Obligatory this fuckup happened a few months back, but to be fair I did not realize the extent of the issue until today.

So back in June, as I'm sure you all remember, it had been a few months since any store in my area had been able to stock toilet paper of any kind. This was the kind of thing that was a big deal to most people, but not me. I had a plan. A secret trick up my sleeve that gave me an advantage over everybody else: Amazon. That's right, while these suckers were wrestling over individual rolls like Black Friday shoppers, I would be sipping cocoa on my couch and getting it all delivered right to my door.

Now, I had actually stocked up on TP toward the beginning of the lockdown. However, I did not have any flushable wipes, and I was able to find a box of eight individual packs of Cottonelle Flushable Wipes for a pretty good price. I popped them in my cart, clicked "buy now," and I never had to leave the couch. Win-win, right?

A few weeks, maybe a month, after the wipes arrived and I began using them, I started noticing… a tingle. But not a pleasant tingle, more of an itch. A very very distracting itch. Like, an insanely overwhelmingly frustrating itch that will absolutely not go away unless I sit on the business end of a belt sander. Not something that is easy to deal with when you're standing in line at the bank. I had to fight my hand from instinctively twitching toward my agonizing butthole with every itchy pang, it must have looked like the drugs I had keistered were slipping out.

As luck would have it, right around the time I began experience symptoms, I was laid off due to COVID. My healthcare was employer-provided, and while I now know that they are continuing my coverage for a few more months, the whole layoff was pretty sudden and at the time I had no idea where my healthcare coverage stood. Furthermore, I didn't feel like an itchy asshole was a great reason to go to the hospital during an ongoing pandemic when 1. I don't want to catch COVID; second, I assumed I had just developed some kind of sensitivity to the chemicals in the wipes that would go away on its own; and C. I feel like every doctor in the country has more important things to do right now than look at my asshole. So, rather than seek the advice of a medical professional, I decided to just not do anything about it and hope it would go away. Smart right?

Fast forward to today. Four months after I purchased the wipes. Butthole as itchy as ever. Seriously considering seeking medical help at this point. I wake up in the middle of the night in great discomfort, and check my phone to see the time. 4 AM. I also have an email from Amazon about a recent order I placed. I open the email, and it reads as follows:

Greetings from Amazon.

We have recently learned of a potential safety issue regarding the following product that our records indicate you purchased from Amazon:

Cottonelle FreshFeel Flushable Wet Wipes for Adults, 8 Flip-Top Packs, 42 Wipes per Pack (336 Wipes Total)

Cottonelle has informed us that the product might contain bacterium, Pluralibacter gergoviae, which was detected during product testing. More details, including how to determine if your purchase is impacted and what you should do next can be found in the following notification:

https://www.cottonelle.com/en-us/recallfaq

This was an option I had legitimately never considered until I got this message. The very thing I had purchased to clean bacteria off of my ass had contaminated my ass with bacteria. I feel so betrayed. Also, super gross. Super, super gross. Time to go to the doctor.

TL;DR – Bought flushable wipes so my butt would be clean. Wipes made butt angry. Months later, I find out that the wipes were contaminated with bacteria, and I might as well have been wiping my ass with leaves from the yard, and now I need medical attention. Cool.

EDIT: please for christ's sake don't spend money on reddit awards for my butthole, if you want to make me feel better donate to Jamie Harrison and kick Lindsey Graham the fuck out of the Senate

Also for those concerned, I do now have a bidet attachment, got one a month or so ago. At the time I bought the wipes, due to the societal TP freakout, bidets were out of stock too. Rest assured that no more wipes will be purchased.

DOUBLE EDIT, just to make it super clear for the (relatively small) number of you that still seem to be confused:

• Donald Trump is a fat bald lazy racist bitch.

• He's a stupid loser with no money and no friends.

• He's a gross old welfare queen living off daddy's money and the taxpayer.

• He's too dumb to even be a fascist correctly.

• If you voted for Trump, or you are planning to vote for Trump, fuck you.