I usually say, when I have to shit, that I have to shit or am going to go shit, etc. Or I say "excuse me" and get up from the table, if that would be more appropriate. (You might ask: when wouldn't it be more appropriate? Well, if I weren't seated at a table, for example.)
I similarly announce my attention when micturition is in order.
My policy is to insist that that particular bodily function doesn't exist, and to insist that all other grown-ups also insist on that. My committment to this policy is so strict that should someone try to speak to me while I am... in there I'll ignore them on the grounds that, since I'm busy doing something that doesn't exist, I at that moment don't exist either.
I think it is fun to do a little MC Hammer dance and announce "Potty Time." Not that I actually do that. I live alone. And when I didn't, if anything was said it was a soft little cooing "poooooooooooooooooooooooooooo." But generally speaking, pjs sounds a lot like my ex and that sort of set the tone.
My sister likes to say she's going to drop the Cosby kids off at the pool. She makes a big production out of the whole process.
She takes off her white robe and puts the burning cross on "simmer"
In my sister's warped brain, this is a "funny" statement and not an offensive one.
The interesting part is that she would totally lay into anyone else who made a similarly offensive comment and always accuses family members of being racist pigs and not accepting her because she won't date white boys (which is not the case, but she likes to believe it; I've dated non-white boys with no family problems).
She presently is shunning the paternal side of the family because they are evil close-minded killers with no regard for the value of life (translation: they eat meat and my bro brought home a baby duck to raise for a few months and then give up to a park or pond or something and it breaks her heart to have to do that). But she wears leather and drives an SUV.
Well, PG, your sister sounds like a handful, but your ex sure sounds awesome! I'm actually a little surprised that he's an ex, since the particular toilets hang-ups that he and I share are in *no way* correlated with other hang-ups that might make us hard to live with, like, say, an inability to deal with the messiness of life or an insistence on keeping the contents of one's inner life completely private.
I've heard the one used by PG's sister, but without the "Cosby" in front of "kids".
I don't ever use it myself, but in London I had a friend who liked to say, "If you'll excuse me, I have to go see an old friend off to the coast ." He always said it in a very posh British accent. I always kind of liked that formulation.
I knew other people there who said "I have to go see a man about a dog" (or sometimes "horse"), and while I knew what they meant, I never really got how that euphemism came into being.
Here's one explanation for "see a man about" phrases:
See a man about a dog - said when one is unwilling to state one's true destination
This expression comes from the long forgotten 1866 play Flying Scud by a prolific Irish-born playwright of the period named Dion Boucicault. One of the characters uses the words as an excuse to get away from a tricky situation. This character, an eccentric and superannuated old jockey, says: "Excuse me Mr Quail, I can't stop; I've got to see a man about a dog." This is the only thing that seems to have survived from the play.
Hmm. The jockey bit would make sense of why the variant is "horse."
Interesting about Dion Boucicault's line. His house on Gardiner Street is now a B&B of sorts and I stay there sometimes when I'm in Dublin. There are lots of dandyish portraits of Dion in there. But I'd never heard of any of his work before.
Do we all take pause often enough to appreciate Standpipe? I imagine (especially reading the above) that Standpipe has the voice of the evil-genius baby in The Family Guy. And so that must be the case.
Text, thanks for the kind words – would you say that was a Swedish, or deep tissue ego massage? – but I really must object. I sound nothing like Stewie.
Now where did I put those "Appreciate Our Standpipe" ribbon magnets…
I think people have already covered the clever things I've heard. Some were even new to me, and I can't wait to use them myself. That Superbowl/Browns one was awesome!
One thing I can add is that when I worked in a Tool & Die machine shop the guys seemed to take pleasure in being as blunt or crude as possible: "I'm going to the shitter. To shit. Get me some more shit paper."
And I read once that as soon as a euphemism becomes too mainstream then it is deemed crass and another euphemism comes in place. For example "toilet" started out as a euphemism. It is French for a "little work."
my present beloved and I say: "got to go make a big brown poo." Not really a euphamism though.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 4:34 PM
or a euphemism, either
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 4:36 PM
I usually say, when I have to shit, that I have to shit or am going to go shit, etc. Or I say "excuse me" and get up from the table, if that would be more appropriate. (You might ask: when wouldn't it be more appropriate? Well, if I weren't seated at a table, for example.)
I similarly announce my attention when micturition is in order.
I'm a real charmer, yessir I am.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 4:37 PM
You all disgust me.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 4:47 PM
Fontana hasn't read Discover since he bought new furniture.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 4:50 PM
Don't let the back issues pile up, Labs.
To encode my lavatory status, I use a very weak cipher vulnerable to a timing attack.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 4:53 PM
My policy is to insist that that particular bodily function doesn't exist, and to insist that all other grown-ups also insist on that. My committment to this policy is so strict that should someone try to speak to me while I am... in there I'll ignore them on the grounds that, since I'm busy doing something that doesn't exist, I at that moment don't exist either.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 4:53 PM
Excreting waste is for sluts, huh pjs?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 4:56 PM
Yeah, something like that.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 4:59 PM
I think it is fun to do a little MC Hammer dance and announce "Potty Time." Not that I actually do that. I live alone. And when I didn't, if anything was said it was a soft little cooing "poooooooooooooooooooooooooooo." But generally speaking, pjs sounds a lot like my ex and that sort of set the tone.
