Oh, most definitely. But it also qualifies as “I won’t being doing work for PETA anytime soon.”

Maybe there is a lesson in all this discussion (besides how many ways - polite and otherwise - you can say horse excretion), that creativity isn’t always pretty. Or fragrant, for that matter. Hey, waste ‘matter’ that’s another term!

To put it somewhat politely, the fecal matter “spirals” out of the horse’s rear end.

And what did the horse get for his contribution? Put inside an Elmer’s Glue bottle, I’d suspect.

And, after all this barn yard toilet talk, I’m just a little disappointed that no one pointed out the connection between the headline of this post “What’s behind the idea?” and the visual.  Unless that’s where HighJive’s hole discussion began.  Make that whole discussion.

“Giddy up, Elmer, before they make glue otta’ ya.”

Think about the orange caps on Elmer’s Glue bottles. What would have led anyone to invent something so odd—both simple and complex? From what I recall, the inventor was trying to figure a way to control the flow of goopy liquid. While riding in a horse-drawn carriage, he noticed the way horseshit was expelled from a horse’s butthole. I’m not a horse expert, so I can’t describe the action accurately. But whatever he saw, it led him to design the glue bottle cap.

It’s just like the guy who invented Velcro, where something from nature inspires an “original” device.

I have tried to do a google search to confirm this tale, but to no avail. Surely some other lunatic has heard this explanation before.

Recently. we conceived a story idea for our insurance policyholder magazine about the trend in upscale bathrooms and the insurance implications of this. We were refining the concept (headline/imagery/angle) and connected it with the TV show “Pimp My Ride” — an extreme makeover for cars.

This led to “Pimp My Potty.” Now we’re not going to use “pimp” in our insurance magazine, which led to a suggestion from one of our young fashionistas on staff: “Primp My Potty.”

Loved it! Moved it along. But, alas, it got shot down by some bigger armor due to the word “potty.” Of course, we were devastated. We went back to the drawing board … “Beyond Your Beautiful Bath” (ugh) …. “Lush Lav” (the last time I heard “lav” was in grade school) but it led to our new headline “Plush Flush.” Cha-ching.

I still love “Primp My Potty” — but agree it’s a bit out of character for our publication. It did however, serve a further purpose — giving a boost to the contributions of a younger staffer.

My partner at the time, Jeff Griffith, and I were charged with coming up with a new campaign. The one caveat was that it HAD to incorporate children’s crayon drawings (thus the “Houdini Solution” situation).

We had little time, and that demand wasn’t easy to get past. But one day I was just thumbing through an old Ibid stock photo book, and came across a page that had been partially torn out (damn art directors). It was of a little girl with a face that could melt Bill Belichick’s heart. But the borrom of the page, where her legs would have been, was ripped out.

One of the medical conditions we were suppossed to address was a spinal problem that eventually leads to a kid’s inability to walk.

Add a crayon drawing of her bottom torso and legs under that half-photo (I was elected because my drawing ability was deemed most childlike), and the beginning of a very successful campaign was underway.

Yeah, it won a lot of awards. But what I’m most proud of is that magazines and newspapers were so enthralled with the ads, they offered to run them for free.

To this day, the “Sometimes I dream that I can walk” ad is framed and hanging in the hospital.