Yes, really. I apologize in advance, but, hey, when the thoughts come, I go with it. This is an article about poop. And I don’t mean the deck. You might find that You Can't Handle The Poop! But, if you are a parent or a pet owner or a nurse or a person involved in various other categories of life, you might have had to deal with poop--someone else’s poop. If you haven’t had to do that, then you might want to take a pass on this one.
As a new parent, one of the most shocking tasks is changing diapers. You quickly realize that this little bundle of personhood is completely dependent on you for food and shelter and tenderness and stimulation and cleanliness. It becomes clear that the only way the kid gets clean is if you clean him or her. Sometimes that is an easy task. Sometimes it’s quite jarring. Changing diapers creates a strange mix of emotions, combining disgust with pride that the excretory system is working properly. Commentary ranges from “Ewwww, I’ve gotta hold my nose, that smells so bad,” to “Aww, look at you, you’re pooping.”
When my first born was a tiny baby, I bundled him up for a road trip to my friend’s wedding out of town. I dressed him in a stylish wedding-attending outfit. I planned to spend the afternoon at the wedding, and then return home in the evening. I checked off all the items in the diaper bag as he and I headed off on the adventure. The one crucial mistake I made was forgetting to pack him a change of clothes. Upon arrival, in the parking lot of the wedding location, I realized that my grunting, squirming baby had just had a diaper blowout, the likes of which I had never seen. Poop was covering the back of his head, all the way down to the bottom of his legs and out both sides. Panicked, I started the car and headed off for the first store I could find, running in to purchase cleaning products and a new outfit with the cash in my purse. I had to buy the cheapest outfit in the store. No more styling look.
Another poop story: One day Rob and I walked into the den, and there in the middle of the floor was, what one might call, a turd. Just laying there. We were like, “What is THIS? WHOSE is this?” Suspects included a toddler in diapers, a preschooler, an elementary aged kid, and 2 dogs. Rob and I immediately broke into a precursor of the bear toilet paper commercial (which wouldn’t be broadcast until many years in the future), “You pick it up”, “I’m not picking it up, you pick it up…" Nobody ever ratted anybody out, so we never found out who deposited the Mystery Turd. I hope to this day that it was one of the dogs.
Speaking of dogs…this is the section you might want to skip. One of our sweet, playful dogs had one particularly terrible habit. She was a poop-eater. We tried multiple tactics to discourage her, including adding things to her bowl of dogfood which were reputed to make the poop taste worse. Think about that for a minute. Worse? Nothing worked. As the vet said, some dogs just do that. To make matters worse, she had a sensitive stomach. Ya think? Stop eating poop, and maybe your stomach will settle down!! Before I tell you the next part, I promise that we have cleaned, sanitized, and even changed all the flooring in our house.
Sweet little Jazz, the poop-eating dog, had, from time to time, explosive discharge during the night, so explosive that we practically had to don haz-mat suits to clean it up. When it happened, we could never actually tell if it was a diarrhea related event or a vomit related event because the same stuff was likely to come out of both ends. I mean, it was gross. Really gross. Poor baby. Poor us.
Did you ever step in dog poop, then end up throwing away the shoe because you couldn't get the poop cleaned out of the treads? Did you ever find a surprise in the hall when your elderly cat forgot, or, maybe, refused to acknowledge the litter box? Did you ever? Is it just me?
A long time ago, a co-worker told me a story, which seems appropriate for this article. He and his college-aged friends were enjoying a day on the lake. He was meeting his future wife for the first time. As they boated around the lake, they decided to stop at the marina. It was then that he felt a sudden, intense intestinal cramp which doubled him over. He ran in a hunched over fashion towards the single bathroom at the marina, but it was occupied. He shifted weight back and forth, waiting for the occupant to exit, but he knew that time was running out. With no options left, he ran for the lake, jumped in and navigated himself away from view. It only took a few minutes for him to get relief, clean himself off, and swim back to shore. I guess he was no worse for the wear, because he eventually got the girl, and lived to laugh about the attack.
Which all goes to show: Poop Happens. It’s part of life, the part we don’t usually like to talk about. But, if you think about it, really think about it, we could learn something from poop. I’m not a medical professional, but, from what I understand, the body’s excretory system is designed to get rid of waste and unnecessary materials that might damage or upset the chemical balance of the body. In other words, if you ingest something that your body doesn’t need, it could find itself on the way out of your body via the process of pooping, so as not to derail optimal functioning of the body.
Wouldn’t that be great, if we had a similar process for things other than food? What if, say, we heard something that might upset the balance of our mind. Wouldn’t it be great to have it exit our mind? What if we felt negative emotions, like jealousy, anxiety, fear? Wouldn’t it be great if we could pass those emotions as waste, so that they don’t affect the functioning of our thought process? Wouldn't it be great if anything that might affect us harmfully could be sent straight out into the giant toilet in the sky, to be flushed away, leaving us with healthy emotions, thoughts, and actions? Wouldn't that keep our bodies and our minds functioning well and keep us healthy?
Wouldn’t that be something? And you thought poop was yucky.