Things Worth Doing

by Scylla

Yeah, I know I still need to finish the “Bee Stings” thing, but I wrote that back in May while I was moving, and I can’t seem to readopt the mindset. This topic however has been on my mind for quite a while. The other thing is that I’ve been begging our Editor-at-Large, Patrick for some Editorial feedback without avail. This oughtta at least get me an email.

My Life In Poop

I’m surprised at people who express a distaste for bathroom humor. It’s a pretty mundane thing that we all have in common, so I see no problem with the validity of the topic.

They say the unexamined life is not worth living, and I figure it this way: You go to the bathroom and poop once or twice a day, if you’re like me. If you’re also like me, you read a book or take a magazine, or at least think, so it’s not a strictly utilitarian pastime. You probably spend a little more time than necessary. Let’s call it 15 minutes a day spent pooping, urinating, or otherwise excreting (otherwise included for hermaphrodites, and heavy partiers.) Of course there tends to be lots more time spent in the bathroom, but we’ll just focus on this for now.

15 minutes a day is 1% of your life, and it’s 1% we all have in common. Why not examine it?

Considering the alternative, pooping is certainly something worth doing. Sometimes in fact it’s the high point of my day, so I feel vindicated in arguing against any detractors that my time writing this, like my time in the bathroom, is not wasted.

This is my life in poop, and I’m proud of it.

When I was a child I pooped innocently and with abandon. My father has a super 8 film somewhere, taken when I was but a tike of me standing in my crib fingerpainting with the contents of my diaper. Somewhere along the way, I lost that innocence and learned that pooping wherever one is is shameful. From thence on, I endeavored, mostly successfully to only poop when and where it was acceptable.

I imagine that you were little different.

Pooping was different when you are little kid. It comes back to me now from my two year old daughter. Pooping was an event. “Daddy I have to poop!” she exclaims, or “Daddy, I pooped!” said as an accomplishment.

“Good job!” I say enthusiastically, and meaning it. I’m proud of her for her pooping milestones. Every poop not in a diaper or the floor is a good poop as far as I’m concerned.

This just doesn’t go over as well at work as a grownup, though. You walk by the boss’ office and he says “Did you finish that memo?”

“No. But I just pooped!” you answer.

It just doesn’t work.

Somehow we’ve lost the innocence of the childhood poop. It’s almost Adam and Eveish. We’ve somehow been kicked out of the garden of Eden, and for our crimes, we have to toil at the land, have difficulty in childbirth and be ashamed of our poops.

Like everything else, the spontaneity is gone, the sheer joy, and now we strive for regularity. In our quest for conformity and scheduling we even take dietary supplements to further regulate what should be a joyful bodily function.

My wife is another example. We met in 1988. From 1990 onward, we lived together continuously. For the first nine years of our life together, if I had been sworn in a court of law, I could have testified truthfully that to the best of my knowledge my darling wife had never pooped or passed gas.

Without really thinking about it, I guess this somehow made my wife superior. She was this angelic creature for above such base things. Of course this all changed when she got pregnant, and then she pooped and farted like a longshoreman living on beer and beans. I guess she tried to hide it from me for sometime, and I can still remember that first time we sat on the couch together, and I felt a faint vibration come from my wife that sure as hell wasn’t the baby kicking. She looked at me sheepishly, and a moment later the odor came to me, that odor that only a very pregnant woman can make.

After that there were no illusions, and no efforts from my wife to hide bodily functions. I guess this was a good thing.

The best pooper I ever knew was my childhood friend Kevin. We worked together as camp Counselors in the stables, and once a day or so, Kevin would declare euphemistically that he had to go “pinch a loaf.” He’d then walk down to one of the boys’ cabins, borrow a comic book (the best bathroom material ever,) and make use of the restroom.

He’d do this with great style, grunting and pounding the wall with his fists in his enthusiasm. As he excreted audibly he’d narrate: “Oh Yeah!” or “Damn, that felt good!” or “Did you hear that?” So mighty were his craps that sometimes he’d have to flush halfway through for fear that their volume was such they’d lift him off the toilet. Inevitably when he was finished, the cabin would be rendered uninhabitable for the smell. While many would have considered this a mark of shame, Kevin simply considered it a job well done, and proof of his manly virility.

Those were the days, and I guess I was no hack in the crapping department myself.

Still another childhood memory was of my father. My father, an admirable man in many respects was nonetheless a poor pooper. For him it was a morning thing before getting on the bus to go to work. It had to be done then, because it was a long bus ride, followed by a walk, a subway ride and another walk with nowhere to poop but for the Port Authority Bus Station public restrooms in NYC, a possibility daunting enough to constipate even the most stalwart and carefree pooper. Furthermore my father has always been a drinking man, a smoker, and a partaker of questionable nutrition due to the fact that he lost every one of his teeth in Vietnam, and had uncomfortable dentures.

My father referred to his experience as “starting the day with a bowl of soup” and it was a fearsome thing for a child to witness. My brother and I would be waiting patiently to use the bathroom before going to school while grunts of stoic distress and grim determination emanated from within accompanied by the occasional watery splat.

I had heard that war had changed my father, but not remembering before he left, I could only guess that this was the result. Never did I doubt the “war is hell,” euphemism or question the “Stink of desperation,” said to pervade the battlefield.

While I never did have to go to war, I leaned the hard truth of adulthood; that all poops are not pleasant.

Fortunately as a father, I embraced a new conservatism, worked out regularly, and started to eat well. I don’t drink much, and found that I’ve regained the lovely and innocent poops of my youth, avoiding my father’s grim fate for the most part.

All blessings are also curses though, and most notable of these as a father is my daughter’s desire to be involved in everything I do. By disposition, I am still a private pooper, preferring a good book and my own company for these moments.

My wife and daughter feel differently though. My daughter just lately, but for my wife, moments when I pooped presented an opportunity. These were the times she could ask me the hard questions and know that I was trapped, that there was nowhere I could go. While I pooped, my wife had me cornered and knew I’d promise anything to be left alone.

My daughter on the other hand, simply wants to be involved.

“Daddy? What you doing in there?”

“I’m pooping.”

“Let me in.”

“Go away.”

“But Daddy….” And I could feel the real hurt and rejection in her voice, the lack of understanding. Didn’t I love her? Didn’t I want to be with her? Worse yet, she’d complain to Mommy.

“Daddystinks is pooping. He won’t let me in!” She’d accuse.

“Oh just let her in!” My wife would yell. “Can’t you see you’re rejecting her and hurting her feelings?”

So nowadays I just let her in, and she shares in my pooping experience. It’s something we do together, father and daughter.

“What you doing?”

“I’m still pooping?”

“Does it stink?”

“Yup.”

“Are you pooping?”

“Shhh! Quiet. I’m concentrating.”

“Ok.”

And somehow this is worse than when she talks. Her watching me intently and listening carefully, because no matter how quiet I tried to be, eventually there would be the sound of escaping gas, or a splash, and my daughter would smile and laugh.

“Daddy, you pooping!” she’d exclaim.

“Yeah. I am.”

“Good job, Daddy. Good job. You poop so good!”

I guess that’s something.