Joining Joy in Playing Near Poop

Joy should lose a Worst Mama point for amusing her WeeKids with an actual backhoe at work in their own backyard. If she'd let her kids play in the raw sewage first, she might have taken the month...but no, she's left it open for the rest of us.

Driving the kids to practice this week, I tuned in sharply to their conversation when Ross said something about showing a friend the poop in the woods. "Excuse me, WHAT poop in the woods? Deer poop?"

"No, Mama, poop from people. There's a lot of it by a big pipe."

I try unsuccessfully to process this information gracefully. "Did you tell Daddy you found poop in the woods?"

"He wasn't home. You were home, but I knew you'd think it was gross so I didn't want to gross you out."

"So, instead, you showed another kid?"

"No, I showed all the kids! It was that gross!"

When we got back to the house, Chris traipsed into the woods with the kids. He reappeared a few minutes later, already on the phone with our township. An inspector appeared a few minutes after that and the kids dutifully took him into the woods so he could also see the pipe with poop. Maybe twenty minutes later, a township crew appeared with a collection tanker and the mess was quickly cleaned up. The manhole cover, found beside the open pipe, is going to be welded in place next week. So, after next Tuesday or so, my kids are going to have to go to someone else's yard (hopefully not Joy's!) to see raw sewage up close.