mrs potato head ass

so we're interviewing doulas, which is a weird thing. basically we're looking for a woman to watch my wife be naked and scream at me. good times. how does a woman choose another woman, a stranger, that she feels comfortable letting rub her all over and coo into her laboring ears as she plots the ultraviolent castration of her husband? and how does the husband sit idly by and watch his naked, panting, sweating wife getting rubbed down without feeling funny (not feeling funny as in "ha-ha funny" but feeling funny as in that "climbing-the-rope-in-gym-class funny")?

more importantly, we were talking to a prospective doula last night, the one who i suspect we will ultimately hire, and she hits us with this nugget of wisdom: it is very common for women to get painful hemorrhoids (or piles or, as i like to call them, speed bumps) while laboring, as this very counterintuitively titled "family fun" web site comfirms. the cure? grate a raw potato and PUT IT ON YOUR ANUS.

let me repeat. actual words out of her actual mouth: "blah blah raw potato blah grate it blah blah blah and put it on your anus." we were both sitting there after she said this as if strangers come into our house every day and tell us to insert raw legumes into our rectum. "ah, on the anus, you say? interesting little tip." like this was something out of martha stewart living (at least, pre-prison martha stewart). thank god i didn't make eye contact with mrs nice guy because we both would have lost our tiny minds.

so yeah, that happened. um. also? by the way: whaaa? the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK? on any other blog on this whole crazy interweb a story about inviting to my house a total stranger--a total stranger who we will pay to see my wife naked and in pain--who tells us to grind raw grated potato around mrs nice guy's ass, would probably be heading in a verrrrry different kind of only-legal-in-2-states direction. but no. this is about babies and birthing.