Everybody Poops. The Gas We Pass.

Two of my very favorite children's books. Ever.

I mention this today because I took a laxative last night that has suddenly made a pronouned presence.

The last time I took a laxative I was in boot camp, and it wasn't a laxative, per se, but an enema.

Why would anyone in boot camp take an enema, for Christ's sake?

Well, it ain't ma's home cooking, no mo, no mo, no mo, no mo. Ask any of the other 300 recruits in the clinic standing at attention, desperate for a bowel movement, all the dumplings and flour and Jello backed up to the gills.

And the poor, pregnant hospital corpsman having to look at every one of our sphincters, saying, "Don't worry, child. They all look the same" before filling our bottoms with the liquid of a most expediant God.

I used to read either Everybody Poops or The Gas We Pass to my delinquent teenaged students. It was a delight to watch their oh-so-hip scowls turn to utter bemusement as I read out loud, taking special significance on showing them the books' art work.

Everybody poops. And here I sit, in my shit.

But I've been taking happy pills for just over a month now and that last line is about enough to keep me laughing all day long.