It’s a Fact: Girls are Getting Grosser.

Now, I am certainly aware that almost everyone who reads this blog is female, aside from John and a few guys from places as exotic as Tel Aviv and Philadelphia. However, I do feel obligated to give this public service announcement: Females, despite what males might think, are pretty foul creatures.

Example: I had perhaps one of the most awful conversations in the world today. A woman in my department, an anonymous MA student… Let’s call her Daisy (as in fresh- you’ll appreciate that in a moment), who I don’t know well at all, forced me to be privy to a dilemma she is having this first week back to classes.

It seems that Daisy has troubles “making” on campus. That is, to put it plainly, but not nastily, she can not do “No.2” in public washrooms. However, she explained, she had gotten used to doing No.2 at home whenever she wanted over the break, and has “lost the rhythm”. Now, despite stomach aches and an unpleasant assortment of other issues (you can guess what, as I have no intention of painting you a picture), she is now forcing her system into only making No.2 either before she leaves for class in the morning or after she gets home in the evening. To reiterate the enormity of this project, one which she claims to go through every September and January: She is lazar-sighting her regularity to activate only at 7am or after 6pm.

Now, I am not going into comparative values of various bathroom habits any further here. However, I must ask this simple question: If she is too dainty to make No.2 in a public washroom, why, then, is she comfortable talking about it in my office?

I am stymied, frankly, and spent the duration of the conversation trying to remember exactly when, as in decade or year, it suddenly became alright for young women to discuss this with practical strangers. I mean, I guess 80-year-olds have always discussed their bowels, as it is more of a hobby than a function for old folks, but at twenty-five?

All I know is girls are definitely getting grosser, at least in terms of their modes of conversation outside best-friend/sister/mother circles. (Actually, for me, none of those circles ever produced such conversation, as my mom still calls diarrhea “the trots.” I thought it referred to Trotskyites, as we were Marxists, until I was nine.) Sure, my brother calls intestinal troubles “the squirts,” but he is a boy and therefore allowed to do so.

Needless to say, as far as the decline of intelligent and comfortable conversation, this was a red letter day… And then people wonder why I prefer “white telephone pictures” to actual modern life. One never saw Merle Oberon complaining about her bowel movements… Frankly, I prefer to think she didn’t have them.

And that’s the way it should be, tarnation.