Thursday, June 17, 2010

Take Breaks

Just because a toddler is potty-trained does not mean she will always take breaks. The more attractive the distraction, the higher probability she will have to be reminded to go. Scratch that. The reminder will often be met with, “No, I don’t have to go.” In this case, physically remove the toddler from the scene and cart her off to a restroom. This is what I should have done last weekend. But my toddler, Phoebe, has already been potty-trained for a year. I thought she’d be fine. She had also already emptied her bowels before donning her swim pants and floatation-reinforced super swimmie-suit. All was well with the world.

My husband took Phoebe into my grandmother’s pool and splashed around with cousins, aunts, uncles and nieces. It was my cousin Olivia’s birthday and everyone was in a great mood. I sat with my Grandma on the deck under the shade of an umbrella catching up and enjoying the day.

Phoebe was having a ball. My husband, Brendon, was throwing her high in the air so she could make huge splashes. My sister, Terri, then took Phoebe duty and caught her while she jumped repeatedly from the side of the pool into the water while Brendon tossed our nieces from the shallow end into the deep end. Grandma and I watched this happy routine for several minutes until my sister shoved Phoebe away from the pool and shouted, “No! Phoebe, stay on the side! Don’t jump in!”

“What happened?” Brendon aked. And then he saw his answer running down Phoebe’s legs. He scooped her up and carried her towards me.

“What happened?” Phoebe asked.

“What do you mean, ‘what happened?’” Brendon muttered. “ You know what happened. You crapped your pants.”

And then I saw the damage too. “Oh, man.” I wrapped Phoebe in our towel from home in an effort to contain the brown ooze. I carried her to the bathroom and deposited her in the shower. Thank God for removable shower heads. Slowly I unzipped the floatation-reinforced super swimmie-suit. Bits of yesterday’s carrots and black beans spewed forth into the tub. There were at least two quarts of the nastiness.

“I see a carrot Mommy!” Phoebe actually sounded excited.

“Forget the freakin’ carrot Phoebe! “ I barked. “Why didn’t you tell Daddy you had to poop?”

“I like the pool. I didn’t want to stop swimming.”

“I understand you like to swim, but you can’t poop in the pool, honey. No. You have to take breaks."

My grandmother is ninety-years-old. She has those old-school individual plastic flowers with suction cups on her shower floor to prevent slips. Not the mat like everyone else from the twenty-first century. No. The individual flowers with tiny suction cups collected little chunks of carrots and black beans and whatever else Phoebe had ingested over the past twenty-four hours. I removed the flowers and washed them off, replacing them carefully. I didn’t want to be responsible for my grandmother wiping out and breaking a hip in the shower because of my kid’s shit attack.

“I ‘m sorry I pooped my pants,” Phoebe offered.

“Okay. Okay.”

Then we heard someone huffing and puffing outside the bathroom door, and the sound of someone wringing out rags in the adjacent laundry room.

“Stay here,” I ordered Phoebe, who was now wrapped in a towel and standing on the bathroom floor.

I peeked out into the hallway. My aunt was cleaning up a trail of shit on the carpet that led at least twenty feet from the threshold of the bathroom door to the deck.

“Oh. No!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, yes,” she sighed.

All I’m saying is make sure they take breaks.

It’s a Shitty Job, but…

I take my daughter to a beautiful children’s garden in Columbia, South Carolina. It is an idyllic piece of land on a hilltop overlooking a lake. Butterflies flit about, bumblebees buzz from flower to flower, birds sing from pine trees and swoop from feeder to feeder. We love everything about the garden, except the facilities. There are two port-a-potties. Those are the facilities. The garden’s proximity to a major shopping district makes it the perfect place for my two-year-old to blow off steam after a morning of errands. The downside is that after a morning of errands and a lunch at Moe’s Tex-Mex, the toddler pipes are usually ready to dispatch something that for some reason couldn’t manifest itself in the immaculate restrooms of Target just thirty minutes before.

I’ve been frequenting the children’s garden since I was pregnant. Never in those three years have I seen the honey pot service that empties the port-a-potties. Until last week. My daughter, Phoebe, had just informed me that she had to pee and she couldn’t hold it much longer.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. You can go in the port-a-potty here at the garden.”

As soon as I uttered, “garden,” a noisy truck rounded the bend behind us and cut across the grass to where the port-a-potties stand sentinel near some large shrubs.

“What is that Mommy?” asked Phoebe.

