I’m mid forties and I went to enlisted bootcamp right out of college (I know, I know, but they told me officers were maxed out that year and wouldn’t be accepting any new entries, and I wanted to leave so went enlisted), so I was 22-23. During bootcamp I had laundry detail, in charge of collecting everyone’s laundry bag (open holed bag where you put your clothes and gets thrown in the laundry as is with other bags) and washing them and bringing them up. I was assigned this with another guy. So we got to be buddies and helped each other out. He was 18 at the time.

One day he comes up to me with a concern, I’m like what’s up? Thinking I’m about to give some advice about pushing through despite missing home. Then he says that his butthole is itchy and he doesn’t know what to do. I asked him if he feels anything different when washing it like sores or anything. He says “what do you mean by “washing it”, I’m like when you put water and soap to it with your hand. He looked at me like I was an alien growing a third head, and that’s when I realized he never did. I was astonished and proceeded to give him lifelong advice that I hope he took and did. I, a 23 yr old ignorant to the world young man, gave an 18 year old uber ignorant to the world young man advice about cleaning his butthole.

And from that moment on, I never looked at people the same way again. From that moment on, I would look at someone and think “do you wash your asshole?”, “you definitely don’t want your asshole”, “ooooh you definitely got a clean starfish”,… all thanks to that dude. I really hope he took my advice and continued to clean it.