I don't know how many times I've read Taro Gomi's
Everyone Poops to my little son, but enough to know that the humanist philosophy undergirding it is very similar to the basic unifying theme of PoopReport.
"Everyone eats, so everyone poops," Gomi reminds us. Pooping is not disgusting, it's not an aberration, it's not something to be shameful of or weird about. Pooping is the common shared not only by every human, but by every animal. We all eat, so we all must poop.
It's a beautiful message in a time when poop still has such a stigma attached to it. For some reason we as a society have managed to maintain a Victorian prudery regarding all things fecal. Literally hundreds of euphemisms have been developed in order to skirt around excremental discourse. 2.6 billion people in this world don't have adequate plumbing and run the risk of getting sick or dying from drinking focally contaminated water -- in part because the taboo has undercut the urgency of the issue in places where these discussions can make a difference, like the UN or the World Bank. That's why PoopReport and Everyone Poops are so refreshing. They both offer frank acknowledgement of the fact that everything has assholes and everything poops out of them.
Actually -- not everything.
If ever there was a villain to PoopReport, it would be the Demodex. For those who aren't entomologists or who have never had eyelashes infestations, the Demodex is a microscopic mite that lives on the fur of dogs and the eyelashes of humans. And while the Demodex is otherwise unremarkable, it is the only animal I know of that doesn't poop.
Its digestive system is so efficient that the mite has evolved to the point where it no longer has an anus. It doesn't poop. It feasts on oils at the base of our eyelashes and, like some über-efficient fantasy machine, uses every bit of the fuel it takes in without any waste.
In other words, this disgusting little translucent mite thinks it's better than us. It sits above our eyes and mocks us because we poop and it doesn't. It's so perfect that it doesn't think opinions are like assholes. It arrogantly munches on our eyelash oils and infests our dogs.
Screw you, Demodex! You, with your holier-than-thou pooplessness! You may be a gastroenterological miracle, but you're nothing more than a parasite to me. You may turn Taro Gomi's cool story into a lie and may be one of the biggest causes of folliculitis, but we can pretty much kill you with strong doses of tea tree oil.
Go to hell, Demodex.
