SO YOU ARE TELLING ME THERE STILL IS A CHANCE??

I am making a statement here about my character - yes, I have watched Dumb and Dumber and I really liked it - alot.  Even my "less redneck" wife has watched it and thoroughly enjoyed it.   I have never had problems laughing so hard that I thought I could not breathe and would pass out - until I watched the toilet scene in that movie.  It reminded me of a toilet scene of my own in Fortaleza, Brazil.

I was about 6 months into my Brazilian portion of the mission and over at the Bishop's house.  We had just sat down for dinner when nature called.  I asked where the toilet was and split - this was post nearly dying of the dreaded gombu and anything would set me off in a panicky attack of explosive diarrhea.  The house was modest - and not all walls in the house had dividers that went all the way to the ceiling - partly to save money on construction materials and also to aid in ventilating the open gabled portion of the house in the tropical heat and humidity of a city that sported banana trees in most back yards.  The bathroom and wall the toilet was on was directly behind the dining room table - where I had just been sitting with three other people on that side of the table.

Sooooo....., I had the painful chore of releasing all gastrointestinal hell in a slow, time-released manner while trying not to attract too much attention 12" away as the crow flies and 8' away as the methane floats.....  No bathroom fans, no white noise to save me and no texturing on concrete walls to help dissipate noise.  That place was a perfect echo chamber that Bose would have been proud of - and no spray to cover the stench while people were trying to gag down their dinner....  I really wasn't in too much of a panic (lets face it - everyone gets used to rotting smells in the tropics) until I looked over at the toilet paper hanger and noticed we were fresh out....  Yup - I was going to have to ask for something akin to crisp turkey skin to wipe my posterior - the paper down there was made from what I am not sure - but lets just say it was not Charmin.  Thankfully, the head of the house, noting that I had been in there for a long time, asked if I needed help.  I told him that there was no paper.  He was a sharp guy and I was kind of dumb or uninitiated at that juncture.  He pointed out that the second "toilet" could be used to clean my butt in lieu of the expensive paper.  I think he must have been a stingy engineer and figured that the cost of the toilet + water could be amortized over its natural life and could pay for many rolls of paper.  He did not count on me - the stinky gringo from el norte.  So, I was given instructions over the wall in proper bidet usage.  There are no toilet seats on those things so you have to use your upper leg muscles to squat.  Who knew??  And no wonder those Brazilians can make a goal from the 50 yard line.  If you have a bad case - you develop some serious quads that no amount of time in the gym can make up.  Well, I was still weak from losing 35 pounds in 7 days on the bad meat miracle diet and I could not quite get her back far enough to get it done.  Now there are some physics involved here.  Most homes in Brazil have a 200-500 gallon "caxa de agua" (water box) on the peak of the roof gable - about 4' above the gable peak and that provides enough pressure that when the rolling blackouts hit that neighborhood and the water pumps go down for the afternoon, you still have water pressure.  Actually a great idea that we are incorporating into our garden for passive water heating using an old 250 gallon heating oil tank on a tall stand (doesn't shock the plants as much as water out of the well) as well as good for trickle irrigating, and maybe one day into our house if we ever have to hand pump from the well after this country falls apart:

 https://www.google.com/search?q=awesome+survival+deep+well+pump&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox  .

So, the physics of the thing was that water, if released from a column only has to overcome minor pipe friction (head loss) and some minor effects of gravity and will largely return to the height it came from when released through a nozzle of smaller diameter than the inlet pipe.  The next principle has to do with angle of incidence which is the angle at which light or a fluid will be redirected at when bounced off a surface that its not normal to.  In this case, the angle of incidence was about half the pitch of the roof, which was perfect to re-direct that stream of partially contaminated bidet water and butt particulate onto the middle of the table.  Yup - I managed a fine spray all over everything.  Of course, people were excited and asked me if I was okay and I was then directed to lean further back and finish the task.  Most of the time I was in Brazil, I was in a state of perpetual sunburn - but I am quite sure I was in a slightly pinker hue when I emerged from that smelly echo chamber.

So - when seeing Dumb and Dumber, I was taken back to that fun day in Brazil and also to the first time I used my "wife to be's" bathroom in Campus Plaza apartment, just south of campus and noticed the poopie list on the door in front of the toilet.  After reading through it and just about popping a vein on the pooper while trying stay quiet and dignified, I knew this was the girl for me....

The second part of Dumb and Dumber I could relate to was when Lloyd asked the cute redhead if he thought there was still a chance that they could go out.  In my dating years, I never made it past 1 in 100 odds - I was too cautious to ever go above those long-shots.  Here is the clip, if you haven't seen it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCFB2akLh4s

 So, why all the background??  There is still a one-in-a-million chance Romney could still steal this thing out from under Obama.  Hope springs eternal!  And I still have not figured out what will cause the prophecies of the Saints being driven from city to city - far worse than what occurred in the Missouri/Nauvoo years unless the economy collapses under a Mormon prez's watch or this gay marriage thing explodes.  Here is the article that gives me a dumb and even dumber hope in the impossible:

http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/eligibility-challenge-returns-to-haunt-florida/