Poop

Anthony is out of town this week, so he updated a column from 2009.

I loved the aroma of my sons’ breastfed poop, a delightful surprise. When they started on solid food, it turned to crap.

I’ve performed thousands of cleanups, but for only a few people, mostly my sons. The other three were guests at our house. I take hosting very seriously. Willie, a friend of my 3-year-old Joe, sent Joe to enlist me as his bum-wiper during one of his visits. I complied.

When the same thing happened with one of Ade’s friends, it felt like a different story because she was a little girl, even though she had a turd maybe eight inches long protruding from her sphincter. Her slightly older sister had fetched me and waited confidently at my elbow.

I thought about how there are people who would have me find a woman to handle this, even if I had to ask a neighbor lady. Some would damn me for getting involved at all. I should know better than even to expose myself to misinterpretation by touching her like that, and with her sister right there being traumatized along with her.

What would the little girl’s mother say? “He was what?” What about the local prosecutor? I thought about all that, and then I broke off the turd, which would’ve scared any 4-year-old, and cleaned her up. I did it because it needed doing, it was something I could accomplish, and the neighbor lady and I didn’t have that kind of relationship. Defying the prudes was a bonus.

The last houseguest who needed my special service was my mother. After a year and a half of an independent apartment, a senior building, and a hellish nursing home, she was back at our house until we could find a place that was both decent and willing to work with her SSI and little pension. Meanwhile, at our house, she sat by a window most of the time, which makes perfect sense to me now. That’s what I’m gonna do.

My mother called me from the hall. When I got there, I saw the runny brown glops on her legs and got ready to grow up. She tried to laugh it off, although I’m sure she was mortified.

I scooped up the poop and got her into the tub to wash her off. Cleaning my mother’s ass was quite an experience, as those of you who haven’t achieved this lofty spiritual plane might imagine. Like having children, if you haven’t done it, you don’t know what it’s like, so don’t think you do.

Just so you know, nowadays if you want to spend some time at our house, you have to sign a waiver.