Sometimes You Just Have To Poop….

Between the toilet I saw in the tree and new issues with my formerly cursed septic system (that went through a recent exorcism but still believes itself to be cursed), it’s been a weird two and a half weeks. And last night just added to the bathroom humor fun. As I’m lying in bed just about to doze off, I heard my son – who was pacing in the hall – say, “Sometimes you just have to poop.”

Photo credit: Morguefile.com (no, this isn’t me)

When I tell you that he makes me laugh more than anyone ever has, I’m not exaggerating because I giggled myself to sleep … again. And I hoped he resolved whatever issue that caused him to make that announcement out of the blue.

One thing about being the mother of an autistic son is that I got used to his bluntness fairly early on. If he has a thought, he says it, inappropriate or not.

When we were still living in town, we had a rather annoying neighbor – one who didn’t make bill-paying a high priority. So, after she got her phone shut off, she kept coming to my door to borrow mine. Given that she lived upstairs, I kept saying okay because as some of you might know, upstairs neighbors can make your life a nightmare. I sure didn’t want to make her mad.

But this went on for weeks. In fact, I used the phone so seldom, I chose a plan that limited calls to something like two-hundred a month … and I never came remotely close to hitting that number. But with her coming in – and literally sitting on the floor by my door to make her daily calls – it got very close (meaning I’d have had to start paying for the personal calls she was making).

Before I mentioned this, however, she knocked on the door one day to – you guessed it – use the phone. Apparently, C.J. was even more annoyed than I was because he looked straight at her and snapped, “Haven’t you paid your bill yet?”

Making a pretense at being polite, I said, “C.J.! That was rude.” But inside I was snickering, and when she finally left, I laughed out loud (and have every time I’ve thought about it since).

Sometimes I wish I could be as outspoken as he is, though I don’t see myself discussing poop. Well… I guess I’m kind of discussing it already, aren’t I? To be honest, it’s not a subject I would have broached but for my son making me chuckle over it. He’s comfortable talking about a huge variety of subjects though. I, on the other hand, am not. And it doesn’t matter if it regards something of a personal nature, or saying what I think to a rude person.

I did finally tell the woman that since her calls almost put me over the plan limit, I was going to have to start charging her a quarter per call and, lo and behold, she immediately stopped borrowing my telephone.

Thinking about it, I can’t help but wonder what other things might change if I politely spoke my mind sometimes. If I could be more like C.J….

Are there times when you wish you had the guts to just say what you’re thinking? Or, like me, do you figure it’s just not worth speaking up most of the time?

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