“Oh, no! That’s the truck that sucks the poopy and pee pee out of the toilets. If we hurry we can get to the potty and ask the nice man if we can go pee pee before he cleans it.”

Why I assumed that a man whose sole employment consists of toting around an enormous vacuum cleaner for strangers’ shit would be nice, I can’t tell you. What I can tell you is that he seemed intensely bitter about his lot in life. Phoebe and I were dashing towards the port-a-potties when his glare stopped up in our tracks.

“ ’scuse me, I need to pee pee,” my daughter offered meekly, doing the proverbial ‘gotta-go’ dance.

“Sir, we would really appreciate it if we could use the bathroom before you clean it. She’s two and, well you know how that is. I don’t know how long she can hold it.”

He looked right at me, hard lines around his eyes squinting with disapproval. The man was only three feet from us. He had to have heard us. He looked at my dancing toddler who was holding her crotch; he looked at me. He made a decision. He turned his back to us and grabbed the crap-encrusted nozzle of the shit sucker and thrust it into the first port-a-potty and planted himself between the first and second port-a-potty so no one could access either ‘facility.’

“Mommy, I really have to go.”

“I know sweetheart. Maybe it won’t take too long. Excuse me, sir? How long before we could use the toilet?” His reply was to take the hose out of one shit pot and plug it into the other, stare at me menacingly, then turn his back again to grab a bucket of chemicals from the truck which he proceeded to chuck into the first port-a-potty, presumably to disinfect its floor.

“He’s not listening to us,” Phoebe pleaded.

“No, Phoebe,” I said loudly for his benefit. “He’s not. So, you know what?” You can go right here.” I yanked her pants down while returning the glare of the disgruntled honey pot dumper. She squatted while I supported her, making a wide puddle of piss that trailed off in a winding yellow river that stopped just short of the angry man’s boot.

“Ahhhh,” said Phoebe, relieved. “You know Mommy sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Not everyone is nice.”

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

The United States of Poo

One of the many things they don’t mention in parenting books is the normal circumference of a two-year-old’s poop. Why should this matter? Well, my two-year-old, Phoebe, was laying poop pipe with the diameter of an adult-sized turd. No wonder her little bum started to bleed. It wasn’t anything drastic, just a little red smear on the toilet paper. But it was enough to make me panic. After collecting a stool sample for the doctor, an interesting task in and of itself, I was apprised of my daughter’s unusual poo girth. The temporary solution? Miralax stool softener.

The downside of a Miralax regimen for a toddler is that it often narrows the already narrow margin of error for distinguishing between the urge to fart and the urge to defecate. A few days ago, Miralax blurred this distinction for my potty-trained daughter at her most vulnerable: the haze of sleep.

The diarrhea hit her during the tail end of her nap, and she woke up while she was already in the process of polluting her pants. All I heard from her room was a violent outburst of "Oh No! I'm pooping! I can't stop! Mommy!"

I opened the door and she was standing in the middle of the floor with butt sludge oozing out of her pants and running down her little legs. The look on her face was completely indignant. She was standing on her tip-toes and struggling to keep her balance.

"Why is this happening Mommy?"

It was so pathetic. I scooped her up hastily because I feared that if she fell, the overloaded pull-up would literally explode and send the poop soup spraying in all directions.

I made a bee-line for the tub. We needed a space with water and a drain. The smell was awful, and I recognized it as that fetid brand of dog shit that occurs when the dog eats something it shouldn't have. I peeled off the clothes and put them in the sink. They were sopping wet. The pull-up pants were bloated and nearly bursting at the seams. When I pulled them down…well, let’s just say that Willy Wonka would have been proud.

I handed the shower head to Phoebe and instructed her to sit down while I ran to the kitchen to get some grocery bags. The shitty pull-up needed to be triple bagged and removed haz-mat style. Phoebe has never had a bowel movement so foul, and I pray she never does again. It was a diabolical combination of a black bean quesadilla and left over falafel.

When I returned with the grocery bags, Phoebe was standing in the tub directing the spray at her belly and watching the thick clumps of black bean-falafel paste make their way towards the drain. She was laughing and pointing at the clumps as casually as if she were cloud watching.

"Look Mom, that one looks like South Carolina." I peered into the tub.
"Well what do you know," was all I could muster between belly laughs.
It really did look just like it. Is it weird that I felt a little proud?

Monday, May 31, 2010

Check out our funny Twitter accounts

We've got the oldie but a goodie account: www.twitter.com/shiterature for daily funny and updates about the site and book.

