>> Speaker A: How sweet looking your crapper shrine was would determine how horst faced your child was. Welcome back to privy. Privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded from my home bathroom. I'm your host, hunter hoover, and I like bathrooms. Um, it's an affinity, really. Uh, uh, ah, I would say m more time. I'm saying my average is pretty high. Uh, I'm going to tell you up front. Um, welcome back. Uh, first of all, let's get that out of the way. Uh, I just want to address that.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that people are less interested in the weekly bathroom checkup of how randy my whole situation has been for the week. Um, and so we're going to try to tailor that. We're going to really try to rein that in a bit. But I will tell you up front, uh, there's going to be a little couple of randier stories, uh, heading your way. Just wanting to let you know that I'm, uh, finally going to bear my, uh, I've teased you long enough. The month of may has been one long
tease. And so I want to really let this pay off in its own way. Uh, so we'll get to that. Um, but I don't know if other people, and I've seen, uh, this notion and this word thrown around on the Internet of the idea of creatives. Now, I don't fancy myself a quote unquote creative. Um, heavens knows there's not a lot of creative sitting on your toilet in your jammies presently, uh, with a can of unopened polar silster, just staring at you, wondering at what point you're going to grip and rip it.
But there's something to say. Like, if you've undertaken a somewhat creative project, I have had some people discover that creative project. This, you're listening to it. Think of this as one big social experiment. Uh, but I have had people discover what I am doing here in the last couple of weeks, and the conversations are always great. Uh, it usually leads with, do you make a show about toilets? Um, and I usually have to say, well, no, it's about
bathrooms in general. We are not just limiting ourselves to the toilet here. And then there's this other, like, there is some folks who, when, when they hear about what we're doing, um, they are met with just, like, opinions that discussing bathrooms and toilets and poop on a podcast in a somewhat public manner is crass,
that it should not be done. So here's the thing. Uh, yes, it can be crass, but have you ever spun around and checked out what's going on back there because it's pretty crass and everybody does it. But I'm going to do, again, like I said, I'm going to do less discussing my whole weekly sitch, um, because I think I'm not confident people need that. If I have something outstanding to share with you, I will be sure to do that. Trust me on that.
I'm going to go ahead and take a moment right now, before we get into the formal bathrooms of the episode. I need to take a moment and just rant about GameStop. So here's my problem with GameStop. First of all, uh, so, oh, my gosh, what direction do I run at this pig? So, number one, GameStop is they sell a lot more than video games nowadays. And one of the things that they have kind of become halfway okay at stocking
are Pokemon trading cards. And one of the things that's happening is if you go to your local Gamestop, they often have a fully stocked Pokemon card section, whereas if you go to your local target or other store of that caliber, you're going to find that there are very little, if totally sold out. And so it begs a question, well, what's going on? So I went into my local gamestop, uh, this week here in Albany, Oregon, totally, uh, wanting to dunk on this gamestop. At
this point, I'm over it. Um, GameStop, Albany, if you're listening, figure it. Uh, so I go in and you get a five. If you're a paying member of GameStop's cult rewards program. It, uh, is a cult because you have to pay to be a part of it. But, um, as a member, you get $5 a month to spend on whatever you want. And in the glory days, I would go into my local gamestop, and I could get a pretty rad pack of Pokemon cards. Um, but Pokemon cards have gone up. So this week I
went into GameStop Pokemon. The Pokemon company released a new. It essentially comes with two packs, a coin and, like, a little sticker sheet. Uh, and this little bundle is usually $10. Like, you are essentially paying full retail price for two packs of cards and getting the coin, the tin, and the sticker sheet for free. And so I go into GameStop, and I have a $5 bill in pocket and a $5 rewards coupon. And I ask the bloke, can I get one of those? And he rings it up, and he
tells me it's 1499. And I'm like, well, that just cannot be. And he says, yes, it's 1499. And I go, uh, okay, well, I will actually not take that, then, to which I walked out of GameStop, got on the Pokemon trading, or, uh, uh, uh, the Pokemon center website to look and see what Pokemon's retail value of this card tin is, and it was 999. So I don't know where GameStop gets off charging an extra $5 over the Pokemon company themselves, but know your place.
