On the Smell of Poop

I was 31 years old when I found out my shit stinks.

I was on a road trip with four other people and we were sharing a hotel room. As I recall, I was alone in the room when nature called. I pooped in the bathroom, as I had been doing almost my whole life. A few minutes later, the rest of the group returned. Two of the girls started exclaiming, “Peeuw! It smells like shit in here! Oh my god, it’s disgusting!!!” and started running around opening windows, turning on fans, and waving their hands in front of their noses as if they were about to be overcome by the horrible situation in which they found themselves.

I mean, I knew my poop smelled like poop. I guess what I didn’t know was how debilitating the smell of my poop could be to other people. It hadn’t occurred to me to protect other people from the smell of my poop as a courtesy.

One thing this tells me about my life is that I managed to go 31 years with an innocent acceptance of my body’s eliminatory function devoid of shame or embarrassment. I love it that my parents raised me this way, and that it took so long for me to come across someone who would shame another person for bad-smelling poop.

I had some judgement about those girls — I thought it was immature and unkind of them to make such a big deal about a smell we all make — and yet I’m grateful to have finally been clued into the possibility of showing greater consideration for others by dispersing or covering up my poop smell when I’m sharing space with them. I had noticed air fresheners on the back of toilets, seen ads for them on TV, and yet it had literally never occurred to me to spray one after pooping (probably in part because to me, they smell worse than poop).

This is an example of a situation where there is room for give on both sides. As a person with a nose, if I walk into a room and smell some poop, I can be kind and considerate by ignoring the smell until it passes, accepting that part of being human is that my nose occasionally receives reports from other people’s colons. As a person with a digestive system, I can be kind and considerate by doing my best to limit how much other people have to smell my shit.

I see a parallel with all those aspects of myself that are challenging to others or myself. We all have our shit to deal with. If I do my best not to let my shit affect you, I’m being a kind human being. If you do your best not to shame or embarrass or ostracize me for my shit, you’re being a kind human being. When I run into somebody especially sensitive to my shit, that can alert me that my shit is affecting others negatively and help me change for the better.

With poop, it’s easy to see that it’s a part of life which, although somewhat messy and smelly and potentially unpleasant, is totally necessary to survive and thrive. So we all have to deal with it, and nobody is exempt. I suspect that the other kind of shit is similar — I believe everyone has a shadow side they must live with, and I suspect the shadow aspect of ourselves is as necessary for our survival and thrival as pooping is. This helps me take the same stance with other people’s shadow side as I do with the smell of their poop — accept it gracefully as part of life, as long as they aren’t purposefully flinging feces at me.