“Okay,” my wife proclaimed, performing a one-woman evacuation of my son’s bedroom. “I’m not going to freak out, but there’s poop on the wall.”

I was proud of her–assuming, of course, that there was, in fact, poop on the wall–because she is our marriage’s sanitation enthusiast. In The Land Before Twinfants, our dwelling was cleaned regularly and often due to her impeccable attention to decontaminatory detail, a gene I never inherited. As a former fraternity house resident, I tend not to recognize that a household item or surface requires cleaning until I trip over a dust bunny attempting to hand me a rent check, as he has recently decided that if he’s going to stick around this long, it is only fair for him to kick in some money.

Rarely is one presented with such a stellar conversation starter as “There is poop on the wall.” I was riveted–I had so many questions. But first, I needed to make sure I heard her correctly, and so, with eyes alight in anticipation, I inquired, “There’s poop on the wall?”

“Yes. There is poop. On the wall.” Okay, so this was no joke. There was. In fact. Poop. On the wall. But where?

“In there?”

“Yes. In there.”

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