As I‘ve written before my most important familial role is not being "dad" or "husband", but being the expunger, er plunger, of the household floaters.  For those of you who don’t know what a floater is, just think of that stuff that you find in the toilet bowl when the previous user has left a deposit, followed it with about 1/2 roll of toilet paper, pulled the flush handle and then dropped the lid before witnessing that the deposit has not been processed properly.  Or in the real world think of it as the stuff you find in the toilet bowl after the previous user has left a deposit plus 1/2 roll of toilet paper and dropped the lid despite seeing that the deposit has not been processed properly.

I dubbed myself "The Turd Man of Alcatraz" because I thought it accurately conveyed my feeling of being imprisoned with a bunch of toilet defilers, but when you get right down to it that’s not really a good nickname.  I mean it’s just too long.  I suppose you could shorten it to "Turd Man" but that makes me sound like some sort of demented super hero.  So I was elated when I found this Wikipedia entry listing the nicknames used by President Bush.  It ends up he calls Karl Rove  "Turd Blossom".

My friends, "Turd Blossom" is the perfect nickname for me.  I think it conveys a bit of the Zen-like feeling I get when I’ve held my breath for 90 seconds as I vigorously plunge the offending turd bowl.  Some might argue that I’m close to passing out, but I think I’ve entered an altered state of consciousness peculiar to we chronic turd plungers.   Kind of like the mad hatters of the 19th century.

Yesterday I continued my role as "Turd Blossom" by having to plunge two bowls before 8 a.m.  I’d have hit the trifecta if I’d gotten up before Celeste, because she found a pile of dog poop in front of our back door. Apparently the dog hadn’t done all his business when we let him out before going to bed the night before.  The result is this weekend I’m going to hold the first monthly Turd Blossom Academy class on proper butt wiping technique.  The class title is, "Save a Tree: Why You Don’t Need 3 Feet of Toilet Paper for Each Pass of Your Pooter".  Next month it will be, "Why We Use Soap: The Joys of Dysentery". Class fees start at $50 per person, but we offer sibling discounts.