There is a psychiatric illness called coprophagia, the eating of one’s own feces. It is an uncommonly reported symptom that can be seen in patients with schizophrenia, alcoholism, dementia, depression, Kluver-Bucy syndrome (ask Mark), and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Scatolia, the smearing of feces, is often seen in psychiatric hospitals. High-functioning individuals may sometimes exhibit coprophagia as part of a paraphilia or abnormal sexual arousal disorder. There are even some claims that Eva Braun urinated and defecated on Adolf Hitler. Sexy!
You can get very sick by eating feces. It shouldn’t be fatal, but complications from snacking on shit include hepatitis, oral infection, abscess, and a variety of other infectious diseases. Besides that, think of the morning breath.
12:05P.M.
Leyner: Be right there…
Gberg: OK, I gotta run to the bathroom.
12:15P.M.
Gberg: I have returned.
Leyner: Did you wipe standing up?
Leyner: Some people do, I’ve heard…
Gberg: Stop mocking me. You know I am sensitive about being a stander.
Leyner: I’m sorry… you know sometimes I pee sitting down… out of pure laziness.
Gberg: That is what they should teach you in school.
Gberg: Bathroom etiquette.
Leyner: They should teach boys that they don’t HAVE to stand up… that it’s an option.
12:20P.M.
Leyner: When my niece was a little girl she said a great thing once on the way back from a little skiing excursion in Lenox, Massachusetts.
Gberg: And… what were these words of wisdom?
Leyner: It was quiet in the car and all of a sudden she piped up, “I didn’t fart… but I’d open a window if I were you.”
Gberg: With all the new technology, they should make an automatic sensor that senses the gas and opens the window.
Leyner: I hate going into a bathroom in a fancy restaurant where they have an attendant in there.
Leyner: A men’s room seems to be the one place on earth where Emersonian self-reliance should be the rule.
Gberg: I know, I don’t really need assistance getting the paper towel out of the dispenser.
Leyner: There’s really nothing that goes on in a men’s room that I can’t handle myself.
Gberg: You end up feeling so guilty that you have to give the poor bastard a tip.
12:25P.M.
Leyner: You know that expression for waiters and cooks — when they spend their day off at the place they work?
Leyner: Bellman’s holiday or something?
Gberg:??
Leyner: Wonder if there’s an equivalent for men’s room attendants?
Leyner: Look that expression up online, will you… bellman’s holiday.
Gberg: They probably can’t urinate or defecate at home because it reminds them of work.
Leyner: What about the people who check stool samples all day, like at that place Jetti Katz, you know that lab?
Gberg: What the hell are you talking about?
Leyner: There’s a lab I went to once when my cousin, my gastroenterologist, thought I might have picked up some exotic parasite in Tierra del Fuego.
Gberg: Jetti Katz sounds like a performer in the Catskills.
12:30P.M.
Leyner: So he sent me to this lab that specializes in analyzing stool for parasite eggs… Jetti Katz or Jeddi Cats or something like that… some place in upper Manhattan.
Gberg: The Jeddi Cats sound like a band.
Gberg: I love their music.
Leyner: Anyway… they have these women who work there, and what they do all day is handle hot, steaming fresh stool samples. The whole experience is indelible in my brain.
Gberg: Indelible or inedible?
Leyner: First you down some… What’s that laxative they give you?… It has a catchy name.
Gberg: Go-lytely!
Leyner: Works mighty fast.
Leyner: Know what I’m talking about?
Gberg: Nothing light about it.
Leyner: What’s it called? Help me out here.
Gberg: Not Go-lytely?
Leyner: NO.
Gberg: Lactulose, sorbitol, milk of magnesia, cascara, Dulcolax…
Leyner: Dulcolax… I think.
Gberg: Magnesium citrate.
Gberg: Dulcolax, “the Duke.”
Leyner: DULCOLAX, yes!!!!!! Anyway, they make you drink that… then, a dozen or so people vie for three bathrooms. It’s like some debased Japanese game show.
Gberg: We could be huge in Japan.
Leyner: We already are.
Gberg: Did your books sell internationally?
Leyner: That’s the strange thing about Japan. You can be famous there, have malls named after you, etc., etc., and NEVER know it.
Gberg: I am pretty sure there is no Billy Goldberg mall in Kyoto.
Leyner: One of my books has been published in Japan, and all of them in Great Britain, Italy, and France… and Chechnya, I think. I’m like the Dr. Seuss of Chechnya.
We have no pretensions about this book, and we expect it to be found in that precious spot right next to the toilet. For that reason, we fear we need to warn you that sitting too long on the throne may cause hemorrhoids. Unfortunately, this one’s not an old wives’ tale.
Hemorrhoids, or piles, are abnormally swollen veins in the rectum and anus. They are similar to the varicose veins you might see on a person’s legs at the beach. It’s estimated that about one hundred million Americans are currently suffering from hemorrhoids. More than half of the U.S. population develops hemorrhoids by age fifty. The most frequent causes of hemorrhoids are constant sitting, straining with bowel movements (from constipation or hard stools), prolonged sitting on the toilet, severe coughing, giving birth, and heavy lifting. It has also been suggested that the Western diet, which is rich in processed food and lacking in fiber, contributes to hemorrhoids.
Sitting on the toilet too long is problematic because this is the only time that the anus truly relaxes, allowing the veins down there to fill completely with blood. To prevent this problem, you should move your bowels as soon as possible after the urge occurs. If you cannot go right away, pick up our book (we expect it to be toilet reading) but read as you walk. You can always return to finish the job.
We don’t want to create any cultural stereotypes here, but most of the bathroom questions came from folks from Down Under. Yes, two Aussie friends seem to ask many questions about their bowels.
Everything that happens in the intestine seems to have something to do with the production of gases and sulfur compounds. The bacteria inside feces is what makes it smell so bad. Specifically, the bacteria produce various compounds and gases that lead to the wonderful smell of a bus station bathroom. The smell of your stool can be affected by medical conditions or your diet. Fatty stools and bloody stools are known to be particularly malodorous. In the hospital, a large, ripe poo is known as a code brown. How’s that for real insider knowledge?