Ah, boys.

So I'm on my way out for a walk the other day, and I stop in to tell Henry and his friend Sam that I am not, as it seems, leaving them all alone, as Scott is upstairs working. Henry replies, "Dad's here? Great, that means we can do whatever we want."

"And what, exactly, would that be?" I ask.

"Poop on the couch," Henry says. Needless to say, this cracks Sam's shit right up, and the two of them roll around on the floor, making jokes about couches and poop and pooping on couches as I locate my iPod and head out the door.

As Charlie the Dog drags me down the sidewalk, I turn on my third-favorite podcast, You Look Nice Today—the first and second being, respectively, The Sound of Young America and Jordan, Jesse Go!, although really, I don't like to rank my favorites, it's so crass—and the first thing I hear is guest John Hodgman saying, "Maybe I should come to your house and poop on your couch."

Couch-pooping jokes ensue. Meanwhile, I think deep thoughts about boys turning into men, men remaining boys, and that no matter what, the couch will always and forever remain the funniest furniture item upon which to imagine one's self pooping.

The End.

Comments

[Zinzy]

I thought that was in the morning under the covers. Or maybe that was just farting. Or burping.

[Julie @ Letter9]

hmm. interesting. my boy's still in the poop denial stage: he'll be all stinky and i'll say, "did you poop" and he'll look at me and smile and lie: "no." then sometimes for emphasis: "no no no" while shaking the whole top half of his body.

[Léonie]

I feel a bit sad that I will never find bodily functions funny. I find lots of things funny, but just not toilet humour. I think it makes me seem prudish and prim, but I'm not really. I just... well. I leave that one for the boys and the cool girls while I think about ponies and glitter.

[Kirsetin]

Between your post and Carrie's comment, I'm having a great laugh today. Ahhh, boys!

[jen]

oh just wait until year nine rolls around and balls become the irresistible topic of every. single. joke.

[Heather]

I might be OK with pooping on the couch, if it means my 3-yr-old will stop pooping in his pants.

Sigh.

[Carol]

OMG. Melanie, your post made me laugh out loud so hard I snorted. I have had many traumatizing experiences with poop and my now 4-year-old daughter, but that one takes the cake. I think I have to go throw up now.

[Arielle]

I wanted to thank you for those podcast recommendations. I started laughing out loud yesterday at times when laughing was not appropriate, and it was awesome.So, thanks!

[Natasha Becoming Something]

Charlie Hills' comment made me laugh out loud. That was awesome. Patois is second runner up.

[Haley-O]

We're all about pooping in the BATHTUB at my house....... grrrr....

[BOSSY]

Bossy forgot about pooping. Not, like, in her own life, but you know what she means.

[Sondra]

I feel so much better now knowing that my 6 year old and his friend are not the only ones constantly cracking up about poop and make up crazy Star Wars stories.....Boys are so odd.... :)

[Kathleen]

I recently overhead this conversation between my three year old daughter and her beloved daddy: "Tessa, what did you do at school today?" "Pooped your head off!"Girls love poop too!

[Susannah]

oh my gosh. my five year old and his friends talk about poop and farting all the time! boys!

by the way, you were right -- my son LOVED the video of Henry and his dancing. we watched it over and over until daddy finally wanted the computer back. thanks for sharing it!

[Dorothy Stahlnecker]

My grandsons love to joke and laugh about farting and doing it to each other...they are a riot and I usually pretend I don't hear them..

Boys are always boys..even when they grow up..

Dorothy from grammologyhttp://grammology.com

[Dijea]

OMG, I have a 5 & 7 year old and the big thing is:

How do you spell apple? A-p-p-l-e. Then Ha!ha! you said pee-pee. Why are boys so bathroom oriented? I'll never understand them!

[honesty*rain]

a coincidence like this would have me telling this story to everyone i know for the rest of my life. coincidence does that to me.

kids and poop humor go together like peanut butter and jam. i am inclined to discourage it because i just don't find it funny but my son's grade two teacher thinks poop humor is a real gas (haha) and so he's even more enthralled with it now. excellence. what ARE they teaching kids at school these days?

[Wendy]

The other day I was Christmas shopping and my mom said, "How about some Tinker Toys?" I said, "No way, they'll poke each other eyes out!"

There were two other moms in the aisle with us and they whipped their heads around and looked at me. I chuckled, a little embarrassed that I'd yelled that down the aisle. "Um, I have two boys..." as if that justified me yelling about eye poking.

One woman touched me on the shoulder and said, "Honey, I've got EIGHT." The other woman laughed and said, "I've got three."

Between the four of us in the aisle we had 15 boys we'd raise or were raising!

Do we ever know about poop! :)

[Courtney]

Wow, who knew that pooping on couches was so... in.

[ozma]

I have a girl and I hate to tell you this isn't a boy thing. This is how she bonds with other 4 year olds. It's also her social test. Would they find a comment like that endlessly hilarious? Then they are her kind of people...

[Angelawd]

You make me SO GLAD I'm raising girls.

[Deb on the Rocks]

As the mother of two teen boys, all I could think was poor you, Alice, can't even get away from it on your iPod!

And then I read the hilarious comments. We all will never be free bowel humor. Never. It must serve some deep human survival role, right? Right?

[Aarika]

This blog entry made me realize that we rank our podcasts almost exactly in the same (crassness aside) way. Except I put Never Not Funny first. And then the rest. But I don't rank either so let's just hug all the funny nerds. Hugggggg.

[Angie]

My daughter Maddie who is 14, comes to me the other day and says, "mom, the boys in my class are so immature, when do they ever grow up?" Right on cue, her dad who is 40, lifts his ass off the kitchen chair, rips a huge fart and proceeds to laugh himself silly. Maddie and I look at each other and I say, "any other questions?"

[Tammy]

I'm very late in commenting (because I know you have high expectations, personally, for my punctuality), but I have to tell you that yesterday my almost-four-year-old nattered away about robots to me from the moment he woke up until I dropped him off at preschool. Then I came home and got my husband to drive me to an appointment, and he nattered away about robots during the entire car ride. Boys, indeed.