How the Squatty Potty Has Me Doubting Everything I’ve Ever Learned

February 22, 2017.Reading time 4 minutes.

It started as a joke. I had never heard of this thing called the Squatty Potty, but anything with such a name must be investigated. When I went to Amazon and read the reviews, I was hooked – laughing my butt off. I slowly found myself believing that this might be a revolution in elimination. As a sample, I offer this haiku left by a satisfied user:

“Oh Squatty Potty
You fill me with endless joy
Yet leave me empty.”

There are many more – some that will make you howl with laughter and maybe pee a little, although the squatty potty won’t help with that. My research even led me to Dookie the Unicorn and this compelling ad:

Then I saw the price and this is where I leave you. I am not about to spend $25 on a piece of plastic no matter how funny and glowing the reviews! I made my final decision and thought it was over. Along came Christmas. I’m one of those people who is impossible to buy for. My dresser is full of bright t-shirts with pithy sayings. This year, my daughters went in together and, you guessed it, wrapped up a Squatty Potty for me. It was a joke, but no one’s laughing now.

Everyone tried it and let me just say, it works – Big Time! Believe the hype. I’ll spare you the details unlike some of those hysterical reviewers.

I do, however, have some major complaints.

First – Toilet time for a man with four children has always been somewhat sacred. I have done some of my best thinking in the lavatory and believe that I could have solved some of the world’s greatest problems had life not beckoned. And now it is gone. Average time with this product leaves just a few seconds for coherent thought.

Second – The thing is like a magnet. We have four toilets in the house and yet I find everyone moving to and in mine. The packaging should include a lock for the door.

Finally, and most importantly – Using the toilet was one of the first things I learned to do way back when my feet dangled from it. Now at the age of forty-nine I have discovered that I have been doing it wrong all along. What’s next? Is this an isolated situation? What else am I blundering?

Have I been breathing wrong all this time? Maybe if I had learned better I could breathe underwater… or through my ears.
Perhaps I walk wrong and if I perambulated differently, I could do it faster… or longer… or on my hands.
Would my penmanship could be neater if I had learned with my feet?

This is where I have a major issue with the Squatty Potty! It has me doubting everything I’ve ever learned. The very foundation of my life’s instruction has been shaken to the core by a little stool – okay, a lot of stool – and I’m not sure how to reconstruct my existence.

Playing Doctor

June 10, 2015.Reading time 4 minutes.

When you were a kid, did you ever play the doctor game? Just a few friends together in a quiet room. It is one of the few games boys and girls could play together. Before your mind goes a-wandering, I’m talking about the electric board game that buzzes when you touch the sides. Operation – “the whacky doctors game, batteries not included.” I used to love that game. I don’t think I ever owned it, but a neighborhood pal did.

We aren’t allowed to have it in this home. When she was little, the concept freaked one of my daughters out so badly that she wouldn’t have slept had it resided under the same roof as her.

Although I have no medical training whatsoever, I would like to operate someday. I wouldn’t bluff my way into an operating room ala Frankie in Catch Me if You Can. I’m thinking more like a right place, right time scenario where I have to do an emergency tracheotomy while being given instructions by a tense doctor over the phone. Or does that only happen on television?

Seventeen years ago, I thought my surgery had arrived. Labor came quickly for daughter # 2. I pushed our little mini-van to its limit getting to the hospital and barely made it. She was born eighteen minutes from the time I wheeled momma through the door. Rats! Well, maybe that would have been a poor choice of first operations. Those stakes were very high and that patient was pretty surly – made even angrier by the fact that an unnamed person didn’t get her to the hospital in time for an epidural.

I totally could have done it, though.

I now have an app on my phone from the Red Cross to guide me. It’s a decision tree that asks questions to diagnose basic maladies. If you answer “yes” to more than one it almost always tells you to call 911. When I read the questions to someone, I don’t panic and my voice remains very calm and assuring – which makes feel like I’m pretty much a doctor.

A second opportunity presented itself recently. My brother-in-law started having pain in his abdomen. Rather than come to me, he went the traditional medicine route and was told he needed his gallbladder removed. Disappointing. After scouring the internet for the actual location of the organ, I decided this was my chance.

He seemed very dismissive of my offer at first. In fact, he barely paid attention. I chalked this up to pain. He just couldn’t think clearly. When the date of the surgery came, the so-called “professionals” had a little trouble and couldn’t perform the operation arthroscopically. So they had to cut him open, which led to complications and a ten day stint in the hospital.

Serves him right. I could have done it. I even ordered a new Ginsu knife and everything. While a full recovery was not guaranteed, the billing rate was substantially less than the one he got and he would have been able to stay at home. Besides, just think of the joy he would have brought me.

So if healthcare costs have got you down and you are looking for a cheap, extremely dubious alternative, look me up. Unlike most docs, I will be waiting for you instead of making you wait.