Where’s Poop?

My boyfriend Silvio and I attended a birthday party yesterday for a cute little one year old named Sunny. We know this tiny human because Silvio is a long time friend of her dad, who is our age, which is one plus twenty-nine. Crossing the threshold from twenty-nine to thirty only took a day, but is affecting me in a way none of my other birthdays have. Now, when I attend a party, it might be a baby’s, the other attendees other babies being held by the people that produced them. It’s a slight off chance, most everyone I know in Los Angeles is still trying to make sense of dating apps and suffering through a crisis of confidence after being ghosted. But there are people, all gathered on a beautiful Sunday afternoon on a Southern California beach, holding their babies, together.

Young married people with babies is slightly awe inducing. All gathered together, they look like a Scientology ad. Healthy, glowing skin, full heads of hair, bright white smiles, slim figures, and their offspring, wide eyed little chunks of their love, nestled in their arms, perfect images of their vitality. As Silvio and I walked down the steps from PCH to the coast, we saw a tiny teepee made of driftwood with balloons gathered at the top, a perfectly tipped over tree with a pinata in the shape of a sun hanging, Pendelton boho print beach towels spread out, a picnic table full of gifts and boxes of apple juice and Goldfish crackers, and we were met by a tribe of the most perfect, beachy, beautiful parents with their matching one year olds. “I wish we had rented a baby for this party. One that we can give back at the end, like those suit broker places,” I whispered to Silvio. “Or just have a baby,” Silvio suggested, as I scratched my head, lost in the ether of that idea. Someone asked me my age recently and when I opened my mouth nothing came out. I was gasping for air, unable to say the words. “Thiiiiiirrrttt-thirrr-ahhhhh. Ah, uh thirr—teeeeeeeeee.” And then, immediately afterwards, I wanted to weep in utter shame. Because I knew what the following questions would be. “What’s the mortgage on your house? Where’s your business card with your executive title? How does my assistant get in touch with yours to arrange lunch? Is this tall handsome man your husband? How long have you been married? Five years?” And the other question, “Where’s your baby?”

Silvio bought a tiny throw pillow before he and I got together, it’s a throw pillow created in the likeness of the poop emoticon. You know, that little perfectly coifed smiling poop that gets widely used by iPhone users in their texts to one another:

How’d your job interview go?

It went ok I think, I don’t know, we will see *insert poop emoji*.

At first I didn’t like it because it’s designed to be decor. It’s duty is to decorate a space and make it feel more inviting and welcoming and it just didn’t fulfill it’s role in my opinion. Adorned on a bed, Poop is the only thing you see. There it is in the middle of a plush, bright white pillow arrangement with tasteful brown leather accent throw pillows, and a grey cashmere throw, smiling crazily, taking the attention away from all the style and class. On the couch, there it is on top of a chunky woven blanket. Robbing you of your first thought, what a nice blanket to curl up and read a book in and replacing it with is that poop? And depending on the type of person you are, you may be discouraged to sit on the couch, you may just opt for leaning against a wall. “I love Poop,” Silvio proclaimed when he introduced me to it. “It’s…cute,” I said, wondering how I could get rid of it. Then Silvio turned it upside down to show me a clean, neat line of brown stitching. “It tore open once, and I stitched it back together,” Silvio explained. And a certain void in my heart was filled to the point of soaring. Imagining Silvio buying brown thread and carefully stitching up this horrific poop pillow. Arrrgh, this thing will never be able to just mysteriously disappear. 

And although now, every time I look at it, I only see proof of Silvio’s insurmountable sweet and gentle nature, the dark, heartless, obsessive compulsive designer in me still wants that proof of character hidden, or sold and shipped away to tarnish someone else’s aesthetic. Once, I placed Poop inside one of Silvio’s sweatshirt hoods and propped it up in the bed like a human. To make it more alarming, I positioned the sleeves to look like it was holding a book, and that book was Pimp by Iceberg Slim. Silvio returned home to a dark, empty apartment, only to turn the lights on and see a frozen, lifelike figure in his bed, enjoying Iceberg’s account of his own cunning as a pimp. The face peering out of the hood, those manic eyes and matching smile, Silvio’s familiar friend come to life. After that, Poop changed from “it” to “him”. If it was cold, he would sit next to us on the couch, adorned with one of my winter snow hats, his duty repurposed not as decoration, but as…. our Poop. Going to bed without him leaves one of us asking, “where’s Poop?” Only to retrieve him from the desk chair and nestle him lovingly between us, like he was our baby we were about to roll over and suffocate in our sleep.

