Recently, Mr. Belinkie had the brilliant idea of writing a post about that ubiquitous insult, “douchebag,” but he thought I, being the “resident third wave feminist,” should have the honors.

In reality, I hadn’t really thought much about the word until he asked me to write the post, and I hadn’t thought of it in a feminist perspective until he reminded me how I’ve written myself into the “angry feminist” corner of this blog.  Oh well.

But it brought to mind important questions:

1.    What in the world is a douchebag, literally and figuratively?

2.    Where did the word come from and why is it currently so popular?

3.    Should feminists use the word “douchebag” or not in everyday discourse?

The answers to these burning questions below…

At the best of times, there’s only one toilet on the International Space Station. As of last week, they’re down to zero. I am not making this up. The crewmembers have been reduced to collecting their leavings in plastic bags. (Like a dog! It was as if the shame of it should outlive him.)

Honestly, this should be easier to make fun of than it actually is. It’s a malfunctioning star-toilet for crying out loud! But I’ve been sitting here staring at the keyboard for half an hour, and all I’ve got is:

“In Space, no one can hear you flush. Because you can’t flush. Because the toilet’s broken.”

or: “Aren’t they surrounded on all sides by the most powerful plunger known to man?”

or: “I cannae change the laws of physics, captain! Ye’ll just have to hold it in!”

Which are all pretty weak. I don’t know… something about Astronaut Icecream™? Something about HAL not wanting to open the pod bay doors? Some combination of plumber’s butt, spacesuits, and explosive decompression? Meh.

Oh, wait! Here we go. The real, actual reason that this is happening? A malfunctioning toilet fan. Ahem.

“I guess this time the shit really hit the fan!”

Yeah, that’ll do. I’m not wild about it, but I feel like I can go to bed now.

I’ve seen this commercial a couple of times now, and I can’t get over how deeply, deeply weird the subtext is.

Look, I tend to read too much into commercials. I’m the first to admit that. But sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar, you get me? When an adorable, SOFT puppy is the spokesman for a product that uses softness as a selling point, you don’t have to be Umberto-freaking-Eco to understand that the audience is supposed to conflate the softness of the puppy with the softness of the product.

Now, when you have an ad whose message is that many of the things that come into contact with our (oh so tastefully described) “bottoms” are NOT soft, and you use your spokespuppy as a soft, soothing contrast to the dangerous, bottom-abrading world…

Well. I don’t know what the audience is actually going to think. But I know what the ad is trying to say, what we should think if it works the way it’s supposed to. Which is: “I am totally going to wipe my ass with that dog.”