And now we've got a brand new funny account: www.twitter.com/HeardInRestroom for all the funny shit we've heard over the years in public restrooms. Check them both out!

Friday, May 28, 2010

Share Your Shit Stories Contest!


Got a hilarious shit story? We want to read it, post it and give you free stuff for it!

During the months of May and June we invite you to submit your funniest escapades that revolve around poop. We’ll post the entries on the site in July, and website visitors will vote for the winner. In August, we’ll announce the winner who will receive a Shiterature Gift Bag, including a $25 Barnes and Noble gift card, a signed copy of The Shiterature Sampler, a “Join the Movement” official Shiterature t-shirt, a Shiterature coffee mug, a canvas Shiterature book bag and Shiterature magnet. Additionally, one lucky voter will be chosen at random to receive a free signed copy of The Shiterature Sampler and official Shiterature t-shirt.



To enter:

Send an original story of 500 words or less in the body of an email to: info@shiteraturethebook.com

No attachments please. Deadline is June 30, 2010 at 11:59PM EST.

For the rules and more info visit our site at: www.shiteraturethebook.com

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

You can now buy The Shiterature Sampler!


Yes! The mini-book of 10 funny, embarrassing, true-life stories is now available for purchase and it's only $5!

Check it out here: http://www.yourbook.com/BookInfo/IP34940-10.asp

And buy it here: www.shiteraturethebook.com

Recent Forum Posting: "I Fed My Dad Shit"

When I was still in diapers, I hated for my hands to be dirty. I was eating a butterfinger one day and I would hold out my hands for my dad to eat the leftover chocolate off my fingers. Well, I guess I shit my pants (like kids in diapers do) and I must have felt around in that diaper to see what happened....cause the next thing my dad knew is that I had fingers full of chocolate for him to eat. Too bad that last handful wasn't chocolate. Even as an adult I can remember that, and the horrible cursing and retching that followed. My dad still can't eat butterfingers.

Yes, that is right...ladies and gentleman. I fed my dad shit. I win.



To read more funny true life poop stories or to submit your own, go to the Share Your Shiterature forum at: http://shareyourshiterature.shiteraturethebook.com

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Third Times a Charm

On a beautiful spring Sunday afternoon I walked to the nearby playground at the local elementary school with my toddler and Springer spaniel. Having taken this walk many times before, I was equipped with a plastic bag just in case the pooch pooped. As we approached the playground my daughter made a loud announcement.

"Mommy I have to poop now!”

We had our first lesson in how to hide and take a dump discreetly in emergencies. As it was a beautiful day, there were plenty of joggers, kite flyers and bike riders about. We were stealthy, and the dog kept watch. Then I scooped up the poop with the baggie I had brought for dog shit. I usually have tissues with me in my jacket pocket. Not that day. I silently reprimanded myself for blowing my nose with that last tissue the day before. Pulling up her pants reluctantly, I told my daughter it would be okay. We would play for awhile and then go home to take a bath.

“Okay Mommy.”

She was being such a trouper. I tied the baggie and carried it proudly as we entered the playground- not a trash can in sight. That turned out to be a good thing. Ten minutes later we were on the swings and she announced that she had to "let a few more friends out." Meaning out of her butt. We hid again. Ten more minutes passed. Why was I surprised to see the dog taking a nice steaming dump on the playground? It was a triple duty kind of day. I opened the bag one last time and carefully maneuvered the newest deposit into the bag without soiling my hands. Mission accomplished. The combination of dog and toddler crap was.....interesting. I tied that sucker as I tightly as I could and hoped no one else would be making any further contributions.

As we neared our house my little girl made yet another announcement to the passersby on the sidewalk.

"My butt itches really bad."

Yeah....the skid marks were quite impressive.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Poop Names

Funny stuff from: http://www.poopnames.com/

The Poop Name List

The Perfect Dump - Every once in a while, each of us experiences a perfect dump, it's rare, but a thing of beauty in all respects. You sit down expecting the worst, but what you get is a smooth sliding, fartless masterpiece that breaks the water with the splashless grace of an expert diver. But that's not the end of it. You use some toilet tissue only to find that it was totally unnecessary. It makes you feel that all is right with the world and you are in perfect harmony with it.

The Beer Dump - Talk about nasty dumps. Depending on the dumper's tolerance, the beer dump is the end result of too many beers. it could have been 2 or 22, it doesn't matter. What you get is a sinister, lengthy, noisy dump accompanied by a malevolent fog that could close a bathroom for days.

