When i was a kid, i was not a snappy dresser.

That shortcoming has followed me into my adulthood when now, i consider “dressing up” to be when i wear the T-shirt with the intact neckline. It doesn’t really matter a whole lot now - i may be overlooked for promotions at work, and viewed with disdain - even disgust - by my fellow man, but at least they keep quiet about it. Things are different when you’re a kid.

Kids are real quick to latch on to the lies peddled by brand managers. If a commercial says that a certain brand is good, and it’s perceived as cool, and the manufacturer’s suggested retail price is sufficiently high - when these three factors come together, it enables the cool kids to stay cool, and everyone else to be ridiculed by the cool kids.

i remember when i was in junior high, shoes were very important. Anything made by Nike was okay. Kids read each other’s shoe labels fanatically, and if you had Nikes, you were okay. Otherwise, no good. One time, my mom bought me some shoes to replace my old, faded and delapidated Nike Air sneakers. The new shoes were much more comfortable, but they weren’t fashionable. i had a man on the inside, a cool friend who stuck up for me and made sure i didn’t draw too much heat from the cool faction, and he advised me to switch back to the Nikes.

A few years later, my mom bought me a pair of sneakers that said “Winner” on them. That was a bad scene. This cool kid came up to me, read my shoe label, and said “So … i hear you’re a winner.” i tried to shrug it off.

“Are you a winner, guy? Do you win? Do those shoes help you win at things?”

“No, i’m not a ‘winner,’” i mumbled. i wanted to throw those shoes in the garbage. But you know - it was hard to sell a single mom on the virtues of Reebok Pumps, those shoes with the big rubber basketball on the tongue that you pressed to inflate the soles with air to get better performance on the basketball court. i thought Pumps were kind of stupid, but if i had them, i doubt i’d be harassed for being a winner.

Or so i thought. The fact was that you just couldn’t win with the cool kids. When i was in school, there were a lot of fun California-themed labels that were all about surf and sand and palm trees and stuff. One of the labels was called Ocean Pacific. i liked Ocean Pacific clothes because i really liked beaches and water. If Southern Ontario had a viable beach, i’d have been there. (As it stands, we have an enormous body of tepid water called Lake Ontario which, because i rowed a dragonboat in it for one summer, will probably give me prostate cancer.)

So i’d wear this Ocean Pacific stuff, and on more than one occasion, the cool kids would talk to each other while i was in earshot (a very passive-aggressive way to bully someone) and say “The thing i don’t get is why nerds wear all of these sports labels when they’re not into sports! It doesn’t make sense! Ha ha ha! Point point laugh! i’m going to get divorced when i’m thirty and die from an expensive cocaine habit!”

You couldn’t win. If you wore “nerd clothes” - i dunno … button-down plaid shirts (pre-grunge era) and Dockers (pre-grunge era) and trucker hats (pre-ironic dotcom trucker hat era), they’d make fun of you for being such a geek. It upset the cool kids that geeks had access to the same clothes they did - namely Ocean Pacific sportswear - so they had to get you somehow.

i often think, and i know i’m not the only one - that i wish that i knew what i know now. These same kids felt really threatened in gym class when we started lifting weights. The teacher had us rotating in a line-up at the bench press, and every time he cycled through the entire class, he’d up the weight on the bar. Eventually, all the weak kids would be weeded out, leaving the strongest kids still “in the game” trying to best each other at pressing heavier and heavier bars. Keep in mind here that gym teachers themselves, despite their ancient 70’s hairstyles and gross ponchy manflab, were once part of the cool crowd, so it’s no surprise that the way they structure their gym classes is perfectly devised to humiliate the nerdy kids and glorify The Hated.

The point here is that, while far from being at the top of my class, i lasted far longer in the weight competition than any of the cool kids expected me to. i wore Ocean Pacific clothes, and they attacked me because i’m not athletic. But then what happened when i actually showed myself to be somewhat athletic? Cool kids do not handle a threat like this very well.

One of them came up to me and said “Are you strong, guy?” Exact same tone. Might’ve been the same kid, now that i think about it.