Stay, uh, in your lane. Why don't you sell Mario video games or something? But my other grievance with GameStop is, as of the point of this recording, um, we are about two days in on the release of Tears of the kingdom, and I went to the pre release to pick the game up so my son could play it. The day it came out, the way our lives are structured, this is how he was going to play it. Um, but in order to get this game, you had to go into the store and preorder it. Check.
Um, and then the afternoon prior to the pre release, on the day before, you had to go in within this three hour window of time. And if you're a working person, this can be a maneuver, uh, to do, but you have to go in and you have to have them verify that you did preorder your game. Uh, and so then they print you a new receipt, and then you have to go back for the actual pre release, like, 3 hours after you went and got your receipt checked, to have them then check the new
receipt and give you the game. And if you're hearing this and you're thinking, this is too much effort. Yes, but it's the hoops they make you jump through. I think they make it difficult on purpose to try to weed out the people who are willing to go through with this. But I digress. That's my short little tirade against GameStop. I'm just kind of over it. I'm just over it. But this week on privy, if there's anything that. Yeah, this week on privy, we're going to discuss something that's kind of.
It's a little weird. Um, and I'm gonna pad this as we get into it, but this week on privy, we're going to be discussing bathroom deities, specifically toilet, quote unquote gods. Let's go ahead at the top of the topic here. Go ahead and let this get this grip and rip. Let's get that in there for the. Ooh, my goodness. That orange vanilla. Polar seltzer. Polar seltzer. Consider this free endorsement in advertising.
Uh, you all just making good seltzer. Um, I also looked up polar seltzer this week or last week, maybe. Um, these dudes have been making seltzer for like, a bajillion years. It's good stuff. Um, if you're one of these lacroix children, uh, you need to grow up and drink polar Seltzer. That's my official claim. Um, but this week we're talking about bathroom deities. And something that I have come to understand is people will believe in and follow
all sorts of things in their lives. Like, they will have all sorts of sayings and mantras and aphorisms that they tell themselves to get themselves through life. Last week, uh, at the time of this recording, it was about two weeks ago, the cult of Star wars had their big day. And there are people who actually believe and follow the stuff, uh, of Star wars as a religion. And we talked about Star wars bathrooms last week or last year. If you want to go see that, you can go look up the Star
wars bathroom episode. But there's people who actually follow Star wars as a religion. I think they are weirdos. Um, and maybe that's rude, but have you ever seen Star wars? Now, this is not a religion podcast. I have noted in the past, I work for a church. Um, I do youth ministry and young adults ministry through our church. And this, as a result, a lot of my thinking is wrapped up both in toilets and in theological matters. Um, but this is not a religion podcast.
Uh, and I know I work at a church and make a podcast about bathrooms, I know, but things that are religious or religious affiliated capture my attention. They interest me. And so this episode started, as so many privy episodes did, with a strange trip down Joe Byron's Google and the search features it provides. Now, I was poking around in the world of toilets, and by world of toilets, I mean the Wikipedia page for toilets. Uh, there's a lot of good info there. There's
a lot of good rabbit trails and leads. Um, but I was poking around there, and something came up, and that is that there is a number of deities, things that have been worshipped by other cultures. And these gods, or whatever you want to call them, um, um, they have a vested interest in what we need to talk about here. Uh, so many of what we're going to, these bathroom gods are often under the category of what is called a household
God or a household idol. Now, in cultures and circles that believe in this, they have an idol or a thing, um, that oversee your household. And in some cases, they oversee specific areas of the household or certain aspects of our lives. I think of ancient deities that were called the blank God, the sun God, the, um, cat. I don't know. You know what I'm saying, though. That's the God of pickled pig's feet. There's got to be one. Um, I didn't look that up, but I really hope there is.
I bet he's stinky. Uh, but some of these, though, they're weird. They don't really interest us here, like so many of these deities. Uh, whatever, the romans. However, I'm going to note a few of these weird ones. So the romans had a goddess of door hinges, and another was the God of mile posts. There's gods of eating dirt. One is described as a hippopotamus faced God.
And I know this is going to sound like a cop out and almost a workaround, but you need to believe me when I say if people have interacted with something, there is probably someone out there who has tried to or has succeeded in worshipping that thing. We're pretty smart as humans. For goodness sakes, we have a flying spaghetti monster. And now I know that was kind of made as a joke, sort of, but, like, guess what? If that's the case, I say I'll make my jokes.
