Men and their masterful poo

You know how I said that one of my resolutions was to be kinder to my husband? I just want to point out the fine print that followed in which I said I may not always be kind to him in my blog, just real life. I'm pointing it out in case you didn't see it and then thought that I was failing in my resolutions already, as I'm about to be unkind about my husband. Luckily he doesn't read my blog very often so hopefully he won't know and therefore it'll be like it never happened.

Here's the reason for my preamble:

Late afternoon. I've just returned from a run. (Yes, that's another resolution going well. I did a real run. Up hills and everything. And I didn't even turn purple in the process.) I was a little chilled from sweaty clothes and artic wind and thought a nice hot bath would be in order. I passed my husband coming down the stairs as I was going up and I told him that I was off to have a bath.

'Well be careful,' he said. 'You'll probably get mugged when you go in there.' I raised an eyebrow.

'I don't know what is going on with my poo at the moment,' he says by way of explanation. 'It's the second time in two days that I've laid such a big cable that it won't flush down.'

Nice. Who says romance is dead right?

Anyway, I go check email before heading into the bathroom having forgotten the warning. Immediately the skin on my face is stripped bare by the stench coming from the room. I head toward to the bath passing the loo en route. There lying in the bowl is the world's largest poo. Honestly. I was almost tempted to ring the Guinness Book of Records people as it's surely not possible that any other human being could have done such a vast poo before.

I held my nose, gave a courtesty flush and evacuated the room, opting instead to bath with plastic submarines and squishy whales filled with black goo that decorate our children's bathroom.

After my bath, I headed back to our bedroom to get dressed and was once again gagging at the fruity aroma coming from the loo. I risked a peek to see whether it had gone. Oh contraire. It was still lying there in all of its magnimity.

I went downstairs and asked my husband what he planned on doing about it. 'Nothing. I'll just keep flushing till it goes,' he said. At this point our children were intrigued. They are, after all, little boys. So they both went up and had a good look at the world's biggest poo and agreed that it was an awesome thing to behold. And they both gave a flush. It didn't shift a millimetre.

I've just returned to the scene of the crime (by now a good 5 hours after the log was laid) and it's still there. Immovable. I have suggested to my husband that he might want to get a coat hanger and attack it so that it breaks into manageable size pieces which the pipes can cope with. He's refused. I think he thinks it's funny. Or impressive. Either way, worth saving.

This is a problem. This is MY toilet. Mine. The one I use a LOT. It's the one I go to just before bed and in the middle of the night and first thing in the morning (I have a cheap made in Japan bladder). And now I have the choice of either peeing in a half hovery squat type position to avoid gettting attacked by the killer poo, or walking to the boys toilet, which is cold and I'll probably end up standing on a hard plastic tigger or something.

How is it that men can be so nonchalant about their poo? If it were my poo that had clogged the bog, I'd be on my third toilet brush trying to remove all evidence. I'm just surprised my husband hasn't got the camera out and taken a picture of it to email to his friends or put up on Facebook. They, being of the male persuasion, would no doubt also find it hilarious.

ADDENDUM - FIVE MINUTES LATER
I've just been downstairs again and told my husband that it's STILL there. He asked: 'How many times have you flushed it?' (When exactly did this become my responsibility??)

So I told him, 'Several'.
'Just leave it over night. It'll have softened by morning,' he shrugged.
'But I use that loo at night,' I wailed.
'Well it's not going to attack you is it,' he said.
'It certainly looks like it could,' said I.
'Chuckle, chuckle' is all I got out of him.
'You don't want to get rid of it, do you? I asked. 'Secretly you're actually proud of it and want to keep it for a while so that you can admire your handiwork, don't you?'
'Yes,' he giggled and was off.

This is why books are written about men being from mars and women being from venus. I do wonder if they ever cover chapters on poo management.