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Anyone for a poop daiquiri? | page 1, 2

As soon as they hit London, they caught a nasty flu bug and spent the next four days in our bathroom, voiding their systems of all solids, liquids and gases. In between trips to the WC, they amused Gus with descriptions of the occurrences therein. "I couldn't tell which end it was going to come out of," one crowed. "First, it was going up, then it was coming down, then it was going up ..." -- that sort of thing. I tried, I really tried, with hand signals as I couldn't speak for laughing, to discourage this. They responded by showing him how to make the house reverberate with faux-farts by putting the heels of his hands together, pressing them to his mouth and blowing. "He's a natural," they observed, awe-struck, as if this were an Olympic sport to which he could aspire.

That occurred 1995-ish. Things are now completely out of hand. My son loves to hear how, in infancy, his diaper-filling sounded like someone operating a cappuccino machine. His appreciation of opera is being shaped, or distorted, by my impersonation of Pavarotti singing the chorus from that late '90s classic, "I Sing the Song of Gas." Kid mealtimes, featuring Gus' best friend from next door, are nothing short of gas fests. What often starts with something as simple as one of them muttering the word "gas," progresses through a rain of belches and gales of laughter. And if they're really lucky, one of them farts.

How did I come to be this way? Was it nature or nurture that sent me, from an early age, into fits at the sight of the word "toilet," or had me rolling on the floor at the thought that a girl could be named "Fanny?" Half of my relatives do not think bathroom humor is funny. Period. They are too grown up and genuinely dignified. But that other half, well, you just say "wet ones" around these people (especially at that crucible of all great bathroom humor: the dinner table) and that's it, meal's over until everyone stops choking and recovers themselves.

My sweet mother gently tried to convince my brother and me that cracking poop jokes was not acceptable behavior (especially at the dinner table). But my father was incorrigible. He just couldn't help himself and frequently started it (especially at the dinner table). The result: I am an obvious choice for gifts like coprolite (fossilized dinosaur poop).

But I don't want to change. Having these bathroom sensibilities has given me more than my fair share of belly laughs. When things are bleak, I know I can always crack myself up by remembering the time I farted in front of my best friend's entire family. This was no ordinary fluff. I'd fallen asleep on the couch as we all watched TV after dinner. My gasser was so loud and long-winded it woke me up. Thirty years later, the memory of this ripper can still reduce to me tears.

No, I'm not proud of finding this sort of thing funny. And I'm not recommending it. But it's a quirk that has its advantages. I am not, for instance, the least bit squeamish about the body or its functions, mine or anybody else's. So, while you may say that I have failed my son, I am inclined to look on the bright side: We could have a budding proctologist in the family.
salon.com | Oct. 14, 1999

 

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About the writer
Carol Hall is a freelance writer living in New York state.

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