Malian Butt Kettles

As mentioned in a much earlier blog post, I ended up at a colorful hostel in Paris with several roommates. I’ve already written about one, Mrs. Iceland, but there are many others—Oliver whose sign of respect is eating things, two Brazilians—Talita and her lover, whose named sounded suspiciously like Guano--who seemed to be attempting to set a record for the loudest public sex in the filthiest place (the hostel), and a naked Italian man who would periodically show up in the room despite not being a guest of the hostel or a guest of any of the hostel guests. On my last morning I woke up to find that this morning the part of all of my roommates would be played by four absolutely enormous Asian men.

But today I want to talk to you about Mackenzie*.

Mackenzie was from Napa Valley—a California girl like me, though she was from up north, in wine country. I don’t remember too much what she looked like. She had freckles, but the weird kind that you don’t really notice until you get up close and then you’re like, “WHOOAAAAAAA! YOUR ENTIRE FACE IS FRECKLES!” I know she was sort of petite and had a sort of farm girl quality about her, like you wouldn’t be surprised if she interrupted your conversation with the phrase, “Oh, excuse me for a moment, I just have to go plow the fields, be right back” except she disappointingly never said that.

Like many Americans at small liberal arts colleges, Mackenzie had spent her junior year abroad. After living in Mali for several months, she was taking a vacation in Paris before heading back home. She was thrilled to talk about Mali, and we were thrilled to listen.  Heck, I don’t know anything about Mali. Tell me about the culture! The music! The people! The politics! The food! Come to think of it, I have no idea where the hell Mali is, so maybe also show me where it is on a map…

If Mrs Iceland talked way too much about all aspects of Iceland, Mackenzie spoke exclusively of ONE aspect of Mali:

Butt hygiene.

Yes, in all the fascinating things I assume you could say about Mali (I don’t know for sure, since I still only know about how they clean their asses there), this girl was passionate about the way that the people of Mali apparently use what she dubbed “butt kettles” to clean up after themselves after using the toilet.

To be fair, it’s an interesting thought, and I’m glad she mentioned it. However, the existence of this particular form of butt-washing warrants a couple of David Attenborough-style observations, maybe a few jokes. It does not, as Mackenzie decided it did, warrant an evening-long enthusiastic campaign for us all to adopt the Mali butt kettle system. Noticed by any NORMAL person, this peculiar cultural detail would not have sparked the complete denunciation of toilet paper, as it did in Mackenzie, who raged against toilet paper with the sort of indignation that you might expect from victims of genocide.

I honestly thought she was going to start crying when she spoke of the liberation she felt the first time she switched from Charmin to Butt Kettle. I suppose everyone has something they’re passionate about. For some people it’s gay rights, or animal rights, or abortion, or gun control or whatever. I guess for Mackenzie it’s the abolition of toilet paper.

I often thought about her during my first month of being back in the US, when I was going through my own reverse culture shock. Mine was mostly about realizing that I can no longer make a joke about ____ or ____ anymore. That every story of anything that happened in either where I lived or at school required about 10 minutes of explaining how things work in England. Discovering that if the words “Church of England” come out of my mouth one more time then someone needs to just euthanize me.

But at least I didn't acquire a love of butt kettles while in England. I thought of Mackenzie. Oh man though, Mackenzie, HAVE FUN with that reverse culture shock.

The Church of the Holy Dodger Dog

As I sat in Dodger Stadium, watching thousands of people stream onto the outfield to “recommit themselves to Christ,” it suddenly occurred to me that this was an ideal moment to get up and get myself a Dodger Dog. The concession lines would probably be empty, because for the first time in about three hours those in the stands were forced to choose between getting a third helping of nachos and getting born again.

I know for a fact I wasn’t the only one thinking about food at the moment. The second I entered Dodger Stadium the first thing I noticed was a sea of people carrying what looked like shipping containers filled with nachos to their families. Once I sat down, after wading through puddles of peanut shells, I noticed that everyone around me had a crate of hotdogs in their laps. As I looked around half expecting to find a man shouting that he has Cracker Jacks for sale, I noticed the pile of peanut shells rapidly growing into a flood of Noachian proportions.

Still though, even though the worshippers were eating enough food to feed a sizeable nation, I was willing to give religion at Dodger Stadium a chance. Truth be told, I couldn’t help fantasizing what it would have been like if I had showed up with a baseball glove and a Dodger t-shirt, wandering around the stands looking really confused. Would there be a seventh inning stretch? But, really, I gave it a shot.  I laughed off the fact that we were bouncing a beach ball around the stands, and I brushed off the fact that one Christian lady cussed out her fellow Christians for dropping the ball when it came to continuing The Wave.

But then came the prayer. Some pastor took to the stage to lead some generic “just” prayer, and the stadium reverently bowed its heads. At this point I noticed that, yes, people had bowed their heads. But some, and a fair few, continued to stuff food in their mouths…while keeping their heads bowed in prayer.

How do you pray and eat at the same time? Am I just spectacularly uncoordinated that I think this would prove difficult? If nothing else it seems disrespectful. “Dear Lord, SNARF we just want to GARRR thank you for just GULP giving us today and just HAAMMM just making us URGH all that we just are….”

Looking around at people bowing their heads and closing their eyes in reverence while shoveling Dodger Dogs into their mouths was perhaps the highlight of my life. It was at this point that I started laughing so hard that I cried.

These are the things I missed this past year in the English Anglo-Catholic world. And how would this year have been different? I imagined a world of seminarians eating nachos while kneeling in prayer. Of half a congregation getting up during the middle of the Creed in Latin to go get another suitcase-sized bag of peanuts. Or of choral evensong in St. Paul’s being interrupted by a fat man in a t-shirt letting out an echoing hearty belch fueled by gallons of non-alcoholic beer.

But no. it could never happen in England, and not just the non-alcoholic beer part. This Church at Dodger Stadium is such an American expression of Church—not the fact that it’s a megachurch, not the greasy charisma, not the red/white/blue color scheme, not the jokes about other people’s bad hygiene, but the FOOD.

And you know what, America? This is why we are all fat.  This is a sign of the end times—Americans who bother coming to “church” cannot put their hot dogs or frozen lemonades down for the one minute it takes to say a prayer.

Aw crap though. Now my next visit to a “normal” church is going to feel sorely lacking in Dodger Dogs.