The Greeks leaned into this fact that there was a God for every matter, so much so that they had a God of miscellaneous m, or as it is better known, the unknown God. This they would pay tribute to in case there was a God they hadn't figured out yet. Good thing, too. Um, the way people interact with their phones, little did they know the number of times I have seen a teenager just be so addicted to their phone in the last
week. I'm talking full on adults unable to function socially and in society because they worship this stupid electric box. I have had teens frothing at the mouth because they're not allowed to use their screen. Literally froth, coming out of their mouth. I got to stop before the old man's soapbox rant gets out of hand. I really got to rein this one in. But for real, people have pretty much figured out how to worship all sorts of
nonsense. And for our purposes, some of those gods found their way into the bathroom. And there are a number of categories here. And the first is just the general bathroom God. Now, there is a segment of household deities that significant, I should note here. I don't believe in any of this. Um, I think a lot of these are just, like, superstitions, um, that we have strapped a face to, like, a carving and called it a day. Um, but you know what? It's my show and then
take it up with me. These bathroom deities have also been called toilet gods or latrine deities. They're usually small statues and they are usually worshipped by people for some reason, to usually grant health, well being, and on some occasions, fertility, because bathrooms are related to being yeoli. Fertile myrtles. That's an unfortunate name. If your name's Myrtle, I'm sorry, um, I'm not talking about you, but, like, fertile just rhymes so well with myrtle. Maybe that's why they call
it Myrtle Beach. I don't know. Many ancient cultures made a connection between taking a fat deuce and well being in know. I should have asked Jason when he was on. He's a know when he's dropping a jumbo stack. Does he just get the feeling he'll have a great harvest? Like, makes a guy wonder. Next time I'm ferociously grunting out a log, I'm going to be thinking about every farmer as they plow their field. There's been very many toilet deities.
The Romans kick things off with Sturquillinus, the God of manure. Imagine drawing that short straw of all the things you could be in charge of or like, have power from or over manure. Good one. One. An ancient roman sewer goddess called cloacina, which is a name that comes from the latin word for sewer, which was coloaca. Hear that, birds? You got sewer down there. We know what you got
going on. But this cloacina could have been referred to an etruscan borrowed deity or was possibly another means by addressing the quotes goddess Venus, in a sense that it evoked another nature or role. So they got themselves a roman sewer God. Nice. Roman myth says that Titus Tatius built a shrine to this fake God in his toilet. Now, I can't imagine that made using the toilet any easier, but he didn't seem too worried about,
like, could you imagine? You put it in the like, you're not going to be able to go there. The Romans were also said to have a God of flatulence. That's hoity toity for farting. And it should be noted, this fart idol, Crepidus, was likely created as a satire to poke fun at all the crazy things they made idols into. Ah. And I must note, I like the spirit of like. If you have a God of manure, it is reasonably equally easy to perceive that you would have a God of
ripping a beefer. In the areas of Japan, humans would harvest their waste to be used as fertilizer and or feed for the old fellas out back, we'll get to pig's thighs one day. But this God is often called the kawayakami. Japanese toilets, as a result, were often much more dangerous than toilets in other parts of the world because they often emptied down into a big trough or latrine where they would feed these animals or could go
into other uses. Um, japanese toilets then had the real danger, like, you could actually fall into the cesspit and get stuck and die or fall to and get sick. And so this meant that in their culture, you needed to ask a bathroom buddy to protect you when bumping a brownie out. The japanese toilet deity has been depicted a number of ways, but often a shrine is built around an appointed toilet, which would be
decorated. The status of this toilet shrine thing was said to determine who horse faced how. Okay, so if you built a really nice looking shrine and you were pregnant and you had a child, or if you bumped uglies, if you will, and were going to have a child, how sweet looking your crapper shrine was would determine how horse faced your child was, meaning the sweeter the shrine, the more Gerber baby face your child was.
The japanese toilet deity has been depicted a number of ways, but often the shrine is built around an appointed toilet. Uh, some japanese cultures depict him as a blind man holding a spear in the toilet. Now, that is not what you want. That is no place to put a spear. That spear is going to do bad things. But they have this superstition because this deity is said to do this. When you enter a bathroom, you are to clear your throat so that way the blind guy can get the spear out of the way.