Of course, he had nothing. It was a total stab in the dark, because he felt threatened. Was i strong? How is anyone supposed to answer that? And when it’s said in a belittling way by a bullying cool kid who’s put you down so many times in the past, your likely response, as mine was, is to say “Me? Uh. Naw. i dunno. No. i mean - no, i guess not.” And then slump away.

i know that i could have lifted a lot more weight that day. Because you know what? i am strong. i don’t have very big muscles, and i can’t lift nearly as much as someone who trains regularly, but more than a few times in my adult life, someone has raised their eyebrows at me and said “Well, there’s no question about it - you’re strong.” My squash instructor, my personal trainer, my dragonboating coach … and that scrawny little kid in junior high who, if he had faced me now, would be feeling the full wrath of my Winners in his ass.

i mention all of this because on my walk to work this morning, i came up behind this junior high kid wearing a really unfortunate napsack:

Sorry if you’re squinting to see it - it’s kind of hard to take candid shots of children while walking closely behind them through public parks without getting thrown in totally jail. What you’re seeing is a kid wearing a napsack that says “Fun Satchel” on it. Fun Satchel comes with a picture of a monkey. Additionally, the monkey enjoys soccer.

Cool kids will be mean when you don’t conform to their concept of what’s cool to wear. We’ve established that. There’s not a whole lot you can do; if they want to pick on you, they’ll pick on you. But there is some onus on the nerdy kid to keep from directly asking to be mercilessly ridiculed. So take my advice, kids - the next time Mom drags you down to Chinatown and wants to save a buck by buying you the napsack that says Fun Satchel on it, just say HELL no.

Forget what i said about my imagination opening a portal to my anus. i have it on good authority from a friend at work that i’m (reasonably) normal in that respect. He says that it’s perfectly natural for a lot of cardio work and bouncing around to provoke what doctors and scientists call your body’s instinctive poo reflex - so much so, he says, that incontinent patients are encouraged to buy a tiny trampoline to encourage their bowels to move. Faithful readers, can i get a seconder on that one? He may be full of baloney, but come to think of it, i swear i’ve seen these little trampolines kicking around. The work friend says you’ll see them at old folks’ homes, where pooing is a priority.

(note: if i ever open up a retirement villa, that’ll be our slogan. “Shady Winter Overhill: Where pooing is priority.” The billboards will have a close-up on the wrinkled face of a happy, wizened old gentleman who obviously just went. Hooray for him! That tiny trampoline’s a keeper.)

i thought for sure these details were interesting enough to write in a journal entry, and i’d thought it through to this point, but then what? Should i just end it abruptly and sign off right there? Don’t you people deserve - nay, demand - a beautifully segued anecdote about my childhood? And preferably poo?

The one interesting tale i could cook up begins with the startling discovery that at age 8, i had made a green poo. i’m not talking about a had-a-lot-of-salad, leafy-greens-poking-out kind of poo. This is not some generally pale brown, squint-and-it-looks-kind-of-forest-greeny kind of poo. i am talking about an unapologetic, no-holds-barred kryptonite green leafy lime Weed Man logo nobody’s-favourite-colour kind of shockingly green green green log that came from my body by way of my butt. It was green. And i was kind of concerned.

Shrugging off the embarrassment and discomfort i felt at disclosing this most intimate part of my daily routine, for fear i might be dying or alien possessed, i told my mom about it. It happened a few times in a row before we made it in to see the doctor, whose only guess was that it was some kind of parasite. Or, as he put it, a worm.

Friends, as an eight year old, you’d much rather be possessed by aliens.

i can’t recall which came first - the Irish log or my fear of parasites thanks to a certain missionary - but i do clearly remember listening to a Baptist missionary talk about the problems in the African country where she was stationed. During one part of her horrific, unappealing pitch (which was somehow intended to get us Sunday School kids all excited about doing missions in Africa), she said that a girl - probably around our age (naturally) - visited her with a ghastly look on her face and said “Miss … i vomited a worm.” And the missionary said this with a creepily authentic Kenyan accent. Then she went on to explain that the girl had been host to a tapeworm that had grown so large in her belly that the end of it had come spilling out her mouth.

This story was indelibly imprinted on my impressionable brain, and now i bequeath it to you.

i came out of there knowing two things: i did NOT want to do the Lord’s work in Africa, and i most certainly did not want to be host to a worm.

The doctor gave me worm-killing pills to kill the worm that he thought had holed up in my belly and had been eating the brown out of my poo. Soon after that, i stopped having green poos.

Some years later, i had green poos again. What on Earth had i done to somehow invite more parasites into my body? Other kids my age didn’t have worms, and i did all the same crazy kid stuff they did. i ate sticks, i rolled around in dirt, and i ate gum off the ground as long as it was still partially delicious. What had i done wrong?

When we went to the doctor, i told him i had a worm again. This was a different doctor, and he had a different diagnosis: beats me. He thought the worm idea was far fetched, and he advised me to go home and let it work itself out. And it did. A mystery.

Flash forward fifteen years later, and i have a green poo. But if there’s one thing that had changed since i was a kid, it was that i didn’t have to put up with doctors’ bullcrap guesswork any more. i had the Internet.

