Just Poop Already, Dammit: No. 2

This morning started out as a normal morning. I went into Sasha’s room at about 7:20 to get her up, and she told me she wanted to get dressed. No, not that dress, she said, the flower one—the one that’s probably too light for today’s wet weather. Whatever. I helped her into clean undies and put the flowery dress over her head.

As I was zipping up the back of her dress, she started to dance. “Peepee! Peepee!” she said, and I hurried her into the bathroom. She had a nice long pee, and I handed her toilet paper to wipe. She refused.

Huh? Come on, I thought: You’ve wiped a million times before. You can do it again. You’re a big girl, right?

But then Sasha said, “I want to poop.”

And then it came: Plop. Plop. Plop. Plop.

A look of joy spread on Sasha’s face, and it must’ve spread on mine, too. She’d done it, without prompting, and I wiped her ass gratefully. This might be an anomaly, but it felt like a turning point.

“I’m going to tell Mommy!” Sasha cried as she stood and pulled her undies up. Jean came in to see what the fuss was. “Mommy, I pooped!” Sasha said, then held up four fingers. “I did five poops!” (We’ll get her clear on numbers later.)

After Jean left, Sasha turned to me and said, in what I think was a Knuffle Bunny reference, “Daddy, I realized something.”

“What’s that?”

“Poop!”

Just Poop Already, Dammit!

Not a fun morning. Fifteen minutes after Jean left to take Sasha to school, she returned. Sasha, it appears, had been grabbing her butt and complaining it hurt too much to walk. Again. FUCKING AGAIN.

This is becoming an all-too-regular occurrence in our lives: Sasha’s butt hurts, which means she needs to poop, but the last thing she wants to do is sit on the potty and poop. We don’t know why. We haven’t even put that much pressure on her to poop like a big girl. She just fucking hates it. Won’t do it. Will do anything to get out of sitting on the potty. So this morning, just like we’ve done many times before, we had to pick her up, take off her undies, and literally hold her down on the toilet.

I gave the nod to Jean—I can handle this—and she went off to work. But still, Sasha would not poop. She was crying, struggling, unable to relax. I tried to remind her about Monday night, when her mom went through this with her and she did actually, finally poop, and how much better she felt afterwards, and how the very next morning the first thing she’d said to me was “Daddy, I pooped!” Sasha didn’t care. She screamed and cried. Eventually she peed, and eventually we gave up. She wiped herself and stood up.

Then she said, “Daddy, I want to poop.”

Back on the pot she went, and this time at least there were no tears. No poop, either, alas.

We gave up again, and I sent her to go watch SpongeBob while I had a quick shower and got dressed. By then, of course, she’d gotten settled in to the TV and freaked out when I told her to turn it off. More tears, more screaming, and, after actually spanking her—yes, I spanked my kid for the first time ever, lightly but angrily—I wound up having to pick her up and drag her, shoeless, out the door. Tears and screaming all the way to the F train, where finally she started to quiet down. And still no poop.

What the hell are we doing wrong with this 3-and-a-half-year-old? I mean, besides placing too much emphasis on pooping and then getting angry at her when she doesn’t, thereby giving her a psychological complex that will haunt her for the next few decades (and enrich legions of therapists)? We’ve done the star-sticker system, we’ve tried more immediate enticements, we’ve tried threats and punishments, we’ve tried laxatives and wheat germ and salad, we’ve tried ignoring the whole thing and letting her proceed at her own potty-training pace. None of it has worked. The kid just seems to prefer shuffling down the street in pain, grabbing her butt, until one night she’ll blast an enormous dump in her diaper or, more often now, her undies.

Please, someone, help us with this shitty situation!

Q&A: Joel Stein, Author of Man Made

Joel Stein has done a lot of things. He’s made a career out of being Joel Stein in strange situations—having George Clooney over for dinner and light handyman work, eating placenta (not on the same evening), and so on. For his new book, Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity, the TIME columnist (and former colleague of mine) fought a UFC legend, spent three days in boot camp, worked a shift with firefighters and generally scurried around looking for barrelchested role models who could teach him how to be more of a man for his young son.

One thing Joel Stein has never done? Hold an interview by Google IM. Until now. This is going to be amazing:

DadWagon: Hey Joel

Joel Stein: Are we chatting now?

Oh hell yes

Seriously, this is it? I’m disappointed. It feels like AOL.

Ok. We can call it off.

Are you wearing pants?

I am a classy freelancer. I have the Late Late Show [Joel’s appearance with Craig Ferguson from late April] open in my other browser. You look nice.

I haven’t watched it yet. I figured I should wait for [my wife] Cassandra to watch it with later. And yes, I wore a tie. No one does that anymore. Wait… are you masturbating to me on your other browser screen???

