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Ask Dr. Babooner

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Dear Dr. Babooner,

I’ve been very worried about something personal, but I don’t know how to talk about it politely.

I recently heard a doctor on a TV show describe … well, you know when you go to the bathroom? Not number one, but the other one? This TV doctor said if you’re a healthy person, the deposit should be shaped like the letter “S” because it stands for “Super”, which is how you’re supposed to feel once you’re done.

Naturally, I took a look the next time and was shocked to discover that mine formed the letter “L”. I don’t know how I managed to make my offering turn such a sharp corner, but I was sufficiently concerned that I approached my next bathroom visit with quite a bit of consternation.

It was justified, as I issued forth a perfect letter “O”. Horrified, I called the nurse’s line at my HMO and though I think she was laughing at me under her breath, the nurse told me it was probably just the result of excess gas in the intestinal tract and I shouldn’t worry. Things would return to normal on their own.

Sure enough, the next time I produced the doctor-recommended perfect letter “S”. Relieved, I returned to my usual peaceful and confident frame of mind until a day later when I forced myself to look once again and discovered a remarkably crisp-looking block letter “E” floating in the commode.

Dr. Babooner, I’ve stopped eating because I’m afraid to continue with this particular bodily function. What if the next letter is an “R”? Could my own intestines be telling me I’m a total waste?

I don’t think I can bear the thought of it.

Sincerely,
K.O. Pectate

I told K.O. that doctors who give advice on popular national TV shows are desperately needy individuals who apparently aren’t satisfied scaring people on a one-to-one basis. They have to freak us out a million at a time.
If your lower digestive tract is, in fact, trying to spell “LOSER” as a message to you about your place in the world, I would consider it miraculous and something to be proud of. It’s a talent that America should honor, and if there is not already a reality show on TV designed to show it off, there will be one soon.
And if you continue to be concerned about your health there are at least 50 things you should change before you even turn around to look at the shapes you’ve left in the bowl, starting with a realistic assessment of the junk you’ve been eating.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

70 thoughts on “Ask Dr. Babooner”

  1. Dear KO-
    I think the self-obsessed thing has gone too far with you. I realize you may well have grown up as part of the “me” generation, but you can’t continue to let that drag you down for the rest of your life and expect anything but misery.

    You need an intervention, or maybe a change of environment-someplace with no mirrors, no flush toilets, no self-help books-in fact, try going for a whole week without trying to help or improve yourself, just put that project on the shelf for awhile and devote yourself to helping someone or something else for a week, take longer if you need to. Once you’ve put in the practice time helping someone else, I am certain you will be better equipped to help yourself.

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  2. dear KOP – do i hear Christine Lavin’s me me me me me me me me i i i? there are plenty of other ways to waste your time than looking at and worrying about your “work.”
    MIG nailed it – you need to get out more so you don’t watch those dumb tv shows. and why in the world would a programmer think this is interesting for daytime?
    people don’t poop in predictable shapes. animals do, though. get a book on identifying wild life by their scat. much more fun and maybe you’ll get some exercise in the deal.

    a gracious good morning to You All.

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    1. Barb, at first I doubted that such a book existed. Lo and behold, there’s a whole series of books about identifying wildlife by their leavings, and James Halfpenny seems to be the expert. If you’d like to confine your assessment to animals of the Great Lakes region, you can! http://www.amazon.com/Scats-Tracks-Great-Lakes-Wildlife/dp/0762742313/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299069484&sr=1-3"
      I wonder if it would be possible to track humans the same way?

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      1. The Science Museum also had an exhibit on this about 10 years ago. I took my nieces to it and they were fascinated, but then they were 9 years old, the age of fascinating body functions.

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      2. a new scat book!? i have three already – should i buy another?
        although it might be possible to track humans with trails and scat, i think i’d prefer to stick to animals. i guess the groupings would be in the form of what diet those humans ate. McD’s, Taco Bell, vegan, etc. “ah, i see the trail of a large Hardee’s-type human, quite heavy (by the depth of the tracks) and the scat is small and hard from lack of fiber and vegetables.” ish da.

