Poop and fleas, and other nice things

Recently, a woman told me that she named “all poop” after me.  She actually wrote that in an e-mail message.

“I name all poop after you.” 

I shit you not (excuse the pun).  It wasn’t even in the body of the message, it was the post script.  She wrote it in response to a note I sent to her thanking her for the I-Love-You-Still card she sent to the man I live with.  I thought her comment about poop was uncalled for, given how gracious my message was, my motivation so clearly borne out of generosity of heart. 

“Thank you for the card you sent to Evan,” was what I wrote. 

Okay, maybe “gracious” is a slight exaggeration, and I guess my motivation was borne more out of wanting her to feel irked that I knew about the card, and, perhaps, pissed, even, that he showed me something she thought would be private between them.  Frankly, I'm still feeling rather justified and somewhat cleansed.  After all, I could have opted for full-on bitchy rather than wading through with polite passive aggression.  I think my approach shows reserve and ingenuity, all rolled up in one.  She did, after all, send the man I live with an I-Love-You-Still card, and that's just not polite.

Upon receipt of my “thank you,” she immediately wrote her adorable little response.  In only one or two lines of amusingly bad spelling and creatively mixed metaphors, she noted, in essence, my proclivity for certain oral activity, the practice of which is completely illegal in most Southern states and an unmentionable abomination in all religions.  In keeping with her eloquent writing style, she added this witty post script: “P.S. I name all poop after you.” 

Honestly, I don't think she meant for it to be amusing.  She doesn’t like me much. 

Admittedly, I understand the effect she was going for.  She meant for me to curl up, thumb in mouth, whimpering and ashamed of the low I had so clearly hit by, you know, existing and all, thereby causing so decent and lovely a human to feel no options but to name shit after me.  She was, after all, thoughtful enough to send Evan a card.  That was nice of her. 

But no.  Wretched One that I am.  I couldn't even give her credit for being so swell.  Instead, I read her note and post script, and paused, mouth bobbing open ever so slightly, before bursting out in a hearty belly laugh. 

Obviously, the first thing that hit me was that she actually names shit.  And admits to it.  In writing.   To me.

As I sat there, reading this e-mail message, tears streaming from my eyes, laughter rippling uncontrollably through me, I envisioned her putting little doggie boots and a little doggie beret on her poor little doggie before trotting out into the world with him cringing on the end of his lavender glitter-studded leash, and I could hear her Julia Childesque baby voice tittering, “Does my widdle boy need to take a Wosawe?”  (Oh, come on. Tell me you really think a woman who names poop doesn't prance around the dog park with her poor little dog looking utterly douche-like.)

And it isn't that she simply names shit.  She names all shit after me. 

I've been accused, of late, of  being mean for no particular reason, so I want to be careful here.  This naming of shit might, after all, be a kind and generous gesture, rather than the “fuck you” I have attached to it.  I mean, one's name being affixed to a mound of sizzling, smoldering waste might actually be an honor in some countries, among various cultures.  Of course, it's possible, too, that “poop” is a gentler, kinder substance than is shit, hence the compliment in the reference to poop in relation to me.  While shit is smelly and gloppy and gag-inducing, poop may be, in her glitter-glued universe, a sort of preferred substance, something sweet and silky, sparkling and clean, something reserved solely for the special and much loved.  And she did say, you'll recall,  “poop.”  It was only I who likened it to shit.

This brings me to the second thing that made me laugh heartily:  She calls shit “poop.”  At 50-something, this woman actually calls shit “poop.”  It's not that she's calling shit “poop” because children are within hearing or, in this case, reading, range.  (Of course, that logic pretty much falls apart where it sits anyway, given her commentary, in the same note, on blow jobs.) 

I'll admit that there may have been a time that it could have been cute that she called shit poop, but such time passed, oh, like 45 years ago.  A grown woman who can write a note in which she addresses the administration of blow jobs can, most certainly, bring herself to say the word “shit.”  (And, since we're on the topic, the fact that she finds an insult in saying a man might get enough oral sex to satisfy him just could be one reason she's the old girlfriend.  Could be.)

Alas, this little ditty wasn't the last she would pen.  Since then she has offered words of wisdom worth embroidering on a little pillow.  In response to a mass mailing that a virus may have gone out through my e-mail address, via hacking, she sent this bit of literary brilliance:  May a flea bited, sexually deranged, dung covered camel take up residence in your kitchen and infest your bed.

It's not a typographical error; she actually wrote flea bited. 

And, although I wasn't aware that one could have an infestation of camels, let alone an infestation of a lone camel, I'm assuming my uber articulate friend would know about such things.  I'm not even going to start on the concept of the camel needing to be in both the kitchen and the bedroom.  Seems inconsistent, but, hey, who am I to question the curse of a shit-namer? 

I thought the embroidered pillow would be lovely on the bed in which the infestation of camel resides.  I'm picturing a cream background with delicate stitches, perhaps in rich and vibrant shades of poop.  Nice?