I take great comfort in statistics that bespeak the relative cleanliness of toilet seats. Therefore, I will not catch an embarrassing disease from public bathrooms.

My dog's name is Molly, therefore I have pickles between my toes.

I hate clowns, therefore you are in space.

No, no, [chuckle, chuckle] I'm not crazy. These seemingly irrational ...

... truths do make sense when seen through the lens of Dilly Wugums.

What?! You haven't heard of Dilly Wugums?! Well, let me tell you ... !

First off, Dilly Wugums is not a man. Nor is she a woman, but he might be. See, I thought so.

Second off, Dilly Wugums was her given name.

When Dilly Wugums come to town, clowns cry. Why? Because not even the notorious Silly Socks could be as irrational as Dilly Wugums and make people believe in him. When Dilly Wugums comes to town, people just don't give a bat's mucous plug about what actually makes sense and what doesn't.

Several statements that came to my ears recently make me suspicious that perhaps Dilly Wugums has come to my town, and maybe even brought along a clown just to be sure.

Some people would be disturbed by statistics that show how clean or unclean something is compared to a toilet seat -- especially a public one, or even a public toilet seat. There are two reasons why: (1) there are those who are disturbed because they really thought the inside of their mouths were cleaner than a public toiliet seat, and therefore are disturbed to discover they might be better off licking the toilet seat at the local Huddle House rather than their own teeth. (2) there are those who are disturbed because they didn't realize that toilet seats were dirty at all.

I, on the other hand, am comforted by the fact that public toilet seats are not the festering petri dishes we once imagined. Why do toilet seats not bother me like other people? I suspect it has to do with the fact that I actually use them. Now that may not seem like much, but recall, I am not a woman, and that makes all the difference here.

When Dilly Wugums used the ladies' and mens' rooms at the local McDonalds in July of 1998, everyone in town lined up behind old Doc Gonoria's (no, you creepy freak, I didn't mispell gonorrhea) to peek through the window of his little office to get a peek at Dilly Wugums' butt. Oh, yeah, it was raw -- at least that is what I heard. When Doc Gonoria carried the samples around to his little lab, the people followed around the outside of the building and peeked in there, and sure enough, that rash was caused by something in the samples.

Whew! You can imagine the stink that caused!

Oh, and womens' rooms have those nifty toilet seat covers, whereas for some reason it is generally believed that men don't sit on toilet seats and therefore don't require seat covers. So men attempt to balance shreds of cheap public toilet tissue around the toilet seat. Men must hold their breaths (well, "men" is plural) so as not to blow off the tissue by accident and then must sit vertically down upon said seat so as not to shift the paper in the process of lowering themselves into position. Alternately, men can take the much riskier "bare seat but hover" approach and poop into space. Finally, men have the option of living like Indiana Jones and just risk pressing the buttocks directly onto the cold, hard ... uh ... whatever toilet seats are made of ... stuff.

Regardless of the preferred technique, simply placing disposable toilet seat covers in mens' rooms would make either approach more bearable (pun intended).

Now here is the thing, Dilly Wugums said, "I don't feel comfortable using public toilet seats because they are dirty, so normally I wouldn't, therefore, I could not have caught this rash from the seat."

I daresay, even though I fully understand the power of Dilly Wugums, even I am tempted to believe her rationalization -- that's just how powerful he is.

But everyone else in town looked at each other (that took a while) and nodded their heads, mumbling words of agreement.

And so Huddle House, in my town at least, did not lose its public restroom permit.

Two days ago my wife said, "I bought you this clearance bowling shirt to bring out your inner bowler."

Yesterday, someone said, "I argue for Obama not because I agree with him, but because so many other people do not."

Today, a woman said, "I will be happy in heaven, and because I am saved and could not be happy in heaven if my son was not, my son must be saved."

What puppy caca!

That's all like saying, "I am happy because I am not hungry, therefore you are not hungry either." When really, I'm hungry enough to sloppy some glazed roaches between obese gay clowns in a steamy roman bath.

It's one of those years when people are like that. Be careful what you hear out there. At best there are bunch of clowns wandering about. At worst, Dilly Wugums herself is in your neighborhood. Regardless, the spin on the truth to rationalize selfishness drips around you like rain in a tsunami. Don't buy in -- just keep returning to basics, the fundamental simplicity of right and wrong.

And in case you need it spelled out for you: "If it kills babies, it is bad. If it saves babies, it is good."