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      3. I only have two – a kids’ and an adult one. We live almost on the edge of a “woods” – what can I say?

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    2. I agree, BiB, totally…I spent a summer in Yellowstone carrying my Peterson Field Guide to Animal Tracks by Olaus Murie…which includes scat, of course…which I called my “Track and Turd” book. And, just now looking through a back corner book shelf I find I have Scat and Tracks of the Rocky Mountains by Halfpenny….essential guide books.

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      2. Oh, and appropriate to a forgotten corner book shelf, the books are adorned with mouse scat/tracks. (Oh, the joys of country life and a country home…for various creatures)

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    3. There are also a few scat displays at the Minnesota Zoo – the interesting one is the wolf because they eat everything on their prey but their digestive systems neatly wrap up the stuff they don’t actually need.

      Personally, if my scat were spelling out things, I’d be making YouTube videos of it and selling the rights so I could retire to a tropical island somewhere.

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      1. Hi VS. You are right about wolf scat. They eat their prey–bones, hair and all–and then the sharp bones are made safe for passage down the wolf’s gut by having them wrapped in a whirl of hair. If you poke wolf scat with a stick, you usually find sharp stuff at the center.

        If I found the face of the the Virgin in my scat, I just couldn’t cash in on it. But the face of Dick Cheney? Now we’re talking!

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  3. Good morning to all,

    Well, KOP, I agree with Dale. You might have a unique skill that would make you good material for a reality TV show. If you don’t see an R, maybe you should see if you can fake one. I don’t watch much reality TV, but it seems you would be a good canidate for fitting into one or for a new one. Some of the talk shows would probably also like to have you on as a guest. Maybe you should get an agent and check out all the possibilties for profiting from your talent. Maybe you will need to file for a patent, if that’s possible, to give you exclusive rights to pendle your talent.

    I haven’t been around here lately because I’ve been over at the Mayo facilities in Rochester keeping my wife company. She is coming home today. See has a bad infection in her throat that they are treating with antibiotics. The doctors have been watching her closely because they might need to drain the infected area if the antibiotics don’t get the infection under control. So far it looks like it is going okay.

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    2. Fei da, Jim-that sounds like no fun for you or your wife. Hoping those antibiotics can do the trick to get her on the mend.

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    5. Good luck with the health thing, Jim. I’m delighted it seems to be going the right way.

      I agree that KOP has developed an unusual and potentially marketable skill, but I will point out that block letters have become the new norm. If KOP hopes to hit the big time–Jay Leno, or Craig Ferguson–it might take practice and attention to detail in order to write in cursive script. Now that would be an accomplishment worth paying to see.

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      3. Good news Jim. Let her know there are good wishes coming from all directions, and thanks for keeping us up to date!

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  4. Rise and Shine Baboons:

    Dear KO P: I sentence thee to a lifetime of diaper-changing. Your fascination with this bodily function will quickly cease. Then perhaps you will get a life and knock off this obsessive thing you have going. Yucky-Poo.

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  5. Dear KOP: the human body has several orifices, with women generally getting one more than men, and for each orifice there is stuff that goes in and stuff that goes out. This, to me, is not the most promising way of studying humanity, but it might do as a starting place. That said, you have chosen to obsess on an orifice I tend to rank low on my personal interest scale, especially if you pay great attention to output. And now you have (ahem) sort of painted yourself into a corner. The next letter to issue from you will either define you as a LOSER or will show that your @ss cannot spell. My advice (the rate is $150 an hour) is to pick a more elegant orifice and direction of transfer.

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  6. Excellent, Steve, glad you’re back.

    Yes, you definitely have too much time on yor hands, K O Pec!