That’s what a classy freelancer does… one browser for masturbating, one for interviewing

That way you never have to stop working. I’m learning so much.

So we’re gonna talk about your awesome book, but before that, let’s talk about me. Tell the readers how we know each other.

Okay, but I get confused here. We didn’t know each other at college, right? Because I’m too old for that to have happened. So I didn’t meet you until you showed up at Time. I’m guessing that was 2002? I knew you were Rome’s cool friend who went to international places.

Great. I just wanted to get the “cool” part across. K thx. Let’s move on.

Did I get all that right? Even the 2002 part?

No. But it’s like Mike Daisey. It was “true” even if it wasn’t true. Because of the “cool” thing.

The reader show know just how slowly you type. Do you use one finger? I’ve written three columns waiting for your responses.

The other browser, Joel, the other browser. OK: Professional question. You will write for anybody—you used to write for a cigarette magazine at one point, right?—and you are prolific. Why is this your first book?

I always thought books were different, since they’re not meant to be disposable. I’ve never thrown one away. It seemed like your permanent record. So I kept waiting for an idea. I had one in 2000, but all the editors I pitched it to didn’t like it. This maybe wasn’t the idea I was waiting for, but I liked it, and I got tired of waiting and I realized that we were getting to a point where books might not get made as easily anymore, so I had to do it soon. And it wasn’t just any cigarette magazine. It was Marlboro. I do have standards.

True flavor, no doubt. So at what point did you begin to see that Laszlo was not a mouth to feed, but a book to sell? (and are we even naming the kid?)

I just realized we both have photos of us holding guns as our Gmail photos. That is the move of Jews insecure about their masculinity.

Yeah, tho you may not remember that you actually shamed me into changing my Twitter profile pic, which was of the look-i’m-on-tv-ergo-important genre.

That’s right! You had one of those “I’m on TV” freeze frames! I saved your ass on that one. It’s such a blonde Fox commentator move.

Anyhow: Laszlo

I call him Laszlo throughout the book, and that is his name, so yes, he is going to hate me for the rest of his life since I might control his Google results for a long time. He’s actually not that huge a part of the book, since, after freaking out that I was having a boy, which, as you know, I am not at all equipped to raise, I went off on my own to do man stuff. It’s not like I brought Laszlo with me in the ring to fight Randy Couture. Though I did bring him to Vegas for that trip. But he stayed in the hotel while I got my ass kicked.

In rough outline: Army, firefighter, MMA… what else?

I did three days of boot camp at Ft. Knox with a troop. They let me fire a tank. In my first three hours, before doing any physical activity—mind you it was hot, and I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep, and I locked my knees—I fainted for the first time in my life. Into the arms of a soldier. Honestly, it was so much more stressful than I could have ever imagined. They scream at your face while you eat, while you piss, while you get dressed. There’s no break.

Other stuff I did: I got a day trader to give me $100,000 to trade with for a day. Hunted, fished, rebuilt a house, drank scotch. I start by trying to fix my first mistake by becoming a Boy Scout. I went camping with a troop and earned my first badge.

The day trading seems like it doesn’t fit with the rest, does it? Isn’t that something Jews can do naturally?

No. The rest was the traditional Scotch-Irish, Southern version of manhood that has come to mean manliness in our country. But there are other versions: The stiff-upper lip, drink-tea while the bombs are falling British one, for instance. So the day trading one was my attempt to try on a different version, but still one foreign to me. That taking-money-from-other-men, snort-coke-off-a-hooker, Boiler Room kind.

And yes, the Jewish kind. Though I kept meeting secret Jews on my manventures. The baseball player who taught me how to throw, catch, hit and coach was Shawn Green, a Stanford Jew. One of the sergeants in the Marines when I did some stuff in San Diego was Jewish. So was the CEO of Patron who races a car for their Le Mans team – and he had been a Navy Seal. And, of course, the day trader.

Secret Jews are the best kind. [Ed. note: see also Theodore’s upcoming book: Am I a Jew?]

We are everywhere!

You mentioned coke ‘n’ hookers (metaphorically, no doubt), and it reminds me that I had a conversation with my wife about your book a couple days ago. I was describing it as a rather awesome premise for a book. She seemed mystified, and just wanted to know whether Cassandra thought it was dumb/dangerous to do all those things.

Yes. Cassandra thought it was stupid, that a person doesn’t change by doing stupid stunts. But she was wrong. I think we only change by doing things. I can fix stuff in my house now. Not much stuff, but some. My parents, oddly, were more worried about the UFC fight than Cassandra was. Though she tried to get me to back out the night before, when I was really messed up from the training. Dana White had a guy choke me out, twice. That plus the pre-fight jujitsu training messed me up.

