I now own a kangaroo scrotum. That’s right. Kangaroo balls in layman’s term. Now why do I own this mighty item? Because my friend Lauren is an original. And rather awesome.
She is a tad worried about me going to Nepal and up part of that great mountain. So instead of nagging me not to go, she bought me a lucky talisman. While some might wrap up a rabbit’s foot or a few lucky pennies, Lauren went rogue. She read that the youngest person to ever climb Everest, Jordan Romero, carried kangaroo testicles with him all the way to the top. They were given to him by a young friend who has cancer, and Jordan carried them with him during his whole journey.
Lauren was originally going to buy me kangaroo testicles, but the only ones she could find on the market were attached to a wine opener and she was afraid they would be confiscated by a very confused TSA. So scrotum it is! And being the benevolent soul that she is, she also bought Craig a scrotum. So together we have a set and they are going up that mountain with us. Thank you Lauren, you are my partner in silliness always and forever.
OK, it’s kind of strange that this is my second thank you to a toilet maker in the last 3 months. But what I find even more bizarre, is that I’ve actually bought two toilets so recently. I mean, who buys more than one toilet every 20 years? It just seems like an odd purchase to be making so frequently. But that’s besides the point of this post…
What I found so very fascinating about this American Standard toilet is that as one of its important features, the company lists the pot’s ability to eliminate an entire “bucket of golf balls in a single flush.” Waaaaaaahhhhh????????? That seems like magic! Is it a dare? Can I go to the driving range and get a bucket of balls to test this claim? And if this commode can flush golf balls in a single flush, it begs the question — what will it do to your poop? Blast it into another dimension? Things like this really make me think.
Of course, I decided to Google the toilet on my iPhone while we were in Home Depot buying it and I came across what is quite possible the most amazing advertising I have ever seen (see video below). Apparently, not only will this potty flush golf balls, but it will also handle Barbie dolls, stuffed animals, toy soldiers, and various bottles of beauty products. After seeing this I wonder, who would buy anything else?
In all sincerity, I owe my neighbors a thank you. Their thinly veiled passive aggressive note left on my doorstep was the wake up call I needed. Ever since we decided to move (in case you didn’t know, we’re moving to the beach later this year!), Grey and I have pretty much stopped caring about the cleanliness of our house. Frankly, with boxes stacked up and everything in constant disarray while we’re packing, it’s hard to give a damn about being neat and tidy.
Consequently, a week or so ago, when Ollie took his fifth poo of the day I just didn’t have the heart (or stomach) to keep it in the house (even in a diaper pail) one second longer. So I just threw the dipe out on our front porch, thinking I’d walk it down to the trash in a few minutes. Well, low and behold, I totally forgot I tossed my son’s shit on our front porch, until the next morning when I found this note stuck under a rock on the stoop:
Ah. There are so many things to love about this letter. 1) the 72 point font (in case we’re blind) 2) Â that it’s not signed (did they not know we’d realize it was from them?) 3) the zip lock bag it’s enclosed in (they didn’t want to chance that it could be unreadable from the rain) — the list goes on. The fact of the matter is, I deserved this. Who throws diapers on their front porch? I mean, I’m not Ma Kettle! What was I thinking?!
So, in short, I owe them a thank you. Upstanding members of the community do not discard excrement on their porch — no matter how lazy they are. (I’ll overlook the fact that their dog’s poo is left in tiny little baggies on our front porch five times a week…I guess for people without children, human poop is a whole other level.).
A few weeks ago, as we were about to begin our day, poor Ollie’s 72-hour bout with constipation came to a head (this is a recurring theme in my life). It was horrible. Gut-wrenching. Emotionally disturbing. Grey and I were (of course) clueless about helping Ollie so we were Googling and trying to find WikiHows on how to extract poop from our baby’s butt while the poor kid just laid on the floor trying to dump.
Luckily, I thought to call my good friend Kris who also has a one-year-old baby. I’ve known Kris since freshman year of high school when we were placed in the same homeroom. We were always assigned to sit one seat apart during school assemblies since our last names began with the letters “GRA.” The only thing separating us was a smelly girl who hated our guts but after a while our homeroom teacher realized he’d better just sit us next to each other so we weren’t trying to whisper over poor Stinky during every prayer service or talent show. The rest is history and she’s one of my very best friends.
Anywho, Kris seems to know everything I don’t when it comes to raising kids. She’s offered nuggets of wisdom like, “You need to put shoes on Ollie in the winter” and “Diapers must be changed more than twice per day.” Luckily, she advised me that Karo corn syrup is the Holy Grail for toddler excrement and not two minutes later, Ollie was all better and we were able to move on with our lives (and seek therapy if need be).
Julie, a musical comedian in LA, is my oldest friend; I’ve known her since birth. We were born 13 days apart but our friendship actually goes back generations (hey, that’s Erie, PA for ya, folks!) My grandfather knew her grandma, then our dads were buddies, and I guess we started up when our moms were pregnant at the same time.
We went to the same pre-school, grade school, and high school. We got all the same jobs (shared a paper route, served cones at DQ, taught sailing at our Yacht Club). Fitting that she was the one who introduced me to my husband; Grey was a classmate of hers at the Naval Academy and I’ll never forget her telling me she had found me “the one!” Â Even after graduation, we lived two streets apart in San Diego, she was the maid of honor in my wedding, and we continue to sign most emails YBFF (your best friend forever).
For all our similarities and shared history, I think the tie that binds us is something deeper; a sense of warped humor – or even mental disturbance. I think the following scenario truly captures the essence of our friendship:
Julie is a girl with whom I once devised a scheme to trick the other kids at summer camp into thinking we ate real human feces off of a port-o-potty seat. Why we thought this was a good idea, I’ll never know. We had the plan drawn out to a tee: We’d prepare a batch of raw brownie mix in Zip-lock bags to transfer to camp. Then, during lunch, when most kids clustered around the port-o-potties shooting the shit (no pun intended), we’d sneak the brownie mix onto the toilet seat and shock our friends when we stuck our hands in the fake crap. We planned to then lick our fingers and say, “Mmmmm…Poop tastes good!” (This is a quote I will never forget; I still sign her Christmas card with this phrase). Anyhoo, this sounded like the plot of the century to our 10-year-old selves, but my dad caught wind of the strategy, and foiled it when he reminded us that the other kids would probably never believe we were actually joking and would go on believing forever that we really ate human shit off a toilet seat at summer camp. Complete and utter social ostracism was avoided.
Yes, I’m thankful to call this person my best friend.
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