If being an English major in college has taught me anything it’s this: analyze, analyze, analyze. Dive as far into the text as you possibly can; and then go further. Lately, my favorite topic of analysis has been Shakespeare. At the beginning of this quarter my Shakespeare professor introduced us to the idea of the problem play. These problem plays are comedies that deal with contemporary social and moral issues. They mix the heavy with the light, using comedic situations and characters to deal with serious issues. The plays classified as problem plays are Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and All’s Well That Ends Well. Well Shakespeare, I’ve got another one for you: The Problem Poop.
Yes, that’s right, I said poop. Allow me to explain.
This past Monday, I was sitting in class at UCLA when poop was discovered in my classroom. Our professor had given us a ten-minute break when I heard a chorus of voices murmuring something about poop. My classmates had discovered a pile of fecal matter on the floor in the back row. There was a mass exodus of students from the back of the classroom to the front. The general consensus of the class was that it was, in fact, human feces. Class proceeded as scheduled, and the door was opened for air, but the poop was not removed. On my way out of class that day, I took a peek, just to see for myself.
Yep, it was human all right.
My response was not the predictable disgust, but rather, uncontrollable - bordering on insane - laughter. I walked across campus without even attempting to control myself; soon I was laughing so hard that I was crying. I could only think of one thing: how did the poop get there?
Okay, here’s where my college analytical skills come in. There are two possibilities, either someone actually defecated inside that classroom, or the poop was planted. Both of these theories invite further questioning. Let’s explore.
Did somebody (as our kindergarten minds frame it) “have an accident”? Is it possible that somebody “had to go” so bad that they dropped trough right there in the classroom? They couldn’t make it to the bathroom? They didn’t want to have the accident in their pants, knowing that they would have to walk around with the poop (and accompanying stench) while if they pooped in the classroom the burden would be left behind?
Or was the poop planted? What kind of container does one use to transport poop that allows it to hold its form so well? And if the poop was planted, was it done out of malice, or as a joke? If it was done out of malice, who was the intended victim? A student? A professor? A class? The UCLA student body in general? And what could someone have done to garner this reaction that literally says: you are a piece of shit; or, the perhaps harsher: I shit on you. And if the poop planting was a joke, who was the intended victim? A friend? A poop-phobic professor? The UCLA student body in general? Who thought of this hoax? Did some creative prankster, in a moment of comic genius while playing truth or dare, dare a friend to poop in a Tupperware, and then deposit it in a classroom? The possibilities are endless.
Now back to Shakespeare. My problem poop is a comic situation that deals with a number of social issues. What could one human do to another to deserve the retribution of a pile of their enemy’s feces? Has joking gone too far when poop is smuggled into classrooms? Is there some kind of health situation that needs immediate attention regarding uncontrollable bowel movements among the student population at UCLA?
I have no answers for these questions. I cannot ask the pooper, why he or she pooped, just as we cannot ask Shakespeare for clarity on his more ambiguous lines. Just what does Macbeth mean when he says, “Had I three ears I would hear you,” in response to the loud chanting of a disembodied head? Shouldn’t he be saying, “Had I no ears I would hear you?” Is this a mistake? A sign that Macbeth has gone so mad that he has lost his sensibility? Or is there a meaning that this twenty first century audience simply cannot grasp?
I don’t know. Nobody knows. We can guess, but we can’t know. But, as my Shakespeare professor points out, the beauty of Shakespeare is in his complexities. The fact that we can’t know what Macbeth means allows his character to be more multifaceted. The beauty of the problem poop is the room for speculation. If say, I were to get a concrete answer about the fecal matter that has been haunting my thoughts, I might discover something terrible: that it was not actually human at all, that some dog squatted down and produced a very human-like poop in that UCLA classroom.
The hilarity of the problem poop is really the fact that I can’t stop thinking about it. Knowing that there is no answer to a question allows your brain to roam free, to expound, explicate, and analyze, analyze, analyze. Personally, my favorite theory is that of the prankster. I like to think that some smartass kid smuggled his own poop into that classroom just to have a laugh. So, if you are that poop smuggler, well done. But, if you are the owner of a dog that left that poop in my classroom this Monday, please, don’t tell me.
By Guest Writer Holly Smith
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1 response so far ↓
1 Emily // Feb 23, 2008 at 5:34 pm
that is absolutely foul. and hilarious.
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