If I live to be 1000 I will still be unable to understand the bathroom habits of the American male.  It is totally impossible for a man to make “big potty” (a term we have coined for going poop) without reading materials.  I shouldn’t say just reading materials.  I have a cousin whose husband plays guitar while he goes big potty.  I guess that says tons about his ability to play (insert your own joke here).  If we lose a magazine in the house we pretty much know where to go to find it.  My daughter has a real issue with reading magazines that have been exposed to big potty germs.  I’ve mentioned this before.  She just refuses to read them.  I try to run interference on People and US Weekly (our gossip mags.) and make sure they never make it to the bathroom.  Those trash mags. are expensive at the newsstand. 

I have one son who really enjoys a good hunting magazine.  My middle child would rather die than admit that he does anything besides go big potty while he is in there, but I suspect his habits involve a Sports Illustrated.  Boppy has to have a two door buffer and literature relating to publishing books or getting an agent.  The one thing they all have in common is that it may take hours for the actual event to take place.  Tonight on our way home from Big Lots, I asked Boppy what could possibly take so long in the bathroom.  “Do men actually think ‘hey, I may have to make big potty in the next couple of hours so I’ll just go sit on the potty until the magic happens.’ then grab a magazine assume the position and wait?”  He looked at me like it was possible I was from another planet and said “Yes” in a manner that left little doubt that was exactly what they did.  Then he said, “what do women do?”  I told him the truth.  I said that women wait until they absolutely have to go, then they duck in just quickly enough to take care of business, do the paper work, wash their hands and head off to the next thing on the list for the day.  He looked at me like I was stupid.  I don’t think it had ever occurred to him that there was any other way to poop than to dig in for the long haul with appropriate literature.

Whatever it is that causes this tendency is genetic.  I have proof.  It had never occurred to me that it was anything other than a learned trait until my non-vag. daughter called me tonight to tell me the latest cute The Precious had performed.  Apparently he was sitting on the potty and going big potty.  He first told his mother to “get back”.  This was repeated time and again until she was in the ideal spot for him to poop.  Then he looked at her and said “I need a book.”  She had to call me.  I don’t think  I have laughed that hard in a long time.  I told her I hoped to God she got the poor kid a book.  She told me his father had taken care of that.  That seemed appropriate to me. 

The men in my family have all been very secretive about their bowel habits.  My sons would take care of business and then state “you don’t want to go in there for awhile.”  My hubby would rather die than admit he goes big potty.  It’s a real don’t ask don’t tell as far as he is concerned.  My dad was the best (which in our family means the grossest).  I called him on his birthday one year and mom answered the phone.  I told her I wanted to talk to dad and tell him happy birthday.  She said she would hand him the phone.  She forgot to mention that he was in the bathroom at the time.  Dad came on the phone in his usual friendly, happy voice and I told him happy birthday.  He said “guess what I’m doing.”  I foolishly assumed he had gotten something really cool for his birthday and he was playing with it.  So I bit, and said what.    “I’m pooping”, he said and then he laughed for ten minutes!  I was flummoxed.  I am not often speechless but that caught me off guard.  When I regained my voice I told him I would call him back a little later.  About an hour later I called again and told mother that if he was in the bathroom just to tell me now.  He still was….after an hour!  Don’t their butts get numb?

I think there should be exercises to perform on the toilet.  Leg lifts could be messy, but you are pretty safe with ab crunches…hell, you might be doing them anyway.  You could take your resistance bands in there and work out your upper body while you are working out other things.  We women wouldn’t be able to do that and have any kind of result.  I might be in the potty 5 minutes when I go big potty.  The biggest part of that time is spent lowering my pants, lowering my panties, and the reverse when I’m done plus cleaning up, washing my hands and drying them.   The event itself is very quick.  In fact, if the Olympics ever have a fastest big potty competition I will try out for the team.  If they ever have a slowest pooper competition, my boys could be the team.

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