T. Herman Zweibel

Publisher Emeritus (photo circa 1911)

In my young days, I could shit like a draft horse. But now, I can only coax a thin, yellowish gruel from my feeble colon, often without warning. Thus, I must be swathed in an oversized diaper at all times.


I am quite content with this arrangement. I am a very old man: The outhouse should come to me, not me to the outhouse! The only thing I mind is the talc. Great thick clouds of it waft about my bedchamber come changing-time. Damn you, Nurse! That stuff doesn't grow on trees, you know!

Anyhow, my latest past-time is sampling the various adult diapers of the world. Currently, I am using a brand called Ever-Dependable Under-Garments, which is manufactured right here in our great Republic. It neither chafes nor restricts, and it does not even require the use of a spring-action fastening pin. Instead, it is secured with an adhesive one can peel from the diaper itself. When worn in contact with the skin and parts, it produces a soothing warmth not unlike that provided by a thick, goose-down quilt.


My only complaint is that the diaper is made of a queer sort of cellophane substance that makes an unworldly crinkling noise. So I have taken to wearing a pantaloon made of ermine about my diaper, which muffles the sound but adds unnecessary bulk. The Ever-Dependable Under-Garment people do good work but should correct this unfortunate defect.

Another diaper I have tried is one made in Finland called Ooovi, or some such ridiculous name. It is also quite satisfactory but is hard to obtain because the Finnish harbors are iced in 10 months out of the year. My manservant Standish telegraphs a factory agent in Helsinki, who sends them across the ice via reindeer-sled to Warsaw, where they are then carried on the Orient Express to the port of Marseilles, then on packet-steamer to New-York, lastly shipped on the private canal to my estate. The journey takes one-and-a-half years and is highly inconvenient.


If asked, I would be more than happy to endorse the Ever-Dependable as my diaper of preference. Of course, I would require an obscenely high fee to do so.

T. Herman Zweibel, the great grandson of Onion founder Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel, was born in 1868, became editor of The Onion at age 20, and persisted in various editorial posts until his launching into space in 2001. Zweibel's name became synonymous with American business success in the 20th century. Many consider him the “Father Of American Journalism,” also the title of his well-known 1943 biography, written by Norman Rombauer.