Marriage sure has a way of bringing out all our little quirks — and driving our partners stark raving mad in the process. You know the ones I mean; they're the same ones that start out as "cute" in the early days of dating, but several years and a few kids later, they've somehow snowballed into the fastest way to start a fight. Katherine Thornalley of the blog Mrs. Mombastic is all too familiar with such "quirks." In fact, she recently wrote about one of them in a post on her Facebook page, which is clearly resonating with wives everywhere, because it's gone bonkers viral.
You see, Thornalley's husband has this irritating little tendency whenever he's in the middle of something: He announces that he has to poop.
Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with having to poop in the middle of tasks — or even announcing it if you and your partner are cool with it.
But Thornalley's husband doesn't just leave the room to poop. He drops what he's doing, asks her to finish it, and doesn't return for a decent amount of time.
In fact, it's become such a pattern, she refers to it as his "get out of jail free card."
"It’s his way of saying 'I’m done here. You finish it,'" Thornalley shared. And when you're in the middle of wrangling kids or trying to relax after wrangling kids, it can get quite annoying.
It's especially annoying because, if given the opportunity, Thornalley herself could never get away with it.
"Since becoming a mother, I have never once used this excuse," Thornalley wrote. "Stopping midway through getting the children ready and using my ablutions as an excuse … And believe me, my bowels have not been STRENGTHENED by childbirth. Oh no. Quite the opposite. Yet somehow, I am able to wait until such a time that is convenient to empty them."
Hmmm yes. Isn't that something??
Over the weekend, it happened again. Except this time, she did something she's never done before: She told her husband no.
No, he could not stop in the middle of cooking breakfast to go take a leisurely poo. No, she would not be stepping in to take over, simply because nature called.
Her husband could wait. And he would survive.
"You know what?" she wrote. "By some divine power he actually managed to complete cooking breakfast, empty the dishwasher AND have a further conversation with me about the state of the roads in this country WITHOUT sh-tting his pants. Incredible, isn’t it?"
Indeed it IS.
"Turns out it IS possible for dads to wait until the task in hand is completed before using the toilet after all," Thornalley concluded.
Her simple and lighthearted post immediately took off on Facebook, where it's racked up over 27,000 reactions and more than 10,000 comments.
Turns out, a LOT of men do this behind closed doors — much to the annoyance of their partners. In fact, most of those comments are from amused wives who admitted that they too know the struggle of the "poop" excuse.
"Omg my husband does it every morning without even started anything," wrote one woman. "Just get up and sit on the loo for half an hour. I don’t even think about doing a wee until everyone had their breakfast and dressed."
"We know the poo excuse! Has been used a few times in this household," wrote another. "Tbh, it seems to work so well with him, I've started using it!"
"I started calling my youngest 'the Laxative'," wrote another woman, "because quite often when I ask my husband to look after her while I do something, he suddenly needs a poo."
"My family used to call it Dishpan Diarrhea," another chimed in. "I would have to go after dinner and would miss half the dishes chore. I found out later I had IBS. But I can see this happening in any household."
Honestly, the comments in this thread are totally worth getting lost in, if you have five minutes. But even if you don't, consider heeding Thornalley's advice the next time your partner tries to stick you with cleaning/cooking/child wrangling under the guise of pooping. (Unless, of course, it REALLY can't wait.)
