“Are you OK?” I called after her.

“Yes, Mom,” she replied in that “of-course-I’m-fine voice.

“Well you ran past me and nearly knocked me into the wall,”  I said through the bathroom door.

“I just needed to go, Mom,” she said in return, a slight annoyance in her voice.  “I can’t believe we’re talking about poop through the door,” she said finally.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” I reassured her.

She then emerged from the bathroom and just looked at me.  “It’s weird that you are standing here waiting for me.”

“I’m not waiting for you; I just wanted to know why you almost knocked me over coming in,” I told her.  “If you had to go so bad, why didn’t you go at school?”

She looked at me like I had three heads.  “That’s just wrong, Mom; I would never go at school.”

Intrigued, I had to ask, “Why not?”

” It’s just gross; I would rather do it at home,” Shannon replied.

“I don’t get it:  you don’t poop all day, even when you have to go?  That just doesn’t sound healthy.”

“Oh my God, Mom,”  she replied.  “It’s not that big of a deal.  I can’t go at school.  I don’t know anyone who does.”

Now I was fascinated.  “What are the bathrooms at school for then?”  I asked sarcastically.

Just then, my oldest son, Ryan, came down the hall.

“Ry, you graduated from Shannon’s high school.  Did you know that no one poops in the bathrooms?”  I said, jokingly.

“Of course I know that, Mom,” he said matter-of-factly.  “That would just be sick.”

Shannon gave me a knowingly glance and went into her room.  Ryan continued down the hall and disappeared into the bathroom.  And I stood there, alone in the hallway, shaking my head.

“I should really get my plumbing checked,” I thought to myself.