"Thoughts From the Commode", by James

When a lamb is born, one of the first things a farmer must do is to check to see if it has an asshole. A lamb that is missing its asshole is a rare but devastating problem, and it can be corrected if the veterinarian is called out quickly. A lamb cannot survive without an asshole.

I would venture to say that this aspect of the birthing procedure is the same for all livestock, and for humans as well, however I can speak only of what I know. But I'd be surprised to know of any creature that could live more than a few days without their asshole. As much as we may despise this part of the body, as much as we may refer to it for the most part only when hurling an insult, as much as we may wish or pretend that this small opening does not exist on the civilized, cultured, educated, refined bodies of polite humans in the first world, it remains the case that we depend for our very lives on the functioning of this one-inch pucker. What goes in, invariably, must come out.

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I can remember a story my mother told me when I was very young. It was about a girl who would not poop for a very long time. I do not remember for how long, or what the reason was, but I remember hearing that her family finally discovered the problem because her tummy became distended and lumpy with all the backed up poop. I remember my mother telling me very gravely that it is important to poop, that this girl could have died if she did not receive help. My mother is a nurse, so I believed her.

For a while after that I would periodically observe my tummy in the mirror to see if it was distended or lumpy. I never saw a problem in it, so I knew that even though I didn't poop every day (as I heard some people did) I would not die.

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Also when I was young, I once overheard a woman say of her daughter who was traveling, "She is so ladylike - she cannot make poo if she is not at home." Somehow this must have entered deeply into my conception of what it means to be a lady, because I have always had trouble making poo when not at home.

This was enough of a problem to scare me was when I was traveling in South Asia for several months. Twice on that journey my asshole ceased to function for ten full days.

In the first instance I tried: eating copious amounts of fruit, eating papaya salad, drinking water excessively, bringing interesting reading material with me to the toilet, going for walks, and encouraging myself with gentle self-talk. Finally what worked was an herbal laxative tea. It was recommended by a Laosian naturalist. And it worked very very well.

In the second instance I tried acupuncture. I went to a Chinese medicine hospital in Bangkok. I brought along a Thai-speaking friend who was interested in trying acupuncture for an entirely different reason. The hospital was very basic in its set-up, and there was no private room for speaking with the doctor; I simply sat at a table in the middle of the crowded waiting room. The doctor spoke only Chinese, and I spoke only English, so the story of my stubborn bowels was told first in English from me to my friend, then in Thai from my friend to the nurse, then in Chinese from the nurse to the doctor. The waiting patients, who each must have understood at least one version of the story, were polite and did not once snicker. Even so, there was nothing left of my pride by the end of the interview.

The doctor placed needles in my tummy and in my ankles, and then hooked the needles up to some kind of device that gave an electric jolt to my muscles every second or two. It didn't hurt at all, but it made my muscles twitch and dance for about half an hour. After the needles were removed and I was allowed to get up I went immediately to the toilet. Acupuncture worked even better than herbal tea.

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I've since learned a few things about how to keep my asshole functioning without resorting to such extremes. Pooping regularly is so pleasurable, sometimes I can't keep myself from calling a friend to share my good news. Occasionally I'll challenge myself to poop as many times as possible in one day. My record is six. Here I will share with you some of my strategies:

Fiber, I have discovered, is quite important to "regularity". And you really can't overdo it in the fiber department. If you're backed up, fiber will get things moving; if things are moving too quickly, fiber will temper your output. Basically fiber is always a friend to your asshole.

A few flax seeds (also known as linseeds) with hot water poured over them create an oily tea that works wonders.

Ground flax meal with warm milk and an excessive amount of sugar will put you on the toilet within 40 minutes.

I was on a kick for about two months where I ate nothing but uncooked fruits and vegetables. I've never been so regular.

Once I did a fast for about a week where I ingested nothing but lemonade made with maple syrup and cayenne pepper. They called it "The Master Cleanse". It was certainly cleansing, so much so that one day I had an embarrassing situation while at work. I'll leave the details of the story to your imagination.