The Chili Dump - Hot when it goes in, and rocket fuel when it leaves. The chili dump stays with you all day, making your tush feel like a heat shield.

The Cable Dump - Long, curly and perfectly formed like 2 feet of E13 telephone CO-axial cable. It loops lazily around the bowl, like a friendly serpent. You wonder admiringly, "DID I DO THAT? Where did it come from?" you leave the bathroom pleased with yourself.

The Latrine Dump - In case you didn't know, a latrine is a hole in the ground with a tent around it where soldiers, boy scouts and flies go to dump. Tip: Don't ever, ever look in the hole.

The Mona Lisa Dump - This is the masterpiece of dumps. It's as perfectly formed as it can be. Delicate and slender with intricacies that would make da Vinci weep. And just think, you made it yourself. You may even want to break out the Polaroid, but maybe that's going a bit too far.

The Empty Roll Dump - You're done...you reach for the toilet paper only to discover that empty cardboard cylinder. A mild panic begins coldly in your throat. You could use the curtains...no, someone would say "Where are the curtains?" Then what would you say? The rug?...too cumbersome. Then you must come to the same conclusion that every "empty roll dumper" must face...Pull up your slacks, tighten your tush and wriggle yourself to the nearest full roll.

The Splash Back Dump - You send the dump on its way, it drops like a depth charge into the bowl creating a column of cold bowl water that washes your bottom with a startlingly unpleasant shock. Now you're wet and embarrassed.
Tip: Blot instead of wiping.

The Aborted Dump - You are in mid-dump when the phone rings. What do you do? ABORT! Pinch it off, go for the phone, and save the rest for later. It isn't pretty, but you've gotta do what you gotta do

The Caesarian Dump - Pain, that's what this dump and childbirth have in common. Its simply a case of too much dump trying to go through too small a hole, and there's no obstetrician to help.

The Alfresco Dump - Everyone has had to go outdoors from time to time. This can be a rather pleasant experience really. The open air, the nature, and a good bush all contribute to the peaceful ambiance that our primitive forefathers must have enjoyed. What can screw up this harmonious interlude is a troop of brownies or a patch of poison ivy.

The Childbirth Dump - This is a dump that is simply too big to go through the aperture provided by nature for the purpose. You sit there, thinking over your dilemma. First it hurts, and it isn't going to get any better. You wonder if you'll ever see your loved ones again. You imagine the newspaper headlines screaming "Man dies trying to hatch monster loaf". You realize you'll have to resolve the crisis before you can leave the bathroom. Basically there are only three things you can do:

1. Scream
2. Call an Obstetrician
3. Hope like hell have enough Vaseline to get you through it.

The Tijuana Trot Dump - The phrase "Sh*t Happens" really applies here in a big way. When the ice in your tainted margarita makes contact with your lower intestinal tract, the fun begins. For the next 72 hours you'd be better off if you carried your own portable toilet with you because you will spend most of that time on the pot and the rest of the time in a fetal position. Now you realize why Mexico never had a navy.

The Machine Gun Dump - You're just sitting there in a state of sublime peace when all of a sudden you emit a group of noisy gassy bursts that break the silence like machine gun fire. The guy in the next stall hits the floor like a combat veteran cradling his umbrella like an M16...damn commies.

The Sound Effect Dump - You feel a noisy one coming on. Relatives, friends or work mates are within earshot, so you must employ some clever techniques to cover the disgusting sounds you are about to emit. Timing is obviously very important here. At the precise moment of release, try the following sound effects:

1. Flush the toilet
2. Sing the first two stanzas of your national anthem
3. Drop a handful of quarters on the floor

The Security Dump - You have enough on your mind when you're in the bathroom without worrying about a lockless door and someone bursting in to find you in mid-dump mode. So how can you prevent this embarrassing spectacle from taking place? One way is to strategically place your foot against the door. If you can't reach to do this...hum loudly

The Cling-On Dump - For the most part you've completed your dump, but there's one little morsel that refuses to drop off. You're getting impatient. Someone else wants to use your stall. So, you grip the seat with both hands and wriggle, twist and pump but that last little stubborn piece just hangs there, suspended, clinging like a canned peach between you and the bowl water. Maybe the person pounding impatiently on the door has scissors

The Houdini Dump - You go, then you stand up to flush, and the darn thing has disappeared. Where'd it go? Did it creep down the pipe? Did you dream the whole thing? Is it lurking out of sight? Should you wipe...maybe you should just to make sure you went. Should you flush? you'd better, because if you don't, you know it will reappear and smile at the next person who comes in

The Flu Dump - You feel so bad that you don't know which end of you to put down first. You have roaring cramps, so you sit down. Then a wave of nausea rolls over you like a cold fog, so you stand up and cramps squeeze your intestines like a vice so you sit down again...up down up down. Don't you wish Mom were close by?

