Old People Shit: the Anatomy of a Shart

 

WARNING--POOP POST AHEAD. But really, would you expect anything else?

I am a person "of a certain age". That age is over 60. And, Jesus, seeing that on the page is jarring!

There are three rules of aging, and the older I get the more I realize they are valuable to keep in mind.

Never pass up a bathroom.

Never waste an erection.

Never trust a fart.

I know, you giggle at that last one especially. But in my experience, everyone--EVERYONE--at one time or another has gambled on a fart and lost. If you haven’t, you now have something to look forward to. And the older you get, the more likely it becomes.

See, you have sort of a sentry down there called the pectinate line that is supposed to let you know what’s coming down the pike. You feel pressure building up, and that sentry goes to work analyzing (analyzing? asks the 12-year-old 😁) what it is, and whether it’s safe to release it into the wild, or if it’s best to hang onto it and find a bathroom. But…like other parts of your body, it's prone to malfunction when you get older, and can tell you an untruth that will quickly turn you from the life of the party into a social pariah who's heading home early and wishing for a change of skivvies all the way.

Or you’re driving your car, singing along to the radio, enjoying a beautiful day, and you lift up to do the one cheek sneak and suddenly your destination becomes home, the shower, and a change of clothing.

And sometimes that little bastard takes an unscheduled break and doesn’t even let you know when a fart is imminent, let alone that it might be something else. The nerve! Or maybe lack thereof...

I was shopping with my very elderly grandmother once, and she broke wind so loud that the guy stocking shelves down the aisle snapped around fast enough to give himself whiplash and just stared in amazement.  Between her rectal sentinel being off duty and her ears basically being ornamental at that point, I don’t think she was even aware she’d done it. He and I had a good belly laugh, and she just went on shopping.

Eating when you’re older becomes an adventure. When you're young, you can go out with friends, drink beer all night, eat pizza, nachos, or fried, greasy whatever, and maybe wake up a little hungover. You take a couple of aspirin, drink some water, or maybe a little hair of the dog, and go on with your day. But try that when you get older and your gut gets more finicky about what you send it. Every time you go out and see something on a menu that looks good, you have to weigh the odds of it using its power for good or evil. It can be a crapshoot. Sometimes literally.

Eating when older--especially if you’re drinking alcohol too--is like the science experiments you did in school where you mixed a bunch of stuff together and you knew there'd be a reaction, but you didn’t know what it was going to be or what form it would take. Would it be a solid, a liquid, or a gas? Who knew?

You're familiar with Publisher’s Clearinghouse, right? Well, think of eating and drinking when older as Digestive Clearinghouse--instead of showing up at your front door with balloons and a giant check they knock at your back door with cramps, gas, and a lifetime supply of embarrassment.

I just won Digestive Clearinghouse!

And high fiber foods are healthy, but I had to stop eating super high-fiber cereal for breakfast. I would eat a bowl and then throw some coffee on top of it, and an hour later I’d be the underwear bomber. That was really embarrassing when I was still working, especially when the old Fart-O-Meter in my arse suddenly started losing its sensitivity.

And I don’t know about you, but I can go from zero to “oh SHIT” in record time these days, especially if I'm under stress. If something nerve-wracking happens to me, my gut has to get involved, and that usually means issuing the “evict all tenants immediately” command. Seems as though my fight or flight instinct always decides flight is the best option and I should lighten the load first.  

And while we’re on this crappy topic…this applies to everyone, young and old. Why do we see whole kernels of corn in shit? And whole peanuts? We know we’ve chewed that stuff. Does it re-assemble down there? And why just those two things?

This is what I think about when I wake up in the night. Not the existential stuff like “why are we here?”, or “where do we go after we die?”. But “why is there whole corn in my doody?”. I’m really a deep thinker, people. Really deep. Like...ass deep. Aren't you glad you're following my blog?