As you are aware if you follow international events, over the past year I have written a number (two) of columns about the worldwide epidemic of snakes in toilets. As a result I have received many letters from people who have had personal toilet-snake encounters, to the point where I now consider it newsworthy when somebody reports NOT finding a snake in a toilet.

But now I am getting nervous. I say this because of a recent alarming incident wherein a woman, attempting to use her commode, was attacked in an intimate place—specifically, Gwinnett County, Georgia—by a squirrel. I have here an article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, written by Gail Hagans and sent in by a number of alert readers. The headline—a textbook example of clear journalism—states: Squirrel somehow makes way into commode, scratches Gwinnett woman’s behind. I am not making this headline up.

The woman is quoted as follows: “I went to the bathroom and lifted the lid and sat down. That’s when I felt something scratching my behind.”

So, following the recommended “Jump, Slam, Call, and Tell” emergency procedure, she jumped up, slammed the lid down, called her husband at work, and told him to come home immediately, which he of course did. We may live in an age of gender equality, but men have a protective instinct that dates back millions of years, to when they would have had to defend their mates from such vicious predators as the saber-toothed tiger and the mastodon (toilets were much bigger in those days).

Unfortunately, by the time the husband got home, the squirrel had drowned, forcing us to once again ask WHEN the failed Clinton administration will demand that ALL commodes be equipped with tiny life preservers. But that is not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is that the squirrel apparently got into the plumbing system via a roof vent, which means that if you, like so many people, have a roof, your toilet is vulnerable to any organism with a long, narrow body, including (but not limited to) otters, weasels, dachshunds, squids, and international fashion models with only one name, such as Iman.

But that is by no means the only major toilet development. There is also the Mystery Toilet in Texas that produces ballpoint pens. I am not making this up, either. According to a story in the Wichita Falls (Texas) Times/Record News, written by Steve Clements and sent in by several alert readers, a man named David Garza of Henrietta, Texas, has fished 75 Paper Mate ballpoint pens out of his toilet over the past two years, sometimes as many as five pens per day. Garza has no idea where they’re coming from, and neither do the local sewer authorities.

The story was accompanied by a photograph of Garza sitting on the bathtub next to the Mystery Toilet, holding a pen, looking like a successful angler. I called him immediately. “What’s the status of the toilet” I asked.

“It’s still a mystery,” he said. He said he hadn’t found any new pens since the newspaper story, but that he has become something of a celebrity. This is understandable. People naturally gravitate to a man who has a Mystery Toilet.

“Everywhere I go,” he said, “people say to me, ‘Have you got a pen?’”

I asked him if the pens still write, and he said they do.

“Paper Mate ought to make a commercial out of this,” he said. “The slogan could be, ‘We come from all over and write anywhere.’ You know, like Coca-Cola, ‘It’s there when you need it.’”

Actually, I don’t think that’s Coca-Cola’s slogan. But Garza’s statement got me to thinking about a possible breakthrough TV commercial wherein an athlete is standing in the locker room, sweating, thirsty as heck, and the toilet gurgles, and up pops a nice refreshing can of Coke. Yum! A commercial like that might be exactly what Coca-Cola needs to counteract all the free media attention Pepsi got recently with the syringe thing.

But the question is: Why are Paper Mate pens showing up in this toilet? There’s only one logical explanation—I’m sure you thought of it—alien beings. David Garza’s toilet is apparently connected to some kind of intergalactic sewage warp, through which aliens are trying to establish communication by sending Paper Mate pens (which are for sale everywhere). Probably they want us to write down our phone number on a piece of Charmin and flush it back to them.

Speaking of toilets and communication, you need to know about a TV-review column from the Daily Yomiuru, an English-language newspaper published in Japan. The column, sent in by alert reader Chris Graillat, states that there’s a children’s TV show in Japan called “Ugo Ugo Ruga,” which features—I am still not making this up—an animated character with heavy eyebrows called Dr. Purl Purl (Dr. Stinky), a piece of talking excrement that keeps popping up from the toilet bowl to express strange platitudes only an adult can fathom.

You’re thinking: “Hey! Sounds like Henry Kissinger!”

No, seriously, you’re thinking that there are indeed some scary worldwide developments occurring in toilets, and the international authorities had better do something about it. And then they’d better wash their hands.

Recently, I received a letter from a justice of the United States Supreme Court concerning a product called Beano.

I absolutely swear I am not making this up. The letter, written on official U.S. Supreme Court stationary, comes from Justice John Paul Stevens, who states:

“Having long been concerned about the problem of exploding cows, it seemed imperative to pass on to you the enclosed advertisement, the importance of which I am sure will be immediately apparent to you.” Justice Stevens enclosed an advertisement from Cooking Light magazine for Beano, which, according to the manufacturer, “prevents the gas from beans.” The advertisement includes pro-Beano quotations from various recognized intestinal-gas authorities, including (I am still not making this up) the New York Times, the Idaho Statesman, and Regis Philbin. The advertisement calls Beano “a scientific and social breakthrough,” and states: “It’s time to spill the Beano.”

I was already aware of this product. I don’t wish to toot my own horn, so to speak, but thanks to the efforts of hundreds of alert readers, my office happens to be the World Clearinghouse for information relating to gas buildups that cause explosions in animals, plants, plumbing, humans, etc. In recent months I’ve received newspaper reports of explosions involving a flounder, a marshmallow, a mattress, two wine bottles, several pacemakers (during cremation), countless toilets, a flaming cocktail called a “harbor light,” chicken livers, snail eggs, a turkey, a tube of Poppin’ Fresh biscuits, a raccoon, and a set of breast implants.

So needless to say, many readers had already alerted me about Beano. Several of them had sent me actual samples of Beano, which comes in a small plastic bottle, from which you squirt drops onto your food. But until I got Justice Stevens’s letter, I had not realized that this was a matter of concern in the highest levels of government. When you see the Supreme Court justices, they always appear to be extremely solemn, if not actually deceased. It never occurs to you that, under those robes, they have digestive systems, too. But they do, as can be seen by a careful reading of the transcript of a recent court hearing:

CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST: Is the court to understand, then, that the counsel’s interpretation of the statute is ... All right! Who sliced the Limburger? (He glares at the other justices.)

JUSTICE SCALIA: Well, I am not naming names, but I happened to be glancing at the liberal wing of the court, and I definitely saw some robes billow, if you catch my drift.