Have you ever wondered about the volume of poop that comes out of your household on a daily basis?

For the amount of time that I’ve spent behind the business end of a toilet plunger these last couple of years, I’m not proud to say that I have. They cover a lot of topics in parenting classes, but I must’ve stepped out for a break when they went over the father’s responsibility with regards to toilet clogging because I’m pretty sure if I had realized just how much of my time I’d be spending dealing with other people’s shit … literally!

In other words, I love my kids, but good god, can those boys clog a mean toilet.

So mean that I’m not even going to mince words about it anymore. One day they might look back and find this column written by their old man to be a tad embarrassing, but for now I’m just going to use some big words like lavatory and commode that they can’t read yet to throw them off the scent…

And speaking of scent … I mean, sure, the odor of anything originating from an organism’s bowels that’s big enough to clog modern suburban indoor plumbing isn’t exactly going to smell pleasant, but if I’m being perfectly honest, by the time that I’m elbow deep in excrement wondering where exactly it is that these boys have been grazing to produce poop of this rigorous consistency, I’ve typically managed to slip into my plunging mindset where the smell doesn’t seem to top my list of concerns anymore.

Overflow, for example, is much more important.

As is the splash factor.

You know, when you’re just plunging away and nothing’s happening and you find yourself simultaneously praying to the deity of your preference for it to just be over already and also envisioning yourself writing another $500 check to the plumber who possesses heavy machinery to step in just in case your lowly toilet plunger and $24.95 plumber’s snake can’t clear the obstruction left by your oldest son that he was incredibly proud to have managed to pass in the first place!

I tell my wife, “Don’t interrupt me when I’m in the plunging zone.”

I don’t care if the house is on fire or if aliens are knocking at the front door – just close the door behind yourself and let me deal with this in a way that apparently only the man of the house is capable of handling.

I don’t like it anymore than you do, as toilet water splashes over the edge of the bowl and I’m still wearing my favorite Spider-Man slippers from breakfast. I might swear. No, I will swear. Horrible things that no father should ever utter within shouting distance of his young children. But they started this, and now I’m the one who has to end it.

I don’t pretend to know how kid bowels work. How a six year-old can deposit into one of my toilets a poop that is literally the same length and diameter as his forearm. And just as hard as bone, yet also rubbery and durable, too.

If you wanted to engineer a substance that could perfectly plug up the 2″ pipe that runs from the infamous toilet hole to the even bigger pipe that sweeps our waste into the great beyond (these are technical terms, mind you), a kid’s poop after a few days of Beefaroni and Pop-Tarts would do the trick nicely.

And of course, I know what you’re thinking – yes, their father most certainly poops, too – and over the years, I’ve certainly had a few for the books myself. But nothing like theirs – there’s no way that they picked up their ghastly digestive habits from me.

I’ll plunge their gargantuan poops – every last single-tear inducing one of them – because they’re my boys and I love them, but they must’ve picked up those killer pooping techniques on the mean streets of preschool or maybe by swapping tips on how to really push your father to the edge on the playground.

All I know is that these pipe-stopping behemoths cannot possibly be manmade, and if you don’t believe me, I will gladly save the next one for you!