Conversations with my Mother
May 21, 2010
Over the past two days, I have been lamenting the fact that it is time to take out the compost, including humanure compost. It’s not that labor intensive and smelly as it sounds. The most annoying part is when the buckets are full and you have to shit.
“Ah, man, I have to shit and the humanure buckets are full,” I say as I head upstairs to the bathroom.
“What?!” My mother says, even when she hears me perfectly well.
“I said I have to shit in the toilet ’cause the buckets are full.”
In an encouraging tone, my mother replies,
“Yeah… Yeah, that’s OK.”
The next day…
“I gotta get the compost thermometer out of the grand marquis. It’s in the trunk.”
“Oh.”
I return indoors with the thermometer and enthusiasm, “that’s the most exciting part of humanure composting, to see how high you can get the temperature. When I was composting upstate, and it was 44 degrees F outside, it was 132 degrees F in the center of the pile.”
“Oooh, hot shit!!”
Later that day…
“I posted some writing about our interactions about humanure composting.”
“You’re letting people know you’re shitting in a bucket?…”
“…Yeah…”
“…Jesus Christ.”
