Daddy!!! I Really Gotta Go!

My time on the big white throne is exactly how you’ve seen it portrayed in movies about families.

Man grabs newspaper, closes door, finds comfort on the throne, and just as his business is about to begin a knock comes at the door followed by thumping from a little kid jumping up and down and saying, “daddy, I REALLY gotta go!”

There’s four of us in this happy little perfect family and only one toilet in our delightful estate.

The boy never lifts the seat.

The daughter never, NEVER flushes. Even when it’s brown she doesn’t flush it down.

The wifey…well, she’s the smart one in the family. She’s managed to get herself on a cycle that fits perfectly into the times of the day when the kids’ bowels and bladders are empty.

The rest of us are like teenage girls in a dorm suite – we’re all on the exact same cycle.

And me, well…I’ve learned to poop at mach speed.

I can pee, brush my teeth and put deodorant on at the same time.

Nine out of ten times that I leave the bathroom the first thing my kids say before running in is “did you spray daddy?!?”

“My shit doesn’t stink!!!” is what I want to yell, but instead I chalk up another interrupted bathroom moment and just mutter, “yes child-of-mine, I did,” as I hang my head low and stumble away.

Then I think to the future, when the boy becomes…well, not a boy. I think of how the bathroom was my safe-haven, as a teenager, for taking care of “personal deeds.”

There’s something to be said for going into the bathroom in your own home and knowing if there’s anything that shows-up on a blacklight it’s because you put it there, not someone else.

But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

In the meantime, all I ask for is:

• Enough time to poop and play a game of Sudoku (easy mode) without being interrupted.
• To pull the curtain back on the shower and actually have my towel be there instead of wrapped around my wife’s head in the other room.
• To not view my daughter’s “boom boom” floating happily in my toilet.
• And to brush my teeth early in the morning without having to see my son come racing into the bathroom with his miniature morning wood and witness him hose down every square inch of my toilet while screaming, “don’t look daddy I need privacy!!!!”

That’s it…nothing more.



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.

I Have to Pee Standing Up, Again?!

All my life I had been peeing standing up.

As a wee lad I'd wake early, stumble to the potty with my tiny morning wood and Underoos and pee all over the toilet. In high school I'd pee standing up in the ratty men's room while getting as close as I could to the urinal so no one could check out my junk. In college I'd pee standing up....well pretty much anywhere, stupidly grinning and pointing at my junk.

Then our boy was born. The bathroom was right next to his bedroom and every time I'd pee standing up the noise would wake him up. Awake baby + nighttime = suicide material. So I started peeing sitting down. And you know what? It's fucking nice!

I mean – the only time I do it is in the middle of the night and the only reason is because it’s like I’m peeing and sleeping at the same time. I can just lean my oversized watermelon head on my fist and trot-off right back to La La Land.

But recently, I’ve fallen victim to the woes you women-folk have to deal with. Remember when I created the mind-numbing image of me as a boy with a tiny morning boner peeing all over the toilet….yeah – I have a 6-year-old who’s currently enjoying that sprinkler action. So in the middle of the night when I settle in for a relaxing unmanly sleep/pee – I sit in his piss.

So now…I’m forced to give-up a secret enjoyment of life. And that’s not cool. I’m pissed about it (that pun was not intentional).

I will forever hold it against that kid and look forward to the pay back – me, 90 years old, laying on my back as he changes my wet adult diaper.