    When animals (including us) are ill, it’s sometimes useful to look at their leavings. If you aren’t sick, (physically, anyway), I believe the phrase is let it be.

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  7. When my old dog was a puppy, ten years ago, we used to walk daily in the Crosby Farm Nature Area, right across the Mississippi River from Fort Snelling. And on three occasions, walking early in the morning, I was thrilled to find bear scat on the asphalt walking path. Bear scat! Just think of that: a bear living unobserved right in the geographical center of a major metropolitan area, a BEAR living in a city park heavily used by hikers and dogs. The thrill was limited only by my doubts. How could a black bear live in a city park without anyone knowing? I resolved my doubts by noting that bear scat is absolutely unique, looking like the scat of no other animal except possibly a human being with diarrhea. And I decided that if there was a human living in that park eating acorns and having diarrhea on the walking path, that was the one thing more exciting and scary than having a bear down there.

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  8. KOP, have you ever considered that the height of the toilet has much to do with this, and that your ability is really an artifact of plumbing technology? I think the Kohler Corporation is having a joke at your expense and if I were you I would write them a letter to cease and desist. Did you know that the Kohler Corporation mounted machine guns on its factory in Kohler WI, during labor unrest in the 1930’s.

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    2. Thanks Renee. I have missed so much by not studying the labor history of Wisconsin. I will see all my Kohler appliances differently from here on out.

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      1. My husband is from Sheboygan, just a stones throw from Kohler, and it is from him that Iobtained my limited knowledge of Wisconsin labor history. The city of Kohler is interesting if you consider the strict laws they have about how the houses have to look (all upper middle class, if you please). Tim would have a stoke if he knew of it, I bet. If soup spoons are a problem, the city building code of Kohler would be fightin’ words

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  9. Competely OT. Very nice poem today on Writer’s Almanac. Titled December, but could also work for many of us in January and February… hopefully not March!

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  10. While scat may be fascinating, it seems you are mostly concerned that what your, ahem, production is spelling is a message directed at you. Is it possible that your scat is sending a message to that TV doc who directed to observe your output to begin with? The gut is a pretty smart system and quite capable of taking care of itself and its flora and fauna – perhaps it’s ticked off at Dr. Television and his S shapes and would rather be left alone, thank you very much.

    Glad you are feeling better Steve, and good to hear your wife is on the mend as well Jim in CG. Definitely fei das on both counts – perhaps even an ish da for Jim and Wife.

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  11. Robertson Davies includes a research scientist in one of his novels, I forget which one, who was engaged in “filth therapy” which involved analyzing human poop to determine psychological and medical problems, sort of a combination of Rorschach technique combined with chemistry.

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    1. oh, yeah! reminded me of a grad school story. one of the professors got a big grant from a (then) nutrition supplement maker (like Ensure) to test how the addition of different kinds of fiber would affect the persons using the product. all the subjects were college-age folks who were fed (for weeks and weeks) only the liquid supplement – no other solid food. many, many grad students were doing their masters theses and doctoral dissertations on this one study – on minerals, cholesterol, etc. each day the subjects had to bring in urine and poop samples before they picked up their ration of supplement for the day. the poop came in little round cardboard containers, and my friend had to do analyses on these samples. (she got a lot of teasing) one day, my friend opened one of the containers of poop – it looked pretty weird, so she showed it to the study director. “hmmm,” she said “it DOES look weird.” then, dipping her pinky into the contents of the container and putting it to her mouth, said “hmmmm, it TASTES weird too!” my friend almost passed out – thinking “this is what you need to do to get a PhD? then i’m outta here!” then everyone broke out in roars of laughter. they had arranged for someone to put chocolate pudding in a container!
      afterward we wished that my friend would have known that ahead of time and chosen a different container, with less tasty contents.
      🙂

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      2. As a low-level research lab tech at the U of M hospitals who analyzed the urine and feces of ill children, I can vouch for the use of both pudding and apple cider.

