According to Baby Center’s Complete Guide to Baby Poop, there is a wide variety of normal pooping frequency among babies; some poop after every meal and some poop only once or twice per week, while the color and consistency may vary based on age or other circumstances. They stress that what is important is not so much the frequency of the poop, but rather that it is coming out reasonably soft.
The norms for frequency, color, and consistency did not hold true for America on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. Nearly 61 million citizens from these United States deposited a messy, red pile of pooh over the majority of the Rust Belt, southern, and swing states — a bowel movement that they seemingly had been holding for the better part of eight years.
This, of course, is in reference to the shocking 2016 presidential election results where Donald J. Trump became the President-elect of the United States. I, like the overwhelming majority of America, was truly dumbfounded when, at sometime post midnight on November 9, 2016, Trump was declared the winner of my home state of Pennsylvania, virtually ensuring his victory.
My wife and I, already on the third stage (bargaining) of the five stages of grief at this point due to The Donald’s ever-increasing likelihood of victory, immediately shot into the fourth stage (depression), where we also contemplated finishing a bottle of Hennessy. Given that we were already a few beers each into the night, and that we were also not rappers, we vetoed the Hennessy idea — not so much because it was a “school” night, but mostly because I became confused about all of the various “stages” and “steps” occurring simultaneously in this time of shock, horror, and disbelief. Were we on the fourth stage of a five step grieving process, or was the next stage of the evening (cognac) going to lead us to a 12-step program? Is Trump really going to take the stage in a Hilton ballroom to give a victory speech, while steps away in Manhattan tearful Hillary supporters enter similar stages of grief as they step, demoralized, into their modern-day stagecoaches, also known as Ubers? Am I just Wolf Blitzered on a Tuesday night, like I was at a fraternity party in Electoral College, or did we just take 10 steps backward as a country? Is this a hoax — you know, being staged?
As I prepared to exit stage left to bed, our eight-week-old infant, whose profile on our grainy baby monitor looked eerily similar to the map of Mecklenburg County, NC — the one we’d been staring at for the better part of four hours on MSNBC’s temperamental touch-screen map contraption — wailed incessantly, ostensibly to have his diaper changed. Or, did he just sense the utter disappointment his parents felt that nearly 61 million Americans just voted a masochistic, xenophobic blowhard to run the most powerful country in the world? Or, did our son have some sort of savant-like ability to contort his countenance into the shape of any county in the country, and if so, how could I immediately exploit that to make money show loving parental support to help him through the inevitable bullying that his “gift” would invite? As I reached his crib, I had my answer. He had soiled himself — not unlike the American electorate; although for a second I thought he looked at me in a Wayne County, MI sort of way, but I think that was just the beers catching up to me. Alas, I started the process of removing the fecal matter from my son’s bottom.
As I approached my task at hand, I couldn’t help but think about its similarities to our country’s new reality. My son’s dirty diaper became a metaphor for our new President-elect and his campaign run on grandiose promises, vague plans, divisiveness, and racism. And then, without notice or explanation, something came over me and I actually felt myself transform into Donald Trump right in front of my crying son. Perhaps this metamorphosis was some sort of odd coping mechanism for our ridiculous and terrifying new world order; or, more likely, it was because I was literally shoveling poop and a screaming person with an undeveloped brain found it refreshing, as if the universe thought it necessary given the situation’s similarities to a Trump rally.
Before I began, I, President-elect Donald Trump, felt myself become very anxious. My anxiety was twofold; not only would this diaper change be difficult with my now extremely small hands, but I suddenly realized that I would have to do this, often prematurely, over and over again for years due to the so called advancement in diaper design vis-à-vis the “wetness indicator”. It was clear that the system was rigged against me, because as a new parent I was essentially obligated to change my son’s diaper when I saw a trace of blue on one of those yellow lines marketed by Huggies, trusting the tools at my disposal versus relying on nonexistent experience — which by the way, extended for me to foreign policy, diplomacy, the military, the economy, being a good human being, not looking orange, etc. This infuriated me, because most of America believed that there was an actual science behind the “wetness indicator’s” technology, when in fact I knew it was a hoax invented by the Chinese who were manipulating Huggies’ brand managers to undermine U.S. interests. The generals told me otherwise, but believe me, I knew more than them and this was a textbook case of es-pee-onage: stealing secrets from your enemy through small batch infant urine collection. Like Huggies themselves did so very well, I swore right there that my administration would prevent any leaks to the Chinese so that we could regain our economic superiority which our current administration had squandered away so carelessly.