The Porta-Pottie Dump - Construction workers and outdoor concert goers will tell you about going in a portable toilet. My best description would be, "Its like taking a shit in an upright coffin". Its claustrophobic and it smells bad...best advice...go in a paper cup.

The Proctologist Dump - In the beginning, the lord created the earth, the sky and the firmament, but I hope he didn't create this dump, because there is nothing biblical about it, you run out of gas. That's right, you run out of propulsion. The dump is right there at the end of your barrel and refuses to go any further. You grunt, you squeeze, you wriggle but it just stays there like a lump of lead. You've only got two choices here. One is to squeeze the damn thing back up your intestine and wait until next time. The other is to pretend you're a proctologist and go after it yourself. Not a pretty picture is it??

The Whole Roll Dump - No matter how much you wipe, it doesn't seem to be enough. You blow the whole roll and you have to flush 25 times too. The whole episode is consumer waste.

The Graffiti Dump - You flush the dump and the swirling motion of the receding bowl water forces the dump to the porcelain sides, scraping a creative squiggle on its way down. You flush again but the curlicue hangs there...love it or leave it. Its your choice.

The Encore Dump - Ahhhh, you're done, so you wipe, put yourself together, wash your hands and are about to vacate the bathroom when you feel another dump coming. You have to return for a curtain call. The world's record is seven encores.

The Born Again Dump - This is a dump that's going so badly, you say "Lord, if I live through this, I'll take up religion" you always get through it, but seldom keep the promise you made in desperation, because a born again dump is like childbirth...you forget the pain quickly.

Ghost Poopie
The kind where you feel the Poopie come out, but there's no poopie in the toilet.

Clean Poopie
The kind where you poopie it out, see it in the toilet, but there is nothing on the toilet paper.

Wet Poopie
The kind where you wipe your butt fifty times and it still feels unwiped, so you have to put some toilet paper between your butt and your underwear so you don't runie them with a stain.

Second Wave Poopie
The kind that happens when you're done poopie-ing and you've pulled your pants up to your knees, and you realize you have to poopie some more.

Turtle Poopie
The kind of poopie that pops out a little and goes back in a few times before it finallly comes out

Pop-a-Vein-in-your-Forehead-Poopie
The kind where you strain so much to get it out, you practically have a stroke.

Lincoln Log Poopie
The kind of Poopie that is so huge you're afraid to flush without first breaking it into little pieces with the plunger.

Gas-sy Poopie
The kind where it's so noisy, everyone within earshot is giggling!

Drinker Poopie
The kind of Poopie you have the morning after a long night of drinking. It's most noticeable trait is the skid marks on the bottom of the toilet.

Corn Poopie
(Self explanatory)

Gee-I-Wish-I-Could-Poop Poopie
The kind where you want to Poopie, but all you do is it on the toilet and fart a few times.

Spinal Tap Poopie
That's the kind when it hurts so badly coming out, you swear it was leaving you sideways.

Wet Cheeks Poopie (The Power Dump)
The kind that comes out of your butt so fast, your butt cheeks get spashed with water.

Liquid Poopie
The kind where yellowish-brown liquid shoots you of your butt and spashes all over the toilet bowl.

Mexican Poopie
The kind that smells so bad your nose burns.

Upper Class Poopie
The kind of Poopie that doesn't smell.

The Suprise Poopie
You are not even at the toilet, because you are sure you are about to fart, but, OOPS---a Poopie!

The Dangling Poopie
This Poopie refuses to drop into the toilet even though you know you are done poopie-ing. You just pray that a shake or two will cut it loose.


Fisherman's Bobber Poopie
You are in a public restroom with two people waiting on your stall, you poopie and flush two times, but several golfball pieces are still floating above the water line.

The Stolen Poopie
The poopie you take at a techy toilet, with an automatic flush, that is flushed so quick that when you whirl around to see the poopie you worked so hard for, you are left with a violated and un-satisfied feeling. you never got to see that poopie.

Who knew? We were ahead of our time.

According to Dr. Cheryl Pappas, poop is popular and this may be the year of the poop. Check it out here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-cheryl-pappas/poop-is-popular_b_492663.html
 
Shiterature on Facebook