Glad you got some DIY skills. One of these days Clooney is gonna get too busy to come over and fix things in your house.

It’s much cheaper than having Clooney come over and handyman. That guy can drink. And not the cheap stuff.

So are you still tweaked from the fight or training? Any lasting injuries?

No! I’m really glad. My throat hurt for about 10 days after the choking out, but it went away. In fact, I was feeling pretty great when I finished the manventures, since I was in really good shape from training for the Army and UFC and some other stuff. But then I slacked after.

That is also manly. Or at least mannish. Or manlike.

Slacking on working out? It actually doesn’t feel manly at all. The less we work out, especially as we get older, the more androgynous we look and act.

Anyhow, Julia will be glad to hear about Cassandra’s reservations. Though something tells me we weren’t talking about your book so much as my upcoming trip to Libya. Thanks for being that foil.

When [former TIME Managing Editor] Jim Kelly made a joke to me about embedding me, before anyone knew what embedding was, Cassandra said she’d divorce me if I went to Iraq. And she was serious. Libya is a little more dangerous than a fight with a UFC guy who knows you’re writing about him.
But have fun!

I will. It’s just a big hummus party over there right now.

It is a nice time of year there! Though it’s the height of tourist season, so that can get annoying.

ROFLibya. Let’s get back to the book. I gotta go, and my slow typing has kept us from talking about the awesomeness of this thing. So I’ll say this: It was always a poorly kept secret at TIME that you were a pretty amazing writer when you weren’t doing the funny stuff too. Tell me there is pathos in Man Made.

Pathos aplenty! We had the book printed, at dear cost, on specially treated paper that is salt-water resistant since the test audiences cried so much when they read it.

Still gonna fry the insides of the Kindle, though

They hadn’t thought of that! Book publishers are stuck in 1960. Honestly, I had to make my final changes in colored pencil and mail it back to them. Seriously.

We’re all fucked. Final question: what can you tell us about Man Made, the movie?

I’m having lunch with Jake Kasdan today, who I think is going to direct it. It’s being produced by Shawn Levy through a deal at Fox. Like all movies, I’m sure it will never get made. But I get to write it. I can’t believe they’re letting me do that. They also must know it will never get made.

That’s where the guaranteed money is. Charge them a ransom for the screenplay then it won’t matter. Final item that is not a question, but rather a statement: I see that you actually drove somewhere to have waffles with a blog called Girl to Mom as PR for this book. That means your time is not worth as much as I thought, and that you will definitely have time to come read at one of our DadWagon readings. I am psyched to have figured that out. See you there!

Google ads, by the way, really seized on the day trading part of our conversation. Good luck in Libya. It would be tragic if this were your last piece of journalism.

There’s the pathos. Congratulations, Joel. Thanks for gchatting.

Thank you.

How Much Is That Baby in the Window? A Q&A with Scott Carney, Author of ‘Red Market’

Another day, another horrific news story out of China: Apparently, unsavory folks in the People’s Republic are turning dead babies—aborted fetuses and stillborn infants, mostly—into powder and pills, to be sold to… I don’t know. Crazy people in South Korea? Says the always trustworthy Daily Mail:

The South Korean Customs Service said today that it had heightened its searches of suspicious packages being brought into the country by travellers from China in an attempt to stamp out the sickening trade.

According to customs agents, 35 smuggling attempts have been made since August last year involving more than 17,000 capsules disguised as ‘stamina boosters’.

Curious about the subject, I turned for insight to my friend Scott Carney, whose recent book, Red Market, explores in depth the international trade in human body parts (and human beings).

What do you know about these Chinese baby pills?

Only what I’ve read in that article. There have been stories out there for years that the Chinese use human body parts in their medicine, but not a lot of grounded facts. And the story raised more questions than it answered.

Such as?

First of all: how do we know the pills are human in origin? How do we know they were from babies? As far as I know there is no sceintific test that would affirm a child who was turned into a powder.

They border guards found something, but who is to know for sure what.

It reminds me of the Peruvian fat smugglers. There was a report that people were being killed for their fat and then the fat was being sold to a Russian beauty product company. The BBC reported on it, as did many other news sources.

It turned out to be a hoax. The police were trying to cover up corruption allegations with a fantastical smuggling story losely based on fight club.

That’s always been my strategy for avoiding trouble, too.

I think it was the plot for the last season of “The Wire” as well

Another question is this: there were 17,500 pills found. how many babies is that?

That was my next question.