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      3. Clyde: someone told me this story. I can’t promise it is true. This guy was in a hospital on the floor of a nurse who drove him crazy with the way she talked. Like: “Oh, it looks like we didn’t sleep so well last night.” And he roared, “I wouldn’t have a guess about YOU but I had a lousy night!”

        This nurse particularly bugged him when he had to produce urine specimens. So one day he lay a trap for her. When required to produce his daily specimen, he slipped her a cup full of cran-apple juice.

        “Oh, my!” said the nurse. “We are looking awfully PINK today!”

        “Aww hell,” said the patient, grabbing the cup. “Why don’e WE run her through again and try for a better color?” And drank the contents.

        I’m sure you have stories from the kiddy ward.

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    2. I think it was The Rebel Angels, one of the Francis Cornish Trilogy. It includes mad gypsies, a fortune in an art collection, and love sick professors

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  12. Well, it is true… you can learn a lot from poop if you know what you’re looking for…
    I heard the same thing once about reaching into the back end of a cow; you can learn a lot if you know what you’re feeling for….
    Can you get your arm in a goat Barb?

    As the kids book says; ‘Everyone Poops’…..

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    1. love that book, Ben – kids do too.
      i have not, as of yet, tried to get my arm into a goat. the circumstances have not required any rude invasions of goat-insides and i’m quite happy for that. (although i could go looking for those plastic bags that T swallowed) goats are probably not as accommodating as cows are…… not that any creature would be very happy about that situation! 🙂
      but, kidding begins in less than 14 days so i may get my chance (let’s keep fingers crossed that i won’t)

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    2. The child also enjoyed Everyone Poops. I do remember that my mother didn’t like this book however… the first time the child added it to her bedtime stack, my mother balked.

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    3. After I quit analyzing human waste as a job in college, I switched to shoveling bovine waste. I sometimes ended up with my arm up a cow for a couple of reasons. They provide you a plastic sleeve that fits over the arm and shoulder.

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  13. Poor KO. I agree with MIG and BiB – you are way to obsessed with yourself and you really need to get a life. You could start by creating a reality show about the shape of your “deposits”, but I really don’t think that’s much of an improvement because it just perpetuates your self-absorption. I suggest becoming a home health aide or nursing assistant. You’d be helping others while getting the opportunity to observe lots of other people’s “deposits” and deciding whether or not there are messages to be deciphered. Good luck, KO. You really need it.

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  14. I don’t know–don’t know if I want to know–what inspired you this morning, Dale, to pursue this subject, but it certainly has taken some interesting turns (so to speak) with this always very interesting and entertaining group. And reading through the comments again, Henry Miller’s description of a turd in a bidet…Tropic of Cancer? or Capricorn…read in my early twenties, came bubbling up. (so to speak). Chuckle, smile, now I must get to work…oh, and thank you (I think) SiSP and MiG for the reference to Dick Cheney…!

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  15. I am at home packing, packing while my wife watches daytime TV, but not soaps. I am aware of only the commercials, which have an endless fascination, and therefore I assume daytime TV watchers, with all sorts of failed bodily functions.

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    1. You sure don’t have to watch TV long to learn about all the things that you can do/take that backfire, healthwise. I know more about DePew hip replacements now than I ever thought I would!

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  16. KO Pec
    Pay no attention to the other respondents. They are simply jealous of your tremendous talent. Hold out for bigger rewards. Refuse to even attempt to produce another specimen until guaranteed great rewards from Kohler, Charmin, Metamucil, etc.
    Best of luck!

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  18. “In my world, everyone’s a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!”
    Dr. Seuss said this and it’s his birthday today!

    My advice to KOP is – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. As long as it doesn’t hurt to go and you can get somebody to wipe you, you’re just fine!

    Dale, you do come up with some doozies!

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    1. I had help, Donna. Although blogger / client privilege makes it unethical for me to reveal the identity of my source.

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