The "Alcatraz" of this post’s title is my beautiful home in which my wife and I are imprisoned with our children.  The "Turd Man" is yours truly.  Why, you may ask, am I the "Turd Man?"  I am the "Turd Man" because I have this amazing propensity for being the one person in the house who finds stopped up toilets.  Yesterday alone I discovered two.

Is there anything grosser than walking into the bathroom to relieve yourself only to flip up the toilet lid and find a coagulated glop of turd and TP stuck at the bottom of a bowl of tea-colored water?  It’s doubly horrific if you’re unprepared.  You’re assaulted at a moment of vulnerability (i.e. you’re about to pee your pants) and now you have to hunt down the plunger which is never in the same bathroom with the turd-wadded toilet.  Then you have to plunge it vigorously enough that you make a bit of a mess and then you have to clean up.  Only then can you find personal relief.  (I forgot to mention that in my house you are destined to find the blocked toilet at exactly the same time that all the other restrooms are being used by the houses other occupants, one of whom has created the turd bomb with which you are dealing).

This phenomenon has increased in frequency due to two recent developments in our home.  First, my children have reached the age where they actually find the idea of touching a turd, even their own, quite gross.  So they wad up half a roll of toilet paper in their hand each time they take a swipe at their offending bottom.  Thus you have the prime ingredient for a turd-ball: a full roll of paper entwined with what can only be described as a cannonball of personal ballast.  Second you have the recent installation of the new, government-mandated, eco-friendly toilets.  You have to flush these things 26 times after you pee, so it’s no wonder that my kids are so adept at flooding them.

Still, how hard is it to check to make sure that your flush has succeeded?  Apparently it’s too much for the other inmates of the Lowder asylum, so upon discovery of the second turd-ball I let loose with a stream of expletives that would have made the inmates at the original Alcatraz proud.  My children, drawn to the disturbance like moths to a flame, came to the bathroom door to see if their father’s head would explode this time around.  Upon seeing them I said something like "When you guys take a poop why can’t you make sure it actually goes down?  I mean look at the size of this turd?  Who’s turd is this?"

At this point they were trying desperately not to laugh.  Their not-so-cherubic-anymore faces turned bright red and their turd-laying bodies shook as they tried to hold in the giggles, but when I let loose with the first emphasized "turd" they started losing it and when I asked who’s turd it was they just started laughing hysterically.  Well, damnit, I couldn’t hold my anger and I started cracking up too.  I guess a word like "turd" has that effect on people.

Anyway, as a result I’m implementing a new household fine for anyone who leaves a floater for Dad to discover.  I figure if I have to be the "Turd Man" I may as well get paid for the anguish.