Today's Substack Topic

It's important.

Before I get to today's important Substack topic, I’d like to, with your permission, toot my own personal horn by noting that my book got reviewed, mostly favorably, in The New York Freaking Times. The reviewer, Mr. Dwight Garner, describes me as, quote, "the LeBron James of exploding toilet humor." To the best of my knowledge, the Times has never applied that description to any other author, and I include Joyce Carol Oates in that statement. It is a title I will claim with pride for the rest of my life and beyond.

Speaking of exploding toilets: Here's a travel tip from a person who has been in nine different airports in the past nine days. Unless you absolutely have to, do NOT enter a men's room in a busy airport during the high-volume morning rush unless you're breathing from a scuba tank, because the atmosphere in there is at least 127 percent farts. I would also strongly urge you not to go into the toilet stalls, but you can't do that anyway because all of them are permanently occupied by what sounds like water buffalo in labor. I don't know what they do to clean those places, but I assume it involves a flamethrower.

And since we're on the topic of my book tour, here’s a:

TOOTHPASTE-SUPPLY UPDATE

In my previous post I noted that I was running low on toothpaste, because I have to transport it in molecular "travel sized" units so it cannot be used to commit acts of terrorism. I am happy to report that a number of generous Substack readers responded to that post by bringing toothpaste to my book events, so now I actually have more toothpaste than I started out with. At this rate I may soon have to purchase additional luggage just for my toothpaste. That's how opposed I am to terrorism.

Also, at my book event in Nashville, one thoughtful reader, suspecting (correctly) that I was running low on clean underwear, brought me this gift:

I stupidly failed to get this reader's name, so let me say here: Thank you, ma'am, whoever you are. You enabled me to go one more day without having attempt some kind of Emergency Field Underwear Resuscitation Technique (EFURT), possibly involving Crest Densify Active Repair toothpaste.

Speaking of Nashville: A professional driver named Renee, who drove me from the airport to my hotel, told me that Nashville is the World Headquarters of bachelorette parties. It's a major industry. On any given night there are more future brides vomiting in Nashville than anywhere else on the planet.

Renee said she used to drive bachelorette parties around, but she no longer does.

"By the end of the night you're herding cats," she said. "One's crying, one's dancing on the bar, one's out back with a stranger, one's throwing up. Alcohol is not good for most people."

She said the last time she drove for a bachelorette party, they wanted to go to "Musica," a famous local sculpture featuring large naked figures with their private parts clearly visible. When they got there, the bachelorette partiers all jumped out of the limo, and one of them immediately started throwing up.

"So I'm holding her hair back," said Renee, "and suddenly there's a police spotlight shining on me, and the police officer says 'Are they all with you?' And I look over, and they're climbing on the sculpture, and they're all naked. They are very naked. It is no fun trying to wrestle naked drunk bachelorettes back into the limo."

Renee said she managed to get the women out of there before they got arrested, "but the only one who called to thank me was the one I was holding her hair. And they were law students of all things."

While I was in the airport preparing to leave Nashville, my friend Carl Hiaasen, who is also on book tour for his excellent new novel Fever Beach, texted me, and we had the following exchange, which will give you an insight into the kind of literary topics we professional authors discuss among ourselves (Carl's texts are on the left):

Carl further texted me that the specific type candy he broke his tooth on was a Reese's bar; he said he was going to try to get the tooth repaired in St. Louis. Then we had a brief discussion about our book-tour nutrition regimens:

I got the Cheez-Its from a woman named Sharon (Thanks, Sharon!). So I got toothpaste, food and fresh underwear in Nashville. It's a lovely city, despite the pervasive aroma of bride barf.

No, that's a joke! Ha ha! Or, to quote my new underwear: Ho ho!

OK, one more book-tour-related matter before we get to today's important Substack topic. If you've stayed in hotels recently, you've probably noticed that hotel showers these days all have three bath-product dispensers mounted on the wall. The products are always conditioner, shampoo and shower gel, but their order on the wall varies from hotel to hotel. Sometimes it's shower gel, conditioner, shampoo:

Sometimes it's conditioner, shower gel, shampoo:

Sometimes it's conditioner, shampoo, shower gel:

Sometimes it's shampoo, conditioner, shower gel:

Sometimes there is no way to tell because the manufacturer has elected to put the entire federal tax code in on the bottles in tiny print.

Here is my plea to the hotel industry: PLEASE STANDARDIZE THE ORDER OF THESE PRODUCTS AND LABEL THEM CLEARLY. Some of us cannot read small print without our reading glasses, which we don't generally wear in the shower. Also some of us have been on the road for too long; we’re out here breakfasting on Cheez-Its and wearing Christmas underwear in late May. So mentally we’re not at our best, especially in the morning. We already have enough trouble figuring out your non-intuitive mutant hotel-shower controls. You don't need to make it even more difficult for us by constantly changing the order of the bath products. Twice on this book tour — twice — I found myself attempting to wash my armpits with conditioner. That should never happen. Not in America.

Unfortunately we have run out of space, which means I won't be able to get to today's important Substack topic. So now I'm going to turn the floor over to you paying subscribers. And may I say: You are the LeBron Jameses of subscribers.