The above meme got me thinking…..

My wife has a motto “Poop is Poop”. She can deal with shit all day long, literally – she is a wound and ostomy nurse.

Pooping is a fact of life.  So why are so many of us embarrassed to own the function when we’re in a public restroom?  Come on.  Everyone knows there are only a limited number of activities you could be conducting in there. Imagine a world where you don’t have to pull an abdominal muscle because you were taming that turd until you were certain all the feet under the neighboring stalls had finally vacated.

Do we really care that a total stranger, whom we will probably never see again, might deduce that we’re taking a shit in the very receptacle designed for the task?  It’s absurd really.  But we’ve all been there, consumed by the fear that a restroom witness will see us again, and maybe he’ll be behind the other side of a desk interviewing us for our next job, and he won’t give us the job because he knows what disgusting things our ass is capable of.  Enough already.  Let’s just drop the charade.  And while we’re at it, we should also agree to reign in the snickering when we find ourselves in the role of public poop witness.

I myself am guilty of public-pooping-shame-games.  When I haven’t been lucky enough to find the solace of an empty public restroom, I’ve gotten creative.   I have timed the release of a violent fart with the flushing of another toilet in the line of stalls.  Diarrhea rumblings have been stifled by high-powered hand dryers.  The single plop of a regular poop has been masked by my own coughing, even though that same cough might pinch the loaf prematurely and prompt a do-over.

The next time you find yourself in one stall in a line of many occupied stalls, just let loose and see what happens.  I found myself in that situation a few weeks ago after indulging in one too many helpings of refried beans.  I did what a lot of us who find their ass ‘cocked and fully loaded’ would do.  Wait.  And I did wait until all the stalls were empty except for one.  After several painful minutes, it became apparent that urine was not on the agenda for either party.  I decided to stop holding it in and let it rip.  The Mexican Stand-off was over.  Turns out the other guy had been playing the same warped version of shit-chicken, and I wondered if he also had sweat dripping from his nose and running down the back of his shirt.

We proceeded to shit with all the fervor of people who thought there wasn’t a soul in a ten-mile radius.  It was a glorious duet.

And so it should be for all of us.