And now, among all these beautiful, happy young mothers, I wished I was carrying Poop. Having others stroke his head and comment on how cute he is. Letting him socialize with the other darling babies on a blanket in the sand, while Silvio and I stood, overlooking, embracing one another and proudly remarking, “we made that.” Which is what Sunny’s parents did, and rightfully so. It can’t be discounted that they should win some sort of genetics award for continuing the evolution of beautiful humans. Sunny has beautiful parents and is a beautiful baby. She has a perfectly round head with large brown eyes and a cute little button nose. Gentle wisps of golden hair and soft chubby cheeks, she is just a bundle of cuteness you want to hold in your arms and protect. “She’s going to be gorgeous,” I told Silvio. “I hope they never let her go to 711 alone.” My thoughts turned dark, suddenly overwhelmed by all the horrible possibilities, some of which I’ve lived through, but mostly ugly things that are always dominating my Twitter newsfeed. Ah! No, she can’t grow up or go outside. And if she absolutely has to grow up, we should build a shelter underground to keep her unharmed forever, like mole people. “Oh please,” Silvio scoffed, “look at you, always running down alleys.” I began to wonder why, out of all the naive, carefree, semi dangerous situations I’ve gotten myself into, why running down alleys? I don’t think I find myself in that many alleys to warrant that being the crowning jewel of my stupidity. Although you rarely ever hear of anything positive happening in alleys. You never hear of someone proposing in a “romantic dark alley”, or strangers meeting to become friends among the dumpster debris. Alleys are where people retreated in order to carry out their animalistic urges and get away with it. Rob, kill, defecate, release bladders of toxic piss. Sunny has to stay on main streets.

As I was devising a strategy to keep Sunny safe until she was on her death bed that was quickly turning into some sort of mobile bubble suit, Sunny was cautiously trying to figure us out.  I was jealous of her ownership of blatantly studying our faces in judgement for however long it took her to come to a conclusion. Upon meeting new people, I wish I could pause, take a moment to stare them down, close up, and straight on. Discover and then make peace with their wonky nose, or slightly grey front tooth, conjure up a general gut feeling and compose myself before having to utter any words or make an impression, or if not received well at all, just simply walk away. The valuable time and energy I would save! Different emotions were passing through Sunny’s eyes as she looked sternly at us. Her nose would sometimes scrunch up, her mouth open a little, then close. Her tiny brow would furrow and then release. A soft murmur or gurgle. The suggestion of smile and then nothing, just a blank stare. After her assessment, she settled on complete and utter disgust. Who are they? I’m not feeling it. 

Silvio and I were distraught. I wanted Sunny to approve of us so badly I would do anything, and I could tell Silvio felt similarly, though less desperate. Then Silvio moved his head and suddenly Sunny changed, enamoured with Silvio’s long, wavy curls. As if she had been so distracted reading our souls that she’d somehow overlooked Silvio’s magical mane of lion hair. She smiled, causing everyone else to gleefully gasp, and then she reached out her tiny hand and grabbed some of his hair. Everyone froze in delight and anticipation as we watched Sunny smile, the tiniest handful of Silvio’s hair being gently pulled and smooshed. But then the moment was lost, and Sunny’s expression of agony returned, releasing Silvio’s hair and looking at her dad like she just couldn’t bear it anymore. Take him away, her cute little face said. “We’ll have you guys over for dinner at the house where it’s more mellow. She’s had a lot of excitement today,” her dad offered, obviously feeling compelled to make excuses for her honest reactions. Similar to Silvio, in regards to myself. “She hasn’t eaten enough today, it’s not you, it’s her. Are all the lightbulbs working overhead, she’s so sensitive to environment. There may be too many people around. In fact, where is the coat closet? Bubs, go ahead. She’ll take some time and come back out and feel up to a game of Apples to Apples, trust me.”