It would seem to me it would be more wise to just don't put the spear there at all. This deity had names all throughout Japan, including Sechin san in Hiroshima. And in some place, I can't pronounce the deity or the place it came from. Um, but it's got a bunch of names. That's what you need to know. In Korea, they have the young lady of the toilet called. I'm. Listen, you know me and foreign languages. Um, I'm having a good day when I can tackle ye oldie American English.
You toss these weird flipping words at me and I'm going to fumble them every time. That's a football term, by the way. But chukshin was said to be a perverse deity and is usually celebrated in October. Looking at you, Halloween. The Maori people of New Zealand had deities which did focus on the village latrine. It was believed that if you bit, yes, bit with your face, bones, teeth. The latrine structure would receive revival from sickness, faintness, and fatigue. If you are sick,
you're not feeling well, you have a tum tum problem. You're feeling extra weak and tired. Go chew on the toilet. That was the solution in this. What a world. What's Tony doing? Well, he's licking the toilet. Uh, cold. Yeah, he's been out there his third time this week. Who ref break. Wonder why he's not feeling any better. Uh, similarly, in China, they have the Mao goo, or
lady of the latrine. The legend goes, this spirit, I don't know, whatever, was abused and died and as a result was later worshipped by women by way of this weird doll idol thing. I don't know. Outside the continent of Asia, the indigenous canadian people, the Inu, have a farting God called the machishkapew. That sounds like what you would say to someone when they fart. Machishkapew. The toot guy is even
more powerful than all the. Than their caribou master in their lore, having cursed him with constipation and then curing him of it when the caribou were provided to the people. Some of these InU people claim that this farting deity speaks to them through farts, and they have elders, or in the past have had elders who have been called on to interpret their farts. If you're listening to this, and if you are someone who believes that they can interpret farts, please email me.
I am willing to provide audio samples for you. That's all I'm going to say about that. Another, a babylonian idol named Shed Bethakise is a toilet demon who gives anyone epilepsy if they have sexual relations too close to the bathrooms. And so, yeah, that's fake. Um, and so we're actually going to stop there because what I'm finding is there is a litany of these bad guys, but we're going to visit toilet demons at another time. Stay tuned.
But I have to note in some cases of these quote unquote gods, they were a complete fabrication, and it still sounds like something someone could have pursued. There's a lot of nonsense that people worship. Like, what is this one bloke doing with his spear in the toilet? It is going to full yoink someone up the backside. Stop it. I'm just going to say it. I don't think you need to store sharp weapons in the bathroom, but, like, happy pooping everyone.
In fact, I think it's time I catch y'all up it's time for hunter's anecdotes to keep you afloat. At the beginning of the month, May 2023 of our lord, I teased that I had used the bathroom somewhere, and it was not my home. And I. And I must confess, um, not only was it not my home, it was not. What happened was the young adults had a young adult college group had a, um, event, and we went to this splatter box here in Albany. We got just totally sullied with paint. Um, but after getting
totally sullied with paint, we were going to go out to dinner. The problem is, much of this paint is very wet, and we are not going to be able to sit on their booths or any of their structures without causing a severe problem with this paint. And so what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And we all decided, hey, the church has showers. We're going to go over and shower off at the church and then go to dinner. And so that is
just what we did. Um, and so we go over to the church, and, uh, I was first up on the shower, and I got in, and I must confess, and call this a sin, if you will. Um, but I must confess, the urge to purge hit me. And normally, I can't stress, I was not alone. I was alone in the shower, but I was not alone in the bathroom. And I think in a normal circumstance, I would have done the super wet drip across the bathroom to the toilet, been wet on the toilet and gone. I think I would have done
that. Um, but for circumstances that are outside of many people's understanding. Um, so, again, there was two young adult guys. Uh, I'm not, like, Nard shy, but I'm also not looking to dribble wet dingleberries all over the bathroom while the two young adult guys are in there. Like, I just don't need to do that if I can avoid it. The other thing is, there was a teenage youth group staying at the church at the time, and now they were not in the building, they were at their conference, but
they were still using the facilities. And, um, because we are tight on time, if I get out, I'm either going to have to completely dry off and then come back and restart this, or I'm going to have to just spread water all over the church bathroom in order to get from point A to point b. Or the third option, which is what I did, you could perform a waffle stomp in the church bathroom, uh, in the church shower.