One? Two at the max? It depends on what part of the baby you are using. I’m guessing that if you used the whole child then it would be not very many. So that raises the question of why bother smuggling in the first place? You can kidnap and kill a single child in china with much less risk than killing one abroad and smuggling it in. The whole story just doesn’t add up.

How about this: You know body-part smugglers as well as anyone. If you were going to turn babies into powder, how would you do it? Would you turn the whole kid into powder, or would it be better to have baby-kidney powder, baby-liver powder, baby-heart powder? “Better” meaning “more profitable.”

Well, if I were really savvy, I would use an inert substance. Or a dog. Who is to know if it was a real baby? Who is going to complain?

You mean there’s no trust among body-part smugglers?

The more I think about it the less the story actually makes sense. The markets that I’ve looked at the body parts were always discernable. IE: a kidney moving across borders, a human egg, a bone etc. When you actually grind something into powder it’s actual humanness seems to matter less.

That said, it is technically possible. And there are a lot of weirdos out there.

Isn’t that what they do with rhino horns, though?

Rhinos are harder to come by than babies.

Though, there are a lot of magical markets for human body parts. Think about the albinos in parts of africa that are killed to be eaten. There is a fairly robust trade in albino genitals as I understand it.

Oh really?

Yeah.

What do albino genitals cost?

Good question. How much do you have?

I’m a writer—not much.

We can talk once you get paid.

How about this: Is my child more valuable live and intact, divided into transplantable organs, or ground to a powder? She is 3 and a half years old, and weighs about 35 pounds, depending on whether she’s pooped recently.

How many milligrams is she?

About 16 million milligrams, or 16 kg.

What is 40% of 16 kg? That would be her dry weight.

6.4 kg

So that is the mass that you would have to make powder out of. Let’s say your pills were 500 mg each.

That’s 12,800 pills.

Ah, so the border guards got approximately 1.5 babies, if they were being legit.

Did they say what the street value of the pills was?

The article didn’t say. It also didn’t give mgs.

Well, 500mg is a good guess.

I bet you would make more selling her on the adoption market

What would she go for? Mixed white-Asian baby, great health, 3.5 yrs old.

At least $50,000.

Are some national baby markets better than others?

The US and Europe will get you the most cash. But also the most red tape.

What about if we sold her off organ by organ?

That would be difficult to do in America, since most doctors would not be into it unless she was brain dead. But in Brazil it happens. So the question is, what does a Brazilian organ transplant cost? Then figure you would get about 10% of that, at the very best.

It’s probably better to be in the kidnapping business there so you can fulfil bulk orders.

However, if you found a person in America whose child was dying of organ failure, and your kid was a match, then you would have some real bargaining power. Possibly millions.

Wow. So, in a perfect scenario, I’d find dying American kids who needed each and every one of Sasha’s organs.

The plan would be to fly you and the kid to another country and have the operation in, say, Sao Paolo. It would come down to a function of what the buyers were willing to pay. There is no set price for organs. The real question is what is that child’s life worth to their parents? If Sasha was dying of liver failure, how much would you pay to save her (assuming you weren’t troubled by the ethics)?

Pretty much everything, obviously. Historically, what have parents paid for such things?

Sadly they generally don’t report the buying price to me. I keep asking the organ brokers to file annual reports but they never comply.

I understand: paperwork. Yeesh.

Child organs are a niche market. And their value is a function of the parent’s willingness to pay and their means.

A niche market that is more lucrative than the adult one, or less?

Yeah, definitely. A child skeleton sells for 2 – 3 times an adult skeleton. For a great child skeleton, it might go for $10,000. Maybe $15,000.

Wow.

But that would be the top end. On the low end, maybe $4,500 on the current U.S. market. So you would be better to sell her whole than in powder.

My guess is that if the Korea story is legit that they procured the child for $0. By just taking a body from a morgue or killing one. Maybe a $100 bribe was paid somewhere.

Okay, so if I wanted to maximize Sasha’s value, I would:

Sell her piecemeal.

Start with her hair.

Then harvest some skin and her corneas.

Go for the internal organs.

Keep her alive as long as possible.

But first find buyers.

Finally reduce her to bones and sell those.

Her marrow might be valuable as well.

I wonder if it would be possible to make her start producing human eggs with the right hormones. It probably wouldn’t be good for her. But it might be possible.

And everything else we turn to powder? And turn the powder into pills?

Sure. But the powder is going to have low margins.

True, but we’re talking about the leftovers. What else are you going to do with that stuff?

Besides, you’ve sold almost everything else. I figure you’d want to get rid of the evidence somehow. So if you’re setup to make powder then go for it. But it would be a pain to sell it. You might have to travel to China. Or at least Chinatown.