Behind Sunny was another cute little chunk floating in the air guided by the arms of his mom. This one was a boy who was wearing a little sun hat, and I imagined how cute Poop would look in it. His mom was also adorable, long beachy blond hair and wearing stylish sunglasses. And then it dawned on me that socializing at parties with babies present was a great solution for loners like me. Babies provided instant conversation and connection. “He’s so adorable! How old is he?” I asked and her face lit up. “He’s eight months. None of his teeth have come in yet,” she confessed. He lay in her arms, lumpy and looking crotchety, like a gummy old man. Poor thing, I thought. Before his name even, he gets introduced by his defect. But where are his teeth? Are they somewhere in the back of his head or buried too far down in his gums, trying to escape? Maybe they are just being held up by something. Some kind of blockage, a mass of some sort. What grows teeth? This mom was so sweet and her toothless baby was so helpless, I wanted to offer up mommy advice, generate a convivial feeling amongst two comrades who have pushed human beings out their hoo has. Say “Oh don’t worry! My little one’s teeth didn’t come in until he was well past eight months and look how perfect he is!” But Poop has no teeth and he absolutely never will. And I couldn’t remember anything about my own teeth. Only that in their present state they have been whitened to the dire point of never being able to endure food that is too hot or too cold.  I needed to slip my phone out of my pocket and google “when do babies teeth grow?” Followed by the search “and how?” “He’s just beautiful,” I decided to say, gazing at him admiringly and his mom beamed.

I mentally scolded myself to stop comparing babies to Poop. That any slip up or mention of “him” in a conversation, even intended as a joke, would have me carted out of this party by psychiatric services and police, who will have teamed up in order to throw me promptly into jail with the other deranged sickos, when I noticed Silvio near the picnic table drinking a juice box and gazing out at the ocean. Behind him was a little girl in a tutu who had somehow climbed on top of the dumpster and was jumping up and down on it as if it was a trampoline. That one, I thought, that one won’t be afraid of alleys, oh no. “Time for the pinata!” someone announced. And then madness. “Line up in size order!” “Where is the stick?” “Sunny, goes first.” “The blindfold is only for the big kids.”

A little boy with a backwards baseball hat and huge brown eyes teetered into the arena and you could tell, this would be the one to completely annihilate this joyful little sun pinata. He was young enough to bypass the  blindfold, but his determination and inner madness had clearly surpassed his age. “Look at his eyes!” someone called out in fear as the little boy stood in one place, the stick thrashing through the air with such force that the dad on the other end of the string controlling the pinata quickly reacted, pulling the string to raise the little sun up a few feet. The stick fell to the little boy’s side, his wild eyes zeroing in on the dad controlling the string and the dad promptly lowered it back down. As he beat the sun to death, parents realized oh ok, good God, next person’s turn! And the little boy’s dad appeared next to him, forcing the stick out of his hand. In the absence of the stick, the little boy’s eyes returned to normal and he skipped off sweetly.

I had begun to notice that there were a few other couples with empty arms, lurking around the outskirts of the crowd looking lost, and slightly unsettled.  I wonder if they have little Poops they care for, I thought. And then I dissected my thought. Oh no, are those sirens I hear in the distance? “I’m going to start telling people I’m twenty-four,” I told Silvio on the drive home. “You look twenty-four,” he said. “So do you,” I informed him and we sat in triumphant joined silence, reveling in that fact. Feeling like champions of youth. Cheaters of death. Ageless forever. Immature and free. “My back hurts a lot now though,” Silvio admitted. “I wake up in the morning and am instantly tired,” I added. “And I really need to see a dentist about my tooth,” he continued. “You know the one I think has a hole in it? I think it’s falling out.” Falling out? My heart palpitated. It was at that moment that I realized, although I don’t know when teeth grow in, I know when they fall out. Thiiiiiirrrttt-thirrr-ahhhhh. Ah, uh thirr—teeeeeeeeee.