You CAN'T talk about THAT

My friend Mary called me from Colorado and said, "I just read your blog. I can't believe you wrote about poop. You  can't TALK about  that!"
But it's funny, I told her.
"Who reads your blog!?" she said, worried about my future, my career, my reputation.
"I don't know. My Facebook friends, I guess," I said.
"You can't write about that! We don't talk about poop!" she said.
There isn't much Mary won't talk about. When we were in sixth grade, she was such a chatterbox that our homeroom teacher, Mr. Lomax, threw a piece of chalk at her after getting so frustrated with her because she wouldn't shut up. Really. I had no idea she was so uptight about excrement.
I told her that's why I wrote about it - because no one likes to talk about it. Yet everyone does it. Daily. I hope.
"I can't believe you wrote about that," she said. She WAS laughing, by the way.

The only time bowel movements become accepted and expected topics of discussion are when new parents watch their babies' outputs to gauge how well their inputs are working.
"Just changed his diaper."
"Did he poop?"
"Yep."
"How was it?"
"Mustardy."
"Perfect."
Believe me, I have issues with the subject.  As I said in my last blog, I once went 36 hours without doing it, all in the name of romance. And it wasn't by choice. Each time we'd enter a restaurant, my first stop would be the ladies' room, just to give my poor bowels an opportunity to relieve themselves. They never took me up on the offer.
I even went for a run that Sunday morning, planning my route by a Safeway, thinking things would loosen up on my jog. Nope.
It wasn't until he dropped me at my door, carried my bags inside that my body knew it was home. I quickly hugged him, patted him on the back as I ushered him to the door. "Thanksforthelovelyweekendcallmelaterbuh-bye ..."
When my son was a toddler, we bought the book "Everyone Poops," because, as responsible parents, we wanted him to know that there is NOTHING wrong with it - every animal does it.
Maybe the title of the book would be more appropriately, "Everyone Poops, Just Keep It To Yourself."