And so that is what I did. Um, I'm here to report, I, I did a, I did a waffle stomp in the, in the church shower and it was all clean, it was all cleaned up, it was taken care of. Um, it was the best, it was the best, uh, way for me to handle the situation in the moment. Um, but I must confess, it did happen this second story, so that, you know, I teased that. And here we are, we all learned something about each other today, right?
But this other story and this one's going to have some photographic and videographic evidence. So a hot minute ago, uh, one of fellow friend of the show and former guest Jude Domini, uh, sent me this video of a man who had consumed dragon fruit. And in the video, the guy eats a dragon fruit, a yellow dragon fruit, and then he's like riding his bike and he like pertineer crashes and has to tear into a porta potty where he just totally voids his whole system. And it's rough sounding.
Mhm. And so naturally I see this video and like everybody on the planet, my first thought is, well, my goodness, I have to get dragon fruit in my tummy. And so Malad purchased, uh, me a dragon fruit, uh, and she sliced it up real nice, prepared it, and I ate this dragon fruit in under three minutes. I gobbled it right down. And after I did, I kind of had just like just the most ongoing anxiety as I dread, like, when is this
going to hit me? What will I be doing when my bowels decide to totally void themselves? 1 hour ticks by, 2 hours ticks by and I'm paying a lot of attention to my tummy and I'm like, man, I don't know, it feels fine. I mean, I feel okay. 3 hours, 4 hours go by and at this point I'm like, usually I've already pooped anyway. Like, I'm averaging three to six poops a day. So like, you tell me. And I ate this dragon fruit and it didn't do a gosh darn thing. It didn't do anything. Nothing.
And so I said to myself, well, maybe the problem wasn't the dragon fruit, maybe it was the volume, the amount of dragon fruit. So my wife goes back to the store, purchases, two yellow dragon fruits, and this time I'm going in and I'm pretty skeptical. Like, I'm thinking, okay, I already did this dance once. Nothing happened. Uh, it's going to be fine. And so I gobbled down two yellow dragon fruit, which that is a feat in itself. That's a lot of fruit to eat, by the way. It's a delicious
flavor. Very, um, sweet. Uh, I'm a big fan. If they weren't so expensive, I would eat dragon fruit on the regular. Um, but I gobbled down these two dragons. I gobbled down, like, $6 worth of dragon fruit in under five minutes. And I kind of just waited. And almost on the dot, an hour and a half later, my bowels dunk on me so hard. We're walking in target, and I'm like, I am in trouble. And I tried to explain it to my wife,
but it just felt like there was just. It felt like my entire butt and everything in my stomach was filled with liquid. And, um, we had to make another stop. So I'm, like, driving and trying to pinch not a loaf, but stop the dam, and we go to hunco to get some more groceries, and I beeline it to the toilet. Like, we got to get there. And round one happens. And I'm here to tell you that in the course of the next 2 hours, I went to the bathroom five times. And at the peak, at the climax.
Climax of all of this, it's just liquid. It's just liquid with seeds in it. And I know that's a crass picture to paint, but I'm here to tell you, if you're backed up, get yourself a couple yellow dragon fruits. It will polish you right off. Like, it'll do the job. Um, it was the most scared I've been of pooping my pants in some time. Wowza. This has been, uh, Hunter's anecdotes to keep you afloat. And this brings us to the end of another episode of Privy. Thanks for joining us. Um, as
always, follow us on social media. We're at privycast. Leave us a rating and review. The five star options are preferred, and a dollar for each rating is donated to the wounded warriors project, reminding, um, you to keep pooping in the free world. But the free world was not always free. Send us an email, privycast@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you. Episode suggestions. Say hi. Um, make silly art. I've got some
listener art that I need to share. Um, shout out to Roxanne for the very cool, uh, art that is going to be. Either have already been shared or will be shared soon. Um, we would like to thank Kevin McLeod and Pottington bear for the use of their music this week. Thanks, Kevin and Pottington. This is another episode of Privy. Thanks so much for joining us. Wash your butthole. And as always, don't forget to flush.