When life knocks the sh*t out of you, try telling poop jokes
If you feel like you’re being waterboarded by life right now, I want you to know — I see you.
If you’ve been knocked sideways by the pandemic, lost your livelihood (or are working nuttier hours than ever), and said goodbye to friends, you are not alone.
People, this is officially HARD.
If your arms ache to hug family far away. If that strange knot of panic in your chest refuses to budge, no matter how hard you meditate. If your heart breaks over the enormity of two and a half million deaths. If the effort it takes to stay upbeat, positive, and thankful (and you really ARE thankful) sometimes feels like it’s crushing your spirit, here’s the good news: you’re a completely normal human.
You’ve applied for about a million jobs, and had a reply from just two (“thanks, but we won’t be pursuing your application at this time”). The rent is due. The tax is due. You’ve given up on dating because if you’re ghosted one more time you might start to think you’re in a live action remake of The Sixth Sense.
You miss your favorite watering hole and your favorite gym class. You miss Century 21 and the local diner. You miss making out with hot guys in dark bars. You miss Broadway, live music, comedy. Even though you only ever went to, like, two comedy shows in six years.
Dammit, you wish you’d gone to see more comedy.
You’ve put on weight. You’re drinking most nights. And you can’t remember the last time you wore lipstick.
Then, just as you’re picking yourself up off the floor, browsing the MAC website, and saging the crap out of this thing, Google goes and deletes every photograph you’ve ever taken in the last ten years. And it breaks you. You cry. Big, wet sobs.
Your friend calls. She’s been for her routine colonoscopy and — maybe it’s genuinely funny; maybe it’s pandemic hysteria — but there’s something about the indignity of having your most intimate of orifices excavated by a stranger that has us bent double, clutching our stomachs, and wetting our pants. Telling poop jokes isn’t the most mature way to deal with life’s anxieties and uncertainties, but it certainly feels like the most natural.
Then you learn that Saturn is in a square with Uranus this week (God, I love butt jokes), and Mercury is in retrograde and, even if you’re not really into astrology, you’re like: Mercury, sweetie, enough already!
And maybe your outburst at the stars does something. Because you manage to recover your photographs, and spend an entire day reminiscing and smiling. It’s a powerful reminder of how thoroughly blessed you are. So you wipe away the tears, put on your lipstick, and face the world like a badass.
If it feels like you’re on a rollercoaster of emotions right now, raise your arms high, scream like a banshee, and enjoy the ride. And just be thankful you’re not stuck upside-down, covered in vomit, and high on acid.
And, yes, this is me on a rollercoaster in 2010, thinking I’m actually going to die.
BONUS: My top four poop jokes
1. I ate four cans of alphabet soup yesterday. Then I had probably the biggest vowel movement ever.
2. Which part of a trilogy is always a stinker? The turd part.
3. What do you call a fairy in the bathroom? Stinkerbell.
4. What do you call a bathroom superhero? Flush Gordon.
5. What did Spock find in the Enterprise toilet?
The Captain’s Log.
Originally published at https://www.ruthwalker.me on February 20, 2021.