Drinking lots and lots of water helps. Drinking lots and lots of water helps pretty much everything.

And then of course there is coffee. Sometimes I think I could live on coffee alone.

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I've been told that using laxatives is dangerous because your body will become dependent upon them and you won't be able to shit without them.

So I don't use laxatives.

But then I think, isn't my body going to become dependent upon coffee or water or raw fruits and vegetables or lemonade made with maple syrup and cayenne pepper or flax seeds or fiber? What is the difference?

But still, I don't use laxatives.

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If your poop won't come out, you shouldn't push to get it out. This will cause hemorrhoids.

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Have I mentioned that I wrote most of the first draft of this essay while on the toilet? I do my best thinking there.

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When I went to South Asia, it took me a little while to get used to the toilets there. You have to squat, not sit as I had done all my life. You are upon the ground, not a hollow chair. It is a bit of a humbling experience.

Once I got the hang of it, though, I quite liked using squat toilets. Squatting puts your body in a more natural position for emptying the bowels.

I was traveling with a guide book, and I noticed that although this guide gave a lot of detailed information for how a person accustomed to life in the first world could get along well in South Asia, there were no instructions for squatting, even though this is a compulsory regular activity. So I wrote an article for them on how one could most efficiently use a squat toilet. The guide book company was pleased with my contribution and rewarded me with a voucher for a free guide book. They included my name at the back of the next printed version of the book amongst the credits.

Basically what I said is this: While one should squat facing away from the wall (the same direction as one sits on a first world toilet) while pooping, women will find it more comfortable to squat facing toward the wall while peeing.

When I returned home from South Asia I was so accustomed to squatting that I found it difficult to adjust back to the hollow chair toilets of the first world. So instead I would perch my feet upon the toilet seat and continue with the squat. One time my mother walked in on me doing this. It was not easy to explain to her what I was doing, even though my actions made sense to me. Somehow her response, "But this is America" was enough to convince me that I was being ridiculous. I went back to sitting.

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I heard a story of a girl who traveled to India. She was staying at a place where the toilet was separate from the house, and she went out to use it in the middle of the night. There was no sewer system, and no flush; shit just fell through the hole in the floor. And this poor girl ... while she was squatting, the old wood floor gave out and she fell through, down into years and years worth of accumulated shit. She couldn't get out. She called and called for help, but no one could hear. She had to stay there all night. She went a little insane.

I have never traveled to India.

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I have used many toilets where there is no sewer system, and no flush, where shit just falls through the hole in the floor. Some are better than others. Some are stinky. Some are gross. But I've been to some that had no smell at all. One strategy is to throw a handful of peat moss or sawdust down the hole after your shit. Another is to plant willow outside all around the toilet - the plant will eat up the shit almost immediately and there will remain neither smell nor a pile of poo.

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If you travel to a third world country, one of the first things you might notice is how differently it smells there than what you are used to at home. This may have to do, in part, with a different level of sanitation.

Most folks don't use the term 'third world' or 'first world' any longer. Maybe these expressions are politically incorrect and insulting. I believe I should say 'developing country' or 'developed country'. Forgive me, I mean no disrespect.

When I say 'third world country' (and I believe it is the same when more polite people say 'developing country'), I mean 'a place where I regularly have to step over shit while walking in a city.'

With this definition in place, my brother's walking route from his apartment to his office in downtown San Francisco would qualify as third world.

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Funny how shit in the city is viewed so entirely differently from shit in the countryside. A farmer can charge money for another person to haul away the shit of his animals.

Sheep shit, in particular, is very good in a garden. It has twice as much nitrogen as cow shit or horse shit. Its not so messy because of it's neat pelleted form, and the form also allows its nutrients to be released into the ground over a longer period of time.

Maybe that's the real reason the farmer carefully checks each lamb to make sure it has that all-important asshole.

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