Some of the best and strangest conversations I have ever had have been with my husband. We often find ourselves initially discussing relatively mundane topics that somehow morph through a series of crazy twists, turns and strange lateral leaps of thought, into something much more bizarre. I love it when that happens, and it happened again today.

We were driving back from eating dim sum with friends when my tummy started to rumble. Now, we love dim sum. In fact, we often crave it. But there are two dim sum meal aftereffects that we can always bank on—a trip to the potty exactly 1 hour later followed by a food coma shortly thereafter. This is why we never make definitive plans with anyone for several hours after eating dim sum. (We learned this lesson the hard way.)

This of course lead to an entire discussion around (you guessed it), poop. My husband said that pooping is the great equalizer. I agreed, but said that only works if you can visualize the person “in the act”. There are some people who I just couldn’t imagine on the throne and some that I very easily could. (Which was a little weird even to me.)

We ran through a few names to test this theory and to see if we could determine why we could picture some people on the potty and why other people we couldn’t. Here was our short analysis:

People we can picture on the can:
George Clooney – He’s a jokester and very accessible. Easy to envision. He probably also owned a fart machine or whoopee cushion at some point.

Prince – He always looks a little dirty and unkempt to me so picturing him on the commode isn’t that difficult. Note: Hubby couldn’t (or wouldn’t) picture this one.

Any U.S. President after President Theodore Roosevelt with the exception of Presidents John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. These two great men are icons, and icons do not potty in my mind.

The Presidents that served after Theodore Roosevelt are easy to picture in the bathroom, probably because it is one of the few places they could actually be alone. The exception would be President Lyndon Johnson who rather than interrupt himself mid-speech, would notoriously leave the door open when he went to the toilet so that cabinet members could watch him as he sat “doing his business”, issuing orders and so forth. (Seriously, you can google it.)

Any heavy metal rock singer – Too easy.

Anyone we know personally – Past bosses, friends, grocery store clerks, baristas…we don’t discriminate, we can visualize you all. (Sorry.)

Albert Einstein – He seems like a fun, down to earth genius that had a sense of humor. I bet he wrote formulas down on toilet paper the way some people jot ideas on restaurant napkins.

 

People we can NOT picture on the can:
Ryan Gosling– Did you see him in Crazy, Stupid, Love or The Notebook? I don’t even want to try. Envisioning him on the “john” would require demoting him from the pedestal he stands on in my mind. No way.

Gwyneth Paltrow – She seems so lady-like, squeaky clean and thin. I better she never eats and therefore never poops. (Although, she has published a cookbook, so I may be wrong.)

Any U.S. President before President Theodore Roosevelt. I think I just can’t picture any of our country’s forefathers in an out house or worse yet using a chamber pot. Too unpresidential for me to wrap my head around.

Any religious figure – Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Picturing religious figures having such a biological human experience is off-limits. (And may even be considered sacrilegious, so I’m not going there.)

So, our conclusion is that it’s “mostly” a great equalizer with some very important exceptions. We also determined that there are some discussions that we can only have with each other. (And everyone in the blogosphere.)