Toilet Humour

Most youngsters are obsessed with poos and wees and farts and bums and my kids are no exception. I suppose it was inevitable my children would get the toilet humour with abundance. After all I never grew out of it myself. Someone once gave my son a whoopee cushion for his birthday and I got more fun out of it than he did. Long after the kids had lost interest, I’d still be playing jokes on unsuspecting visitors. Once their initial mirth has subsided they realise I’m still convulsing with hilarity. This is when they look at me peculiarly. Hubby just rolls his eyes and waves a dismissive hand.

It’s actually embarrassing but I can’t help it. It must be in my DNA to still find this hilariously funny in my thirties. Well ok, I can’t think of anyone in my immediate family but maybe it skipped a few generations and one of my long-gone ancestors used to roll round clutching their bellies in their black and white petticoated cloaks. Hard to imagine as they never used to crack a smile in their photos - they all looked a rather sullen bunch back in the day.

“Mum I know what I forgot to tell you!” exclaimed Master Six the other day. “Someone farted on the mat.”

He knows this gets my full attention and plays it like a trump card.

“Ohhhh who?” I ask, all ears. I well-remember the hilarity that followed the “pwarppp” as everyone looks around accusingly for the culprit. That single sound has the ability to disrupt a teacher’s well-planned lesson for minutes on end.

And, you see this is why I could never be a teacher. Rather than keeping a straight face and bringing the classful of giggling school children back to order, I’d be rolling round in hysterics on the mat, nose stuffed down my shirt with the rest of them.

Growing up as the only girl surrounded by boys didn’t help. Many school holidays we’d travel to mum’s good friend’s farm in Kaitaia where, between my two brothers, her three boys and their friends, I was vastly outnumbered. They don’t breed them ruder than farm boys and each holiday I’d return home with ruder jokes than the last that, once repeated, would make my friends’ eyes bulge with shock.

The only person I’ve come across who shared my warped sense of humour at its extreme was my good friend from school. Recently we caught up after many years while she was over from Australia. It didn’t take long before we were reminiscing and all the old sayings came out. We laughed away with tears streaming down our faces like old times. And then she stopped. And I didn’t.

She got that look in her eyes.

Okay, time to pull yourself together. “Think of someone dying,” I told myself, which worked for a little while before the bubble of mirth rose once more. Luckily she began laughing again, although I think, by now it was at me.

Because no one my own age seems to share my immature wit I get my kicks out of sometimes incorporating toilet humour into my children’s night time stories. It doesn’t do much for making them sleepy – the four of us are in hysterics (I can just hear my mum clicking her tongue and sighing.) And to save face, I’ve had to teach them here about the difference between private humour and public.

But I’ll have to grow out of it myself before there’s any likelihood my kids will and the chances are looking slim. Anyway there’s nothing like having a good old belly laugh with someone. Maybe, like the solemn-looking black and white ancestor who was obviously hiding something, it can be my legacy.