What gave me brief solace, however, was the fact that the expertly marketed diaper from the Far East acted as a barrier, a wall of sorts, between my son’s fecal matter and his crib, sheets, our apartment, and everything else that I dubbed “America”. One would think that since the Chinese clearly engineered the blue “wetness indicator” diaper wall to pursue U.S. interests, that it would have been a Great Wall, but that simply was not the case. Far too many times I found myself cleaning body waste that had penetrated either the northern waistband or the southern leg elastic of one of my son’s diapers. This excess excrement in turn used up more of our household resources (i.e.: baby wipes, detergent, time that could otherwise be used to binge-watch Netflix, etc.), ultimately increasing our family economic inefficiencies on a cost-per-baby basis. I knew construction, as that’s what I, in my Trumped-up state, did — I built great structures — fantastic structures. In fact, at that moment, I decided that I was going to build the most impenetrable diaper, with super absorbent polymers sourced exclusively from Mexico, and make Huggies pay for it. Further, the facts clearly showed that the poop generated by my son was not born in our “America”, as it was created inside his diaper, and thus outside of our country. It was also quite likely that the poop inside my son’s diaper could be brown, or some shade thereof, so it was logical to conclude that it had ties to ISIS, Al-Qaeda, or some form of Islamic extremism, since anything not born in America that was brown was obviously a terrorist.
As I opened the diaper, it was very clear that my son had defecated. However, when my wife had put him to bed, she had verbally noted to me that she did in fact change him into a clean diaper. The poop that was now lodged between his bottom and his Chinese diaper wall was a color that I, Donald Trump, had not seen before — and I had seen a lot of colors, believe me. All of the poop that both my wife and I had previously cleaned from my son’s bottom had been a yellowish/greenish color, while this new poop was a brownish color. What that meant to me, in my Trumpy daze, aside from the poop obviously calling for global jihad due to the aforementioned color association, was that my son did not have a preexisting condition of being treated for this new brown poop. Therefore, I could not perform this or any future brown poop diaper change in good conscious due to my commitment to streamline the wasteful healthcare practices of the current administration; from an insurance perspective, this boy would not be covered — or quite literally, he would not be covered by a clean diaper under my regime.
Unfortunately for my son, who a few short hours before my victory had coverage for diaper changes of any and all colored poop, he was no longer covered because of his ill-advised decision to alter his poop shade on this night and my campaign promise to repeal Obamacare. In the meantime, he could depend on my wife for diaper changes out of his own pocket until he was 26 or perhaps go to Canada or Scandinavia who employ single-pooper systems quite successfully. They wouldn’t have a problem absorbing him into their system, as in the eight weeks to that point that I knew my son he had always been a very low energy pooper — it would only be a stinky, colorful drop in the bucket for them, so to speak. The Obamacare state healthcare exchanges that were set up to help this kid get healthcare were now ironically leading him to be out of — or if translated into Latin — “ex” changes. I had only been made aware of this irony because it was referenced by a pundit on one of the talk shows that were part of my daily intelligence briefing. I certainly didn’t care to know Latin, as it was a dead language that I didn’t respect — I only respected languages that survived. However, as an aside, in an effort to soften my stance on the dead language issue, I extended a proverbial olive branch and hired a Latin guy to be my Chief of Staff. In fact, to show my unwavering support for him and his people, I have already instructed my Treasury Department to put his name on all of our coins and one dollar bills — great guy that Reince Pluribus. I love Latins!
