Pee Post ™: The Legacy

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Pee Post ™ stood before me in all its yellow glory, a beacon of light in a dark age of sex, drugs, and dogs who pee impulsively. It cast its subtle spell over Petsmart's aisle 11, wedged unceremoniously between sacks of kitty litter and one charming bird feeder with “protect your seed from squirrels!” on the front.

The fundamental allure was more than alliterative. Pee Post ™’s appeal was not merely in its brightly colored box, or even in the large plastic stake that looked like it belonged on an episode of Buffy For Toddlers. The raw potency of Pee Post ™ was something else, something bigger, something lurking behind the mystical beauty of the letters “TM.”

Eager for a closer look, I found the instructions on the back of the box. They touched me so deeply that I copied them down. They read:

Remove Pee Post ™ from its package. Place it in a quiet and grassy area by pushing it into the ground. Once Pee Post ™ is in the ground, bring your pet back outside, preferably after eating or drinking. Lead your pet to Pee Post ™ and let him sniff the area. With great enthusiasm, praise him when he performs. If he does not perform, do not scold him, but continue to bring him back to Pee Post ™ whenever you anticipate he may need “to go.” Continue this process until your pet consistently eliminates next to Pee Post ™.

There are so many magnificent things about these instructions. Some of them are uplifting, while others stir my very soul. The flexibility of the word “perform” is troubling. Pee Post ™ inventors obviously assume that most shrewd people will understand what the word “perform” means. In fact the whole article is filled with euphemistic ways of saying “poop.” They seem to have no problem with the word “pee:” after all, their clever title hinges on it. But the act of pooping demands nicer, more culturally acceptable expressions like “perform” and “eliminate.”

The social politeness of Pee Post ™ has left me in a quandary. In a few weeks I’ll be going to see a show in which several of my friends are the actors.
Should I tell them “good performance” after the show? Pee Post ™ has altered my perceptions of performance to such a degree that I no longer feel comfortable casually tossing that word around. Maybe every time someone uses a variation of the word “perform,” the shrewder members of society cluck their teeth and try to banish images of feces from their mind. Sentences like “She’s a really great performer” and “I love to watch when he performs” have now taken on a more sinister meaning. My resume currently lists “performance” under my special skills and interests. Does this label me as some kind of sick pervert? No wonder I haven’t been getting calls for jobs.

I also enjoy the unquestioned supremacy of Pee Post ™ . There is no the Pee Post ™” or a Pee Post ™. Pee Post ™ has apparently become such a worldwide phenomenon that it no longer requires an article. “The” or “a” seem obsolete in the Era of Pee Post ™. Does God require a “the”? Does Jesus? Only in The Big Lebowski.

In my opinion, this distinction puts Pee Post ™ on the level of Facebook. Once, before the days of photo albums, graffiti, and the honesty box, and long before you could throw sheep, there was thefacebook.com. But now Facebook, in its colossal monopoly over the world, requires no modifiers. It hardly requires a www. The fact that Microsoft Word’s built-in dictionary does not accept “Facebook” is pure blasphemy. When will technology catch up with itself?

In the wake of Pee Post ™, soon all kinds of articles will be eliminated (and I actually mean eliminated, not pooped out). Imagine a kind of newspeak in which conversations go something like this:

“Honey, did you fix Television?”

“Called Repair Man, Jerry. He’s coming to look at Computer, too.”

“Tell me you at least walked Dog.”

“Oops—got caught up in Children. Thank god for Pee Post ™!”

And so forth.

I am left with one unalienable truth: Pee Post ™ is more than an accessory. It is far more significant than a post where dogs learn to pee. It is a revolution. Linguistically, spiritually, urinarily. It is social change in a (pee)post. Its siren song promises a better tomorrow for the lost, the hungry, and those who speak with articles. It is a testament to the creative use of plastic and trademarks in this wondrous modern world.

I now anticipate I may need “to go.”