Breaking the Poop Wall

This weekend, I had the opportunity to discuss a very important stage in relationships with a group of extremely intelligent women. The Poop Stage. We all agreed that The Poop Stage (TPS) is perhaps the most pivotal stage in a relationship. Sure, you love my smile, my laugh, my lust for life, my boobs...now I’m gonna blow up your bathroom. How you like me now?


As toddlers, we go through a Freudian phase of life that none of us remembers, also called The Poop Stage (or perhaps something slightly more scientific). This happens when we make a doodie in our little plastic toilet, stand up, turn around, look at it and realize, with great astonishment, that we did that. Many children will call their parents in and proudly present the deuce like a gift for baby Jesus. And we are lavished with praise and gumdrops or maybe a star on our Potty Chart. For minutes, perhaps hours, we are kings and queens of our plastic thrones; masters of our own asses; certified poop commanders.

Somewhere along this journey of transitioning from shitting in our shorts to long, drawn out bathroom sessions involving magazines, the act becomes horrifying. Parents no longer take you to Dairy Queen to celebrate the poopie; instead they walk into the bathroom as you’re exiting, waving a hand in front of their face, scowling and scolding. “Good lord that’s horrible! For the love of God, turn the fan on! Light a match! Are you trying to kill us all? Jesus Christ!”

Our poop pride quickly disappears and we are left embarrassed, shameful, and wondering silently why we are so disgusting. Through no fault of our own, it happens again the next day. We accept that this is going to continue and that it’s going to be gross. We seek out private places to make boom-boom—we drive to the local Target over our lunch break to avoid polluting the shared work bathroom; we try to beat roommates home so we can drop the kids off at the pool in relative comfort. And when that fails, we apologize for our natural movements, attempting to make jokes, cracking a window, politely lighting a $35 Aveda candle.

But the challenge comes when we start dating someone. Oh, the excitement of the first date with all those awkward moments that happen as two people try to figure out if they’d like to marry, fuck or kill the person sitting across the table from them. Eventually, there might be a first kiss, which tells you an awful lot. (My advice: if it’s bad, run. Run fast.) After a few dates, things get complicated. Does he like me? Will he call? How do I walk that stupid, delicate line of “I really want to hang out with you” and “I don’t even remember your name, playa”?

At some point (and it’s different for everyone) there will be sex, which can make or break the situation. Being compatible over coffee or dinner does not necessarily translate into sexual chemistry. You will likely know this before you hit the sheets but most of us decide to check it out anyway. I can say from experience, sometimes your instinct is wrong, in either direction. So, you know, go for it.

So everything’s going along swimmingly—sex is good, conversation is stimulating, he has a nice car, he loves his mother, he always calls when he says he’s going to, there haven’t been any angry outbursts, he’s not rude to servers in restaurants, he doesn’t refer to his ex-girlfriend as “that fucking bitch” or “the love of my life” and it looks like we might have a winner.

At some point, you will have to poop at his place.

The anxiety surrounding this inevitable occurrence is pretty intense. As women, we don’t really want men to know we poop. It’s ridiculous because when you get a group of men together, they can talk about the stuff that comes out of their ass all day. As the girlfriend, if you chime in with something like, “Oh dude, I dropped a deuce the other day that had its own zip code. It was doing its taxes and shit”, you break the Poop Wall. Yes, intellectually, New Boyfriend knows that you eat food and, thus, need to make a doodie now and again. But for God’s sake, don’t talk about it. Even my feminist instincts can’t argue with this one. I mean, I want New Boyfriend to view me as intelligent, creative, funny, sexy, loyal, loving, etc. But I’ll do anything to avoid him finding out that I poop.

I’m pretty crafty for a while. I will admit to quietly slipping out of bed once the man snoring starts and closing myself in the bathroom for some quality time. I’ve straight up lied and told a long story about there being a line for the loo and only one working toilet at the restaurant to cover up the fact that I’ve been gone for 15 minutes. But at some point, it’s going to happen. Perhaps after a Mexican themed dinner or a big cup of coffee.

There are several ways to handle this:

1. Make it funny. “Ha ha ha, I’m going to destroy your bathroom dude. It’s going to be like a Michael Bay movie.”

2. Be a total girl about it. “Um...ok...so, I have to, like, go to the bathroom. But, like, I mean, I have to go to the bathroom. So, like, I’m really sorry but we had burritos for lunch and even though I said no beans, it’s still, like, going to happen and I’m so embarrassed (giggle, giggle, sob, sob)."