As I continued to fumble around the changing table, my son’s eardrum-piercing wails freed me from the out-of-body nightmare that I was experiencing. I was back to myself, but the election results hadn’t changed, as The Donald was still the President-elect. Unfortunately for my son, I hadn’t changed his diaper during my “episode” and also, The Donald was still the President-elect. As I opened his soiled diaper and inspected his poop, my mind went immediately, as it always does, to the Complete Guide to Baby Poop. Weeks before his birth, my wife and I diligently studied up on the intricacies of parenting which included understanding the different shades and consistencies of your kid’s poop. While it was an enjoyable bathroom read, I preferred it more for the color commentary. I guess it was because I had just inexplicably gone into a Trump-trance and thankfully exited unharmed (although I now had a strong desire to frequently use “tremendous”, “terrific”, “huge”, and “wrong” in my now ill-defined answers to people’s specific questions), but the only thing that I could now do when I saw or thought of my kid’s poop was to correlate the three major things that I remembered from the baby poop guide to our new Commander-in-Chief…
The first thing that I recalled was that newborn poop is known as meconium. Meconium is greenish-black, tarry, sticky poop that looks like motor oil (and probably tastes like Trump Steak — RIP — The Art of the Veal?). However, in the Trump context, it took on a much different meaning for me, as the word meconium suddenly sounded very Trumpy. Several theories raced through my head…Isn’t Meconium an after-hours club in the Trump Casino in Atlantic City? I am almost positive I was there for a bachelor party about 10 years ago…Perhaps it was where Melania Trump is from in the former Yugoslavia? I thought there were only seven newly established countries formed from the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and she was from one of them — Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia — Maybe I’m wrong…perhaps Meconium is the eighth. Wasn’t she Miss Meconium in like, 1994? She had to be discovered by the big modeling agencies somehow, as I don’t think any talent agents were chillin’ in the Balkans during the time of the Bosnian conflict. Didn’t Trump tell a story about going on his first date with Melania and the word meconium somehow came up? I think he told Howard Stern or someone how he didn’t want to go to dinner with her on their first date because she hadn’t learned English yet, so they just got ice cream to keep it brief…Maybe it’s how she used the word meconium to describe her ice cream cone to Trump; “Donald, me coney…yum”…(FYI FLOTUS-elect, this isn’t technically cyber bullying, but rather me exercising my First Amendment rights, which is very American. Also, best of luck to Meconium in the next World Cup!!!). Didn’t The Donald come out with a cologne in the late nineties and call it Meconium by Trump? “With notes of hibiscus, jasmine, and coriander, Meconium by Trump will make you the Nostril-damus of that Ol’factory. Transform a bored room into a boardroom today with Meconium by Trump. (Really fast voice) Warning: using this product may cause bankruptcy, sexual assault, an infatuation with gold, or nepotism.” Maybe Meconium was the Silicon Valley start-up where young Stanford grads programmed Eric Trump to be a mouth-breathing, yes-man to his father? “Yes, we’ll need two with the pink tie and four that can tweet mistimed falsities, but make sure all of them have a pull string on the back that quips, ‘my father’s a job creator that loves his country’…”
The next thing I remember from the poop guide was that healthy, breastfed poop, which my son hopefully would be consistently dispensing, should be yellow and have a mushy or creamy consistency, looking similar to cottage cheese and dijon mustard mixed together (“Pardon me, would you have any Whey Poupon?”). I believe in late January 2017 the editors of the website will probably change the description of this type of poop to read, “Healthy breastfed poop should resemble President Trump’s untanned skin, particularly around the eye sockets; if your baby is premature, the infant’s poop should not resemble President Trump’s Yellow Labrador Retriever/Notre Dame football helmet colored hair, as like the President, such a color is inappropriate for his age; meconium-like poop should persist until the infant reaches full term, at which time the baby’s poop should transition to eye socket mushy yellow. If your baby’s breastfed poop looks akin to President Trump’s cheeks, forehead, chin, neck, or Eric Trump’s motherboard, call your pediatrician immediately, as this could be a sign of a rare but potentially fatal disease known as Commanjerknchief.”
Finally, I remember a portion of the guide covering constipation, where the baby’s poop comes out hard and infrequently and may be tinged with blood from irritating the anus. This is not to be confused with President-elect Trump, for whom it is frequently hard to believe that he’s the leader of the free world because he is an irritating anus. Additionally, the black tarry poop that is produced from a constipated infant is made up of digested blood and is actually called melena. This, of course, is not to be confused with the First Lady-elect who is called Melania, the ice cream loving, cyber bullying hating, former Miss Meconium circa 1994.
And now what? What does this all mean, other than that when my baby defecates it reminds me of the newly elected President of the United States? Well, the average length of time that kids wear diapers is apparently three to four years, which is roughly the length of the term — and I stress term, singular — for President-elect Trump; this means that even if this guy brings peace to earth, colonizes Mars with gold high rises, kickstarts the economy to unprecedented levels, brings healthcare to all citizens free of charge, and drops unemployment to zero percent, that every time I see my son’s poop in his diaper or elsewhere, I will stool still think of Donald J. Trump. While this is a personal matter, fecal at that, I am willing to try to overcome this new affliction that I have contracted, even though it now isn’t covered by insurance. Regardless of our political or personal views, we as Americans owe it to this guy to at least give him the benefit of the doubt and a very, very short leash to prove himself — what other choice do we have? Once we’ve given him that courtesy, and he fails, then we can protest, campaign, stump, boycott, occupy, etc. Personally, my wife, kid, and I will be moving to Meconium…
