Evolution of a Peaceful Poop

Oh how I used to love the man-throne. I loved the comfort of slamming my pants down to the ground, situating my overly white-ass on the porcelain and just knowing for the next 10 minutes (give or take an hour) I was gonna be free of any/all responsibilities, chores, conversations…you name it.

When I was a teenager I was a huge fanatic of dipping (yeah, the sexy tobacco habit where you tuck some Copenhagen awesomeness in your lower lip) and of Mario on Game Boy. I’d sit in the bathroom for close to an hour, dipping and playing Mario.

Oh…I definitely didn’t have to poop…I was just camped out avoiding reality and enjoying every damn minute.

Then came college where the toilet was the only place you had enough time to knock out a solo masturbatory quickie. You sure as hell couldn’t do it with the roommate in the room. Showers were a free-for-all for pranks. If you made it through an entire shower without getting cold water dumped on you, attacked by garbage, or your hot water being cut off…well you were the man. Obviously the showers were no place to try and “take care of business.”

So the shitter became the go-to place to knock one out.

Then you get married…and there’s the first few awkward times where you know you’re about to peel some paint off the walls with colon fumes, but you just can’t do it while the new lady-friend was in the house.

The wifey never had that problem. I remember one of the first nights we first lived together I was walking towards the bathroom to pee and there she was, door open, perched on her throne, reading a magazine, relaxed as hell, and all “I’ll be done in a few more minutes. Can you wait?” like it was nothing. A part of me died that day.

Then we had kids. And I swore, I’d never share a bathroom with my kids. And for a while I didn’t have to…till we moved to the urban life that is Chi-Town. Three bedroom house, one bathroom…and that one bathroom has no lock on the door.

It’s inevitable—whenever I need to do my business, a small, embedded microchip goes off in the kids’ brains and bladders and says “hey little bastards listen…I know you’re all watching SpongeBob and having a good time and stuff, but your dad’s on the shitter. We’re moving into Code Brown mode now kids…get up, go pound that bathroom door like you mean it and make your old man cry!”

I’ll stand at the top of the stairs, “anyone need to use the bathroom.”

“Nope – I’m good dad,” the boy will scream.

“Nnnnooooo!!!,” the daughter will echo.

Two minutes later…at least one of them is doing the “pee pee dance” outside the bathroom door explaining how they’re about to pee themselves and everything within a 10 foot radius.

By the time I’m able to enjoy the solitude of the porcelain gods again I’m pretty damn confident it still won’t be on my own. It’ll be my wife having to lift me, place me on the toilet, then stand their disgustedly tapping her foot and asking “are you done yet?”

And I’ll do my doody duty and remember back to when I was a young buck and hearing her mutter the words “are you done yet?” was for an entirely different reason.

The Negotiator

I called the local police department today to see if they needed a spot filled on their S.W.A.T. team—specifically the role of negotiator. Because holy shit the boy has that down to an art.

Take a small, harmless pack of gummies for instance.

The boy wants gummies. I’m cooking dinner, plan to serve it to the boy in 10 minutes, and therefore I am quick to deny the young heathen his delicious gummies.

I then get hit with, “Ok, but daddy…can I just explain something? See, you packed me gummies in my lunch box for today and I didn’t eat them all, in fact I didn’t even touch them, so then I should still be able to eat them right now cause I didn’t touch them at lunch so can I have them?”

And I look down at the boy and say, “Grayson…for the love of all things Mario Kart…NO!!”

“Yeah, but daddy…can I just say something? They’re really small and won’t take up much room in my belly and I KNOW I’ll eat my dinner so why can’t I just have them now?”

Gripping the spatula with all my might and grinding my teeth to nubs I turn and say, “Grayson…do you see what I’m doing?”

“Yes.”

“What am I doing son?”

“Making food.”

“That’s right. I’m making our dinner. Our dinner Grayson. The bountiful feast we will be shoving into our mouths in less than eight minutes now. You cannot have gummies and if you ask me again, I’ll take each of the gummies and melt them one-by-one right in front of you until they’re a big melty puddle of liquid gummy remains. Kapish?!”

The boy’s head is looking at his feet now as he feels defeat nearing. He realizes he’s got nothing…and he sure as hell doesn’t want to risk the lives of his delicious multi-colored fruit gummy snack because he knows my last statement was anything but a bluff. So he walks out of the kitchen.

But, before I could get halfway through patting myself on the back for a rare victory won without raising my voice against the boy, I see his little red haired head bob right back into the kitchen…only, he’s holding something.

“Hey daddy. What’s for dinner?”

“Stir fry.”

“Oh…sounds good. Hey daddy. I brought you some gummy snacks to have,” he says innocently as he holds out his unopened bag of gummies from his lunch box.

“Sweet! Thanks man,” I say as I grab them from his hand, open them, and empty them all into my mouth at once.

“DADDY!!!!! That was MEAN daddy!!! You knew I wanted those gummies and you ATE them all!!”

I immediately feel the vicious blade from the “worst parent in the world” dagger slide into my gut as I see elephant tears fill the boy’s eyes. I quickly drop to a knee and reveal to him that I faked pounding back the bag of gummies. Then seeing that did nothing to squelch the onslaught of depression and anger towards me I handed him the bag and said, “go down to the basement, kill this bag of gummies, and don’t tell your mother.”

Five minutes later a dim-watted light-bulb above my head spewing sparks and smoke signified that it had finally sunk-in that the little bastard had just made me his bitch. And I knew at that very moment he was sitting in the basement, slowly enjoying his gummies, and marking another notch on his secret score sheet for himself.

Grayson 137     Daddy 0