36 Comments

Where's a photo of wombat poop!!?

Expand full comment

Yeah, I had to Google it too. You should just drop one in your essay though!

Expand full comment

No kidding, there are some incredible euphemisms for poop or pooping out there.

"Letting a dirty little secret slip through the crack?" Come on, people! That's brown gold.

Expand full comment

It's been a while since I saw someone use LMGTFY. This made my day LOL

Expand full comment

It was super pedantic and made me think of the internet circa 15 years ago! but I also knew Mike would roll with it (as he did).

Expand full comment

Michael's a good sport.

Expand full comment

I just spent 10 mins down a poop word origination wormhole...thanks for that.

Expand full comment

What was the word? Poop itself, or something scatologically tangent?

Expand full comment

Poop-late Middle English: from Old French pupe, from a variant of Latin puppis ‘stern’

Turd also has Middle English roots...

Expand full comment

You had me at etymology. I've written like 350 pieces so far, and I bet 20 of them are about word origins.

Expand full comment

I am the epitome of the "constantly looks up everything on the internet" while doing anything. Watching movies, tv, writing, reading. A near constant wikipedia search happening in real time with whatever else I am doing. I'd say I am fascinated by learning but that would be lying. I'm fascinated with the mundane. Ages of actors, word origin, when an album came out weighed against my surety...etc.

Expand full comment

I used to read Wikipedia every night before I fell asleep, just pick a random article and read it until I found another one to click on/to. Curiosity gets the better of me every single day.

Expand full comment

Truly showing us that humankind has a long way to evolve yet.

Expand full comment

Apparently, all we need is uneven squishing from inside our guts. Let's start training for a competition!

Expand full comment

True story: I did know that about the wombat poop, but mostly because I wrote a superhero character named the Wombat who had cube-shaped explosive devices he named wombombs. He's fun to write, let me tell you.

Expand full comment

That's awesome! Can you link to that story here? I bet a few folks would get a good chuckle.

Expand full comment

Sure! the wombombs themselves turned up in my longer novel, but the character is in a Wordpress story that now lives here:

https://indianamichael.substack.com/p/misfits

Expand full comment

Perfect! Thanks for sharing. I'm all about the intersection of my weird nonfiction and some good creative writing! One can easily inspire the other, too.

Expand full comment

Great article. Who would have thought reading about wombat poop could be so interesting?

Expand full comment

The world is full of stuff like this! I love it.

Expand full comment

Given how this week started, I needed the joy of reading about wombat poop.

Expand full comment

60% of the time, I have 100% of your scatological reading needs covered.

Expand full comment

And I kind of want to google ducks corkscrew shaped penises, but fear of what future algorithms push my way is stopping me!

Expand full comment

Samesies.

Expand full comment

The range of your topics is incredible, I can’t imagine what your ‘future possible topics’ notebook must look like. Many times the topics are so deep and thoughtful that I have a hard time wrapping my little brain around them. But poop, it’s one we all understand 🤣🤣. While I was impressed with learning about the ways cube poop has helped survival of wombats, I was also surprised they only poop one cube every three days or so. Some days you just never know what you’re gonna learn around here!

Expand full comment

Thanks so much, Laura!

I read that wombats can poop up to a hundred cubs in a day. I wonder what's up with the discrepancy, or if maybe there are some types of wombats that poop more than other types.

Expand full comment

Ahhh, the many mysteries of the universe!

Expand full comment

Speaking of poop...

Why do we turn our noses up at the thought of eating poop? We consume it every single day. Do we not use fertilizer [poop] to feed and grow our vegetables, fruits, and other things?

I know... I think too much!

Expand full comment

Well... in fairness, it's stripped down to molecular elements, but it might be fair to say that vegetables absorb poop, in a manner of speaking!

Expand full comment

That will cut ya!

Expand full comment

Yikes!

Expand full comment

And how...

Expand full comment

"Some folks communicate with words. Others communicate with poop."

I feel attacked.

Also, have you considered that wombats are simply huge fans of LEGO and use their poop to recreate it?

Expand full comment

That had not occurred to us, dude.

Expand full comment

Forget it, Andy. You're out of your element,

Expand full comment