What is a "Road Game" and other pressing fecal matters....

Death, taxes and potty humor. They are the constants I'm finding out.

So I write about how full of it I am (yes, 1.68 pounds) and I get alllll sorts of feedback. Most of it came offline because people are still shy about talking about fecal matter publicly. Seems there are a lot of questions. So, let's get to it. This weeks edition of Tom Talks Shit.

Q: What exactly is a 'road game?'

A road game, as you might imagine, is when you relieve yourself away from home. At work, at a friend's house, on an airplane, at a Chuck E. Cheese. Hell, it could be in the woods.

Q: Is it natural to feel uncomfortable partaking in, um, a 'road game?'

While it is quite uncommon to feel some level of angst, guilt, discomfort or even shhh! (constipation), the act itself is among the most natural of human functions.

I have a friend we'll call Bean since, well, that's what we call him. He refuses to, under almost any circumstance, visit a foreign bowl. I'm not talking about letting fly in China or Italy. I'm talking about ANY road game. I think it's a germ issue, though there is clearly overall discomfort.

This guy will work a double shift and hold it all day just so he can make a home deposit. I think he's crazy. If you have a family heriloom that needs to be protected, Bean's your guy. He can tuck away anything in safety for an extended period.

Now I get that. There are some horribly disgusting places that are disguised as restrooms. I would have to be nearly dead to use a gas station toilet, for example. Airports are a tough call, especially if you are about to board a flight. What's worse -- a couple germs on the cheeks or having stomach cramps while sitting next to Jobba The Hut on a flight to Vegas? "Uh, no prune juice for me, thank you very much!"

Q: How long is too long to hold it? How many times a day should one 'drop the kids at the pool?'

Ah, one of life's big mysteries....One of the ongoing debates that Bean and I enjoy.

I think it's easy. "Three meals, three times," right? I mean you don't want your PB&J running up against your pork loin now do you? Or your brown rice and your egg whites. Then you get in a whole Rodney King situation in your colon and NOBODY wants that.

But because I don't know everything... (I'll pause while you get over your shock)... I turned to a professional nutritionist, whom we'll call Alison Held because, well that's her name. Here was Alison's take:

"2 or 3 times daily is optimal. Only once is not ideal at all."

There you have it. Three Meals, Three Times. Maybe I do know it all.

Q: What is the deal with corn?

I know!!! What IS the deal with corn? I don't really know (okay, I did look it up but it's too scientific for a humor blog. The only funny thing about science, in history, was Beaker the Muppet. But I DO know this. We should make houses and space shuttles out of kernels of corn.

I also stumbled upon this discovery/science project. I have imbibed an adult beverage or two in my day. I happen to really like Guinness. (I know, it's like tar. Take my friend Jimmy O's advice. Drink two pints and then tell me it sucks. You can't.) So one night I'm drinking Guinness at a barbecue where there is obviously corn on the cob. Now, when I say I was drinking Guinness, I mean you could line I-95 with the amount of tar I consumed.

So, next day, after a home game, I take a glance before the flush (Come on, you KNOW you do it too) and it was almost black and infused with corn. I call it the Bumble Bee, but I can never get the stripes of corn in a perfect row. But, like a Rubik's Cube, I know have something to try to solve, to form the perfect Bumble Bee.

Oh, I'm sorry, am I talking out loud? Oops. Maybe I've more than answered your questions.

Until next time, this is Dr. Feces -- signing off. I "gotta go" anyway!

How Full of (Sh)it is Tom Anyway????

So I've been told I'm full of it. Okay, I've been told I'm flat out full of shit. (Yes, it was probably YOU who said it.)

But recently, I wondered......hmmm. HOW full of it/shit am I? How does one measure this?

Then, in an awkward place, I found my answer.

I was a guest in someone's home and I had to urinate, or "tinkle" as we said as kids. I'm not sure why parents and kids make up cute words for pee. Just call it pee, right?

Anyway, I embarked on Mission Tinkle in someone else's home. I walked in their tastefully decorated bathroom. It was like a library with a toilet. Which, I thought, wouldn't be such a bad thing. We would all read more if the toilet was in the room where all the books were. At least we'd make it through the first chapter. And, let's face it, if you like the first chapter you're gonna read the rest of the book. I wonder if the Reading Is Fundamental people have thought of this approach. Is that group still around or is RIF RIP. (This is how my mind works. You wonder why I'm always tired?)

Mission Tinkle...Yes that's right. So I begin the fumbling around (zipper, raising the toilet seat, etc.) and something catches my eye which, of course, gets my brain to thinking.

A digital scale in the bathroom.

Now these scales are the devil. If you think you're 175 pounds it will tell you 175.8 and then you're forced to mentally round up, or to allow for your 5 pound jeans.

I remember 175 pounds. My junior year in high school was so much fun.

So the scale....I look at it, and realize I do need to do more than pee. I needed to do "Number Three" (I could never remember the numbers; which was number one, which was number two, so I created a number 3, for when you have to do both.)

But, of course the problem was I was a visitor in someone else's bathroom. A "road game" is either uncomfortable for the visitor or socially frowned upon by just about everyone. (Unless it's a relative's house, then you can let 'er fly anytime. And take great pleasure in doing so.)

I needed to know, I decided.

So I weighed myself before making the deposit. Then I read a chapter of whatever was available. Then I stepped on the digital scale again. (Please tell me I'm not the only one who's ever done this. If I owned a digital scale, I would do this every time I had a "home game.")

So what was the result? Drum roll please (there's a rim shot joke in there somewhere, right?)

1.68 pounds

So, if I were 175 pounds let's say, the 175.8 could have been (oh I shouldn't have had the cheesecake), but instead I would have REALLY been 174.12 pounds (look out bitches, I'm fit and trim).

So does 1.68 fecal pounds dictate "full of shit?" I don't really know because, I've never weighed other people's dumps. Nor have I asked about it. Kind of a delicate issue, and you need a digital scale. But the few friends I've told this story too seem to think it's a lot. But like the adage of your shit don't stink, I think people underestimate the bulkiness of their waste matter.

I'm sure there is a website where you can enter your weight. I guess I'm not THAT caught up in my ranking against the median weight of my personal dung that I would search for such a resource.

The long and the short of it (actually it was kind of dense, not particularly long or short) is that I STILL don't know how full of shit I am. I just know I left skidmarks in a really nice bathroom. I wonder if they noticed.....