I had the absolute pleasure of attending my twin nephews’ birthday celebration recently at a local “fun zone” which will forever go unnamed. Normally I loathe these places … bazillions of young children racing around quite literally like chickens with their heads cut off to the dismay of parents and caretakers alike. And they don’t even serve alcohol! This particular party was entertaining nonetheless, and it all boiled down to poo. Yes, you read correctly.

I was kind of in a bad mood heading into the evening’s festivities. Doo had abandoned me for his beloved tree stand for the second weekend in a row, and my kids had been fighting like cats the entire day. The last way I wanted to spend a Saturday night was holed up in a “play” warehouse surrounded by sugar-filled rugrats. But family calls, so I downed two Advil and headed into the fray with my three tween-agers.

As expected, kids were everywhere, screaming, crying, laughing, falling, jumping, spinning … this place could make bank if they just sold whiskey. Two whole hours. How was I going to make it? Here’s where poo saved the day.

First I was regaled by my sister-in-law and her husband about their new puppy’s intestinal condition. Apparently she has Giardia, a parasitic condition which results in extreme diarrhea at all hours. Hearing them recount a night of pure fecal horror made me laugh so hard I cried, and reminded me of our own canine catastrophe last Christmas Eve when we discovered our Labrador had utterly destroyed her kennel and the bedroom’s white carpet. Good times.

Coincidentally, one of the birthday boys also was experiencing bowel issues. On the heels of his dad whisking the potty-training cutie away after the second accident of the night, I heard my other sister-in-law scream to her crawling one-year-old, “Don’t eat that!” We all looked up to see her snatch her son away from a perfectly cubed pieced of poo. As I went to clean it up, we noticed several other “nuggets” lying around. Apparently the star of the show was leaving a trail straight through the main play area, sanitation warnings be damned.

I don’t know if these establishments follow swimming pool protocol when contamination occurs, but we weren’t taking chances. Swiftly yet covertly, we spread out to contain the situation and eliminate all traces of corruption, struggling to keep the giggles in check. We succeeded on the first, failed on the second, and thus ended my best time ever at a play park.

You could say the poo hit the fan twice that night, but for once, I think we all welcomed it. Peace out!