3. Just resign and admit you’re disgusting. “Ok, so here’s the deal: there are some things happening in my butt that I cannot control. So I’m going to the bathroom for a while. Please don’t acknowledge it.”

Generally I go with #3. Because he doesn't care. He’ll probably laugh at you and tease you a bit but if he honestly breaks things off because you poop (which has never happened in the history of the whole world) then my man’s got issues you can’t even begin to understand. I read an article the other day about how Terrence Howard, star of many horrible movies, won’t date a woman unless she wipes her business with baby wipes every time she goes to the bathroom. This is proof that Terrence’s delicate toddler Poop Stage was not a glorious time full of stickers and cookies and hugs and applause. His Poop Stage was traumatic and shameful, likely at the hands of his Mommy, leading him to believe that we’re all unclean in our nether regions, especially women, because a woman is the one who mistreated him in regards to his poopy phase. That’s called transference of anger. That’s right, bitch, I just psychologized you. And now I’m gonna blow up your bathroom.

I declare this half eaten burrito official.

While I was slogging away on my treadmill at the gym, CNN told me that Maine is desperately trying to decide if their official state dessert should be the whoppie pie or blueberry pie. Pennsylvania is also considering the whoppie pie for official dessert status, which obviously makes Maine want that one more because it’s just human nature to covet thy (sort of) neighbor. As I schvitzed and schlepped away in the name of socially acceptable perfection, I began to wonder: does every state have an official state dessert? Why do we need official state desserts? Does that mean that any time there is an official meal, the official dessert gets served? How does this get decided? And with all the piles and piles of shit going on in the world, why am I grasping on to this?


I decided to just go with it.

Upon Googling “how official state foods are chosen” I didn’t find much; mostly state government pages that listed WIC-eligible foods. I found lists and lists of official state foods and one tiny blurb that said that when someone wants to make an official state food (say an official muffin, dessert, beverage, etc) they have to bring it before a judge and have it “declared by law” as the official state food.

Who the hell does this? And why? If I decided that clamato should be the official state tomato-based beverage and I went through the process of trying to have that declared by law, everyone would assume that I am crazy and unemployed. And rightfully so.

Some of the official state foods make sense; for example, Minnesota’s official state grain is wild rice. Duh. Minnesota is one of two main producers of wild rice. Maryland’s state food is blue crabs. Yep, that sounds about right. Idaho’s state food is the potato. Again, yes, I whole-heartedly agree with this and understand it. But here’s where it gets weird.

Louisiana has a state jelly. How come? It is Mayhaw jelly and the mayhaw capital is Georgia. Louisiana also has an official state meat pie. No, meat pie is not the official state pie—they have an official state meat pie. It’s Natchitoches. New Mexico’s state vegetable is refried beans. I got news for ya, retired old timey hippies: refried beans do not qualify as a vegetable. Oklahoma must feel inadequate because they have quite a few official state foods. One of their official state meals is corn. Corn is not a meal. In fact, Oklahoma has ten official state meals and none of them are an actual meal. A meal is several items, not one item. Utah’s state snack food is Jell-O. How did that happen? It’s not like Jell-O was invented or conceived in Utah because it wasn’t. But in 2001, the governor invented “Jell-O Week.” Oh how I wish I had been in that meeting. North Carolina has an official state blue berry—it’s blueberries. They also have an official state red berry, which is the strawberry. I happen to love North Carolina but 2001 must have been a very slow year for them.

And the big winner for official state beverage? Milk. Almost every state has legally declared milk official. Nebraska also decided to embarrass themselves why declaring Kool-Aid their other official state beverage but that is because Kool-Aid was invented in Nebraska. The state of Alabama ain’t playin’; their official state beverage is whiskey.

I guess I’m failing to understand why we need official state foods and beverages. This throw down between Maine and Pennsylvania for the whoopee pie is a big enough news story that CNN had an actual segment on it. I wonder if people can protest the declaration of an official state food. Like if Minnesota wanted to declare the kiwi as the official state fruit, I’d totally make a sign and go to the capitol and demand to know why a fruit that does not grow here and has no historical ties to my state would be named an official anything. Would I be ridiculed or seen as a new brand of community leader, demanding that things start making sense around here? By the way, Minnesota’s official state fruit isn’t the kiwi; it’s the honeycrisp apple.