The Apple and the Tree

My poor children – three beautiful apples which didn’t fall too far from the neurotic tree that is their Father.

They’re grown now, our youngest having turned 19 a few weeks ago.  Soon, no more teenagers. 

They each have their own distince personalities, one is serious, one is so NOT serious she can’t even define the word serious, and one is funny as hell.

All my kids have great senses of humor, but my poor son, Cliff Jr., picked up my genetic clown code.  (Check out the human genome.  Seriously.  There’s a gene called BOZO-84225, and it’s either dominant or recessive.  Okay, I’m talking out my a**… back to business).

This morning, my son discovered this blog and we text messaged a bit about it.  Texting with Cliff Jr. is odd – it’s usually 5:00 AM and I’m sitting on the MARC train waiting to depart to Washington, DC.  My day is one hour going already.  But 5:00 AM for Cliff is when his “evening” is coming to an end and he’s about to go to bed.  But I digress…

In the course of discussion about my blog, Cliff wrote:

“You need to make this into a book.  It would be a good book to read on the toilet.  Short, funny stories.  It’s making me want to poop.  Take that as nice as you can.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or rewrite my will.  Okay, truth is, I laughed.  Out loud.  To the dismay of my fellow MARC-ers settling into their sleep modes.  But screw ‘em, this was funny!

Poo seems to be a common theme with Cliff Jr. (I wonder why).  When he and his sisters would play Mad-Libs, his would read like:

“Ladies and gentlemen, on this poopy occasion, it is a privilege to address such a poopish-looking group of stools.  I can tell from your smiling turds that you will support my crappy program in the coming election.  I promise that, if elected, there will be feces in every toilet and two floaters in every garage.  I want to warn you against my smelly opponent, Mr. Hanky.  This man is nothing but a slimy drop.  He has a stoolish character and is working bm in with the criminal element.  If elected, I promise to eliminate vice.  I will keep the poops in the public till.  I promise you squeezy government, foul taxes, and crappy schools.”

When the children were very young, I would sing lines from Christmas carols and see how they’d finish them:

Oh the weather outside is _____:  frightful (Amy), snowing (Liz), poop (Cliff)
And the fire is so _____: delightful (Amy), hot (Liz), poop (Cliff)
And since there’s no place to _____: go (Amy), go (Liz), poop (Cliff)
Let it _____: snow (Amy), snow (Liz), poop (Cliff)
Let it _____: snow (Amy), snow (Liz), poop (Cliff)
Let it _____: snow (Amy), snow (Liz), poop (Cliff)

Maybe it’s because he’s a boy.  Maybe us boys – grown and ungrown - have a fascination with shock value.  Or maybe he needs to be evaluated.  I’ll let his some-day wife and his health insurance provider make that decision.  For now, it’s all good.  He’s not smearing things on the walls (that I know of) or pooping in his sister’s lemonade (that she knows of).  If this really were a problem, his Mom wouldn’t have to yell at him to clean up the dog’s mess in the front yard.

So for now, we’ll indulge his healthy poo fascination and chalk it up to a case of Cliffs will be Cliffs.  And for you, good reader, I pledge this blog shall be poo-reference-free for the next six weeks.

To learn more about poo, visit your local library.  Or screen the film The Road to Wellville.  Fascinating!

Author’s note: While the subject of today’s blog might seem distasteful, inapporpriate, crass or otherwise base -  it is - it’s better than what I was preparing to blog prior to receiving Cliff’s text messages.  I was going to comment on an excerpt I read in the Toledo Blade, my hometown’s daily newspaper.  This, taken word-for-word, from today’s edition:

“The late Laurel Blair was a collector – stamps, orchids, cuff links, books, and bourdalou (women’s urinals used in carriages, also known as ‘coach pots’).  When he was 52, he discovered his greatest love: lithopanes.” 

So imagine, had they had Viagra back then, Mr. Blair would still be occupied with women’s urinals, and we wouldn’t have the wonderful lithopane museum in Toledo today. 

But we might have had a bourdalou museum.  Our loss.

Tags: blair, bourdalou, fascination, genome, human genome, lithopane, poo, poop, shock, toilet