Word.

So a quick search of “green poo” brought me to a very useful but upsetting forum where people sat around all day talking about their poo. It had pictures. i tried not to look. Except at the really interesting ones.

i found a message a guy had posted about ordering packets of Purplesaurus Rex, a sugary Kool-Aid brand drink of his youth, from eBay. After drinking a huge pile of the stuff, he started having green poos. And guess what? i used to drink Purplesaurus Rex all the time!! It was such a relief to have that traumatizing episode cleared up. But that didn’t explain why i had just launched a green poo in my twenties, with no Purplesaurus Rex in sight.

The green poo culprit: Purplesaurus Rex. i’m especially glad that they clarified it has “artificial flavour,” in that it’s merely simulated to taste like a pink polka-dotted dinosaur. Phew! Thanks for clearing that up, Kool-Aid! Oh YEAH!

So i thought back to what i had eaten recently: a chicken sandwich … a glass of chocolate milk … thirty some-odd Rocket Pop frozen novelty treats … a carrot …

…

Wait a minute … ! Could it be that the same anti-browning agent found in Purplesaurus Rex of yore could also be a key ingredient in Rocket Pops? And could eating thirty or so frozen space-themed treats really be unhealthy for me? It’s true, i have been known to enjoy an inappropriate and ungodly amount of popsicles on occasion, but could these innocent, these patriotic red white and blue popsicles be the source of my other-worldly bumfruits?

i think so, yeah.

Virginia volleyball cutie Jessica Church enjoys green poo culprit number two, a tasty Rocket Pop, after a sweaty all-girl volleyball practice with her volleyball-playing girlfriends who play volleyball.

Be careful, Jessie! You’re liable to get green poo from that thing!

(note: i’ve never met Jessica Church from Virginia, but her picture came up when i searched for “Rocket Pop.” One day, she’ll do a vanity search for her name and will be mortified to learn she’s part of my blog. But that’s okay, Jessica … i’ll send LOTS of business your way once i’m famous and i have readers who need someone to … volleyball for them.)

i do my best to include a poignant moral take-home in each of my stories. So what life lesson can you take from this particular tale? Well, my astoundingly pregnant wife has sworn off any foods that contain food dyes Red 60 and Yellow 7 because they can harm the foetus and cause birth defects. Yet i guess we feel that since we’re not foetuses, it’s okay for us to ingest that stuff at rate of thirty Rocket Pops in a single sitting? Anyone care to guess why our day-to-day living is so rife with people contracting and dying of cancer?

And can anyone please explain why my colon is so itchy?

Having a 7 months’ pregnant wife is torture. You’ve got this big, exciting belly on her that ripples and twitches with the promise of something really good inside, but you have to wait a LOOOONG time before you get it. It’s kind of like Xtreme Christmas. Except more agonizing.

At least at Christmastime, you can peek at your presents. Technicially, we did have a six month’s ultrasound, but that’s not like peeking at the finished thing … that’s more like peeking at your present while it’s being built in the factory. You don’t get a good sense of things at all. And you’re not allowed to open a different, less significant present the night before your wife goes into labour either, like some people do on Christmas Eve. It’s not like “well honey, i’m going into labour tomorrow. Here- have a Chinese baby.” *

It’s also more difficult because when the time finally does come, you can’t go all Professional Wrestling on it and tear it open. There’s a lot of delicate pushing and squeezing and yelling that comes first, sometimes for hours and hours, before you finally get what’s inside. It’s like your present’s wrapped in an impenetrable hardened metal shell, and you can claw at it with your fingers all you want - that’s not the way to get it out.

Add to that the danger of opening your present, and the very real possibility that after a whole nine months of bullcrap, you still might not get a working thing out of the deal, and it becomes almost too much to bear. But i hear it’s worth it.

In thinking about all of the presents i could have received over Christmas, i compared my upcoming baby present to Robosapien, a mechanical, programmable toy ape who dances. i weighed the pros and cons of each of them. On the one hand, a baby is very expensive and she takes a lot longer to arrive than just a quick trip to the RC Depot to buy Robosapien. But on the other hand, if i raise her well, my daughter will have SO many more programmable dance moves than Robosapien. And Robosapien can’t talk or ride a bike either. So, despite the price tag and time commitment, i think a baby girl will provide far more lasting enjoyment than Robosapien. A friend of mine put it beautifully: she’s the ultimate tamagotchi.

True dat, yo.

* this comment, i realize, may be misconstrued as being incredibly racist, but all i’m trying to say here is that caucasian babies are generally more precious and valuable that Chinese babies. That’s all.