that they look like a bunch of Tibetan prayer wheels. Even pull out the damn carpet so she won’t be dragging her ass across the floor.
I agree, it’s very difficult to believe. But I assure you, it’s true. I don’t know for certain how the rest of the gang came to the conclusion that it is ‘Kathy’ that is soiling the bath towels. I think I heard MIL mention something about ‘Kathy’ visiting another friend’s house without the rest of the group, then that friend mentioning towel soiling to MIL who then remembered a similar instance after the group had visited MIL. Discussion amongst the other group members ensued and they all revealed similar dicoveries after ‘Kathy’ had been visiting.
They are a group of very large individuals. None of them exercise particularly good hygene, (Please take note, I am not making generalizations about large people. I am describing this particular group only) and although I don’t know any of them very well, if they are anything like MIL, they shit a lot, sometimes have trouble controlling it, and seemingly have no shame - they will drop a deuce wherever and whenever the need arises.
The “can’t reach the basement” theory is just that, a theory. It is pure speculation on the part of the group. There is no hard evidence that this is actually the case.
‘Kathy’ is an odd person in many ways. She eats dinner at 2:00 a.m. (yes, a.m.) every night. She doesn’t work so she sleeps most of the day. Her husband supports her, but he lives in another city (only 90 minutes away) during the week, and only comes home on the ocassional weekend. She’s very well taken care of financially - big house, nice cars, etc. - but I imagine, very lonely.
As some of you have speculated, I’m guessing some sort of mental disorder is leading her to this behavior.
My WAG is this: a lot of people, including many morbidly obese people, live alone, and over a perod of time develop their own way of doing things. This usually shows in things like table manners or personal hygiene. I’ve seen people in restaurants who obviously don’t know about public table manners. This woman probably has gotten into the habit of doing this over a long period of time, doesn’t think anything of it, and has lost the distinction between her at-home manners and her guest-manners.
And there’s probably a degree of mental dysfunction as well.
Hey I think that Kathy must be mentally ill, but I would like to share a story about my friend. My friend who used to work at Fred’s Dollar Store used to hate his boss. So frequently he would piss all over her office chair and on her office carpet. Man that dude was sick. It must have stunk in there bad.
This sounds like pretty nerotic behavior, there is probably a good psychological reason for it (which I’d love to hear). My cat does something similar when he gets mad at me, he’ll poop outside the litter box on purpose. Did she get in a fight with anyone else there recently? Some bad feelings maybe? Confronting her would probably result in a heated denial and possibly affect her relationship with the accuser.
Regarding the people who expressed disbelief that a person would have trouble reaching their backside, believe it or not, it is a fairly common problem for the obese. It’s not necessarily just the sheer girth of the person. If you have a bad back or stiff joints, it can make it hard to reach far enough to wipe yourself even if you’re not extremely large.
Still, even with such problems, there is no excuse for using people’s towels like this. IF NOTHING ELSE, she could step in the shower and use the shower head to clean herself.
I’d say when you have to to check your bathroom towels for shit stains after your friends visit, it’s time to get new friends.
The more I think about this, the more I believe that this woman needs to be confronted. And I think it should be done by her friends, who care about her.
(See, this is one of those threads where we will never know how it turns out…like Heloise’s thread about the moocher relative who comes to visit…)
I’m actually wondering about this myself. Are you saying that some people who stay in five star hotels (or for example, you, in this case) ask for extra towels and then use the towels in place of toilet paper because it’s the preferred way for you to wipe your ass? Because it’s more comfortable? Holy GOD if this is true it’s Holiday Inn Express for me from now on.