These Stories Are Real Loo-Loo's

Talk about your disposable tales: A horror story was printed on toilet paper in Japan:

In a country where ghosts are traditionally believed to hide in the loo, a Japanese company is advertising a new literary experience — a horror story printed on toilet paper.

Each roll carries several copies of a new nine-chapter novella written by Koji Suzuki, the Japanese author of the horror story "Ring," which has been made into movies in both Japan and Hollywood.

"Drop," set in a public restroom, takes up about three feet (90 centimeters) of a roll and can be read in just a few minutes, according to the manufacturer, Hayashi Paper.

The company promotes the toilet paper, which will sell for 210 yen ($2.20) a roll, as "a horror experience in the toilet."

Toilets in Japan were traditionally tucked away in a dark corner of the house due to religious beliefs. Parents would tease children that a hairy hand might pull them down into the dark pool below.

A dark hand pulling you into a dark pool full of...eeewwww! That is scary. And gross.

If you don't like the story on the toilet paper, well, you know what to do with it.

But real life can be scarier, as this man in Taiwan found out when a snake bit his private parts.

A man in Taiwan was rushed to hospital this week after he was bitten on the penis by a snake possibly mistaking the man’s tackle for a rodent.

The China Times has reported that the man sat on the toilet at his rural home and suddenly felt a stabbing pain in his genital gland. The pain was described as “knife-like”.

The 51 year old man was taken to Puli Christian Hospital where he is being treated for “minor injuries” to his reproductive organ. A spokesman for the hospital said he will be allowed home after the lack of infection is confirmed.

Local television showed pictures of a black and yellow snake being lifted from the toilet bowl, experts say it is a type of non-venomous rat snake, also known as a Taiwanese beauty snake.

It's not flattering to have someone write about your "tackle" as having been mistaken for a "rodent". No, no, no. Talk about rubbing salt on wounds.

And then there is this story I heard recently, a 2009 summer story about a husband and wife who went on holiday to a resort that will remain unnamed. The resort is near the water, and that's the only clue I'll give. Anyway, early one morning, the woman awoke ahead of her husband and proceeded to the bathroom to relieve herself. Groggy still, she sat down. I don't know what it was that made her look down into the bowl; maybe it was the unexpected click and clack of something hard tapping on the porcelain. In any case she jumped up quickly, never mind that she was in mid-relief (mid-stream? Sorry, I couldn't resist), because there was a huge crab in the bowl, just underneath her behind.

Story goes, her scream was heard ten rooms away.

See? Real life can be scarier.