My sister likes to say she's going to drop the Cosby kids off at the pool. She makes a big production out of the whole process.
Posted by profgrrrrl | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 5:25 PM
She makes a big production out of the whole process.
She takes off her white robe and puts the burning cross on "simmer"?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 5:28 PM
She takes off her white robe and puts the burning cross on "simmer"
In my sister's warped brain, this is a "funny" statement and not an offensive one.
The interesting part is that she would totally lay into anyone else who made a similarly offensive comment and always accuses family members of being racist pigs and not accepting her because she won't date white boys (which is not the case, but she likes to believe it; I've dated non-white boys with no family problems).
She presently is shunning the paternal side of the family because they are evil close-minded killers with no regard for the value of life (translation: they eat meat and my bro brought home a baby duck to raise for a few months and then give up to a park or pond or something and it breaks her heart to have to do that). But she wears leather and drives an SUV.
Posted by profgrrrrl | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 5:34 PM
Well, PG, your sister sounds like a handful, but your ex sure sounds awesome! I'm actually a little surprised that he's an ex, since the particular toilets hang-ups that he and I share are in *no way* correlated with other hang-ups that might make us hard to live with, like, say, an inability to deal with the messiness of life or an insistence on keeping the contents of one's inner life completely private.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 5:42 PM
I've heard the one used by PG's sister, but without the "Cosby" in front of "kids".
I don't ever use it myself, but in London I had a friend who liked to say, "If you'll excuse me, I have to go see an old friend off to the coast ." He always said it in a very posh British accent. I always kind of liked that formulation.
I knew other people there who said "I have to go see a man about a dog" (or sometimes "horse"), and while I knew what they meant, I never really got how that euphemism came into being.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 6:08 PM
My favorite: "I'm gonna send the Browns to the Superbowl."
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 6:39 PM
Here's one explanation for "see a man about" phrases:
Hmm. The jockey bit would make sense of why the variant is "horse."
But I want to know what people actually say.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 6:44 PM
You are one seriously sick fuck, ogged.
Does no one just say, "I've got to go to the bathroom"? Why is it important to indicate what you're doing there? What is wrong with you people?
I blame GWB.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 6:58 PM
Take a dump. Pinch a loaf. Float a loaf. Drop the kids off at the pool. Visit the plop plop machine.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 7:04 PM
plop plop machine?????
SCMT has a point, btw.
Posted by profgrrrrl | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 7:09 PM
My favorite, because it doesn't reference directly reference any of that messy stuff: cop a squat.
Posted by Kackalaky | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 9:11 PM
"reference directly reference"
Crap.
Posted by Kackalaky | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 9:15 PM
But I want to know what people actually say.
ogged you bigot, just because the ones I heard say it were British doesn't mean they're not people.
I do however refuse to believe that people actually say "plop plop machine". I mean, really.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 9:51 PM
I personally like to just say "beeeep... beeeep... beeeep..." like a DUMP truck. Get it? Huh? Get it? Cuz, see, DUMP means "take a shit."
God, I kill me. The wife, however, wonders how she could wind up with such a cretin.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 10:15 PM
A friend of mine at college once excused himself with the phrase:
"Just have to point Percy at the porcelain"
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-21-05 6:25 AM
just because the ones I heard say it were British doesn't mean they're not people.
Now we're not going to be needing any positive discrimination porgrammes around here, are we?
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-21-05 6:27 AM
Interesting about Dion Boucicault's line. His house on Gardiner Street is now a B&B of sorts and I stay there sometimes when I'm in Dublin. There are lots of dandyish portraits of Dion in there. But I'd never heard of any of his work before.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 05-21-05 8:31 AM
Sorry it took me so long to pinch one out—I masturbated a lot as a kid.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-21-05 10:43 AM
Hey! That was Kotsko's line, Ben!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-21-05 11:07 AM
Frankly, Weiner, the guy lacks follow-through.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-21-05 11:14 AM
Right, because he masturbated so much when he was a kid.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-21-05 11:25 AM
What, day or night, must tumble from the sitting,
Heed an urge unbidden, by flatulence declared?
And what has the might, the mass to bottoms souse,
To splash his Highness on the throne?
The poopa, the poopa! Egestion.
The poopa, the poopa! Egestion.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-21-05 2:35 PM
Do we all take pause often enough to appreciate Standpipe? I imagine (especially reading the above) that Standpipe has the voice of the evil-genius baby in The Family Guy. And so that must be the case.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-21-05 4:28 PM
Text, thanks for the kind words – would you say that was a Swedish, or deep tissue ego massage? – but I really must object. I sound nothing like Stewie.
Now where did I put those "Appreciate Our Standpipe" ribbon magnets…
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-21-05 5:14 PM
I think people have already covered the clever things I've heard. Some were even new to me, and I can't wait to use them myself. That Superbowl/Browns one was awesome!
One thing I can add is that when I worked in a Tool & Die machine shop the guys seemed to take pleasure in being as blunt or crude as possible: "I'm going to the shitter. To shit. Get me some more shit paper."
And I read once that as soon as a euphemism becomes too mainstream then it is deemed crass and another euphemism comes in place. For example "toilet" started out as a euphemism. It is French for a "little work."
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 05-23-05 8:04 AM
as a euphemism becomes too mainstream
Remember back when "that sucks" was a really, really dirty thing to say?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-24-05 1:35 PM