The Poopers
A few years ago, at Little League practice, I was talking to a friend who has almost as many sons as I do when he suddenly asked, "Do any of your boys do really gross stuff?"
"Well, that depends on what you would consider gross, I guess."
"Well, for instance,” he continued, “my oldest son can make himself fart any old time he wants, and his brother is always encouraging him to do it at the most inappropriate of times."
"Like when?"
"Well, usually when there’s company in the house, because he knows I'm not going to stand up and swat him in front of our guests. It's driving my poor wife nuts."
"That's certainly a unique talent alright. How old is he?"
"He’s eleven."
"Well, I'm afraid it's been my experience that when it comes to really gross stuff, you've still got another couple of years to go. Thirteen seems to be the magic number, although you won't see any dramatic improvement in the hygiene area until they actually get a girlfriend."
"Really?"
"Yeah. They don't start taking showers or brushing their teeth, or changing their underwear on a regular basis until a young lady starts to show a little interest in them. But most of the really annoying bathroom humor seems to start dying out around thirteen."
"So, at least there's light at the end of the tunnel?" he asked me. I nodded my head `yes'. "I sure hope so," he said. "This farting thing is the most disgusting behavior I can imagine."
Actually, I thought to myself with a smile, it's not even in the ballpark. At least you haven't had to live through `the poopers'.
As the Rockies continued to practice, I started to recall some of those long-ago days when for a couple of years, everything in my house seemed to revolve around what came to be known as `the poopers'. It all started out when one of my son's underwear kept disappearing. No matter how often my wife replaced them with new ones, his underwear drawer seemed to be empty. Then I started to notice that every couple of weeks, the toilet would get all backed up and require some serious work with the plunger. The real tipoff, however, was that from time to time, my six-year-old son would spend days laying around the house looking as pale and lifeless as death itself.
"Are you sick?" I would ask him.
"No," he would swear, too tired to even move off the couch.
He would always perk up in a few days, so I tried not to worry about it.
Then one day, some of the missing underwear began to show up. Each pair looked like he had had a little accident in them, and they were turning up in the strangest places, behind bookcases, on the top of closet shelves, in the bottom of old flower vases, even in the inside of my wife's guitar.
"We need to have a little talk, son," I finally said one day.
"What about?"
"Well, your mom and I keep finding your underwear all over the house. Why don't you just throw them in the dirty clothes? Is there a problem?"
"I don't like going to the bathroom, Dad," he reluctantly admitted.
"What?"
"I don't like, you know, that feeling."
"What feeling?"
"You know, that feeling when the poop starts coming out."
"But son," I said, "everybody has to go to the bathroom. It's not optional. You can't just keep storing it up."
"Why not?"
"Because it will make you sick, plus when you finally do go, it's so big it's clogging up the toilet."
"I'm sorry, Dad, but I just don't like that feeling."
After consulting a doctor, I learned that not wanting to go to the bathroom because it doesn't feel good actually has a name, although I've forgotten it after all these years, and that sooner or later, most youngsters simply out-grow it. So, for longer than I care to remember, my son cost us a small fortune in new underwear and kept me busy with the dreaded plunger.
Then one long awaited morning, he marched out of the bathroom with a big smile on his face and proudly announced, "Dad, that one really felt pretty darn good!"
It's funny the things a parent can remember with fondness, but the day that `the poopers' faded into history is right up there at the top of my list.
