So let’s get all the funny stuff out of the way right up front here.

There was an article on CNN this morning about a woman who spent two years on the toilet.  She was there so long that her legs atrophied and her skin grew around the toilet seat.  The seat had to be pried off with her stuck to it and removed at the hospital.

These people lived in a trailer, and her boyfriend let this behavior go on for two years before finally calling someone in to help. 

Commence the laughing at white trash now.  I’ll wait.

Listens to “Dueling Banjos” during the pause.

Ok, back now?  Cool.

This article disturbs me.  Deeply.  Not just from the gross factor, which is pretty intense.  I cannot even begin to imagine the smell in that bathroom, not to mention the sheer foulness of a human being allowing their flesh to grow around a toilet seat.  Or, for that matter, someone who supposedly loved them letting them go so long without moving that it happened.  I’m sorry, but you’d think after a day or so you’d maybe think something was wrong.  I kind of have this thing about being in the bathroom while someone else is on the toilet to begin with, but the minute my other half asked me to start bringing her meals in the bathroom would be the minute I started placing phone calls.

Beyond the revulsion I have at this particular case, though, I wonder how much of a comment this case is on our society in general.  How many of us are just sitting on the figurative toilet, saying to ourselves that “maybe tomorrow” is the day we’re going to come out.  How many of us are letting our flesh grow into the toilet seat while we do nothing but contemplate how scary the world is outside? 

Fear of change.  Fear of failure.  Laziness.  Apathy.  These are the things that trapped that woman in her bathroom.  These are the same things we trap ourselves with.  Unfortunately, like the boyfriend in the case above, those around us are other blind to what’s going on or unwilling to put forth the effort to coax us into activity.  So we sit, and we fester, and the longer we do the more we atrophy.  Eventually, if we can be forced to move at all, it’s only through a great deal of pain and effort, and our momentum is forever stunted due to the damage that we caused ourselves in the process.

Don’t let yourself get stuck on the toilet, my friends.  Snicker and point at this woman all you want, but like it or not there are a lot of us that are just as unwilling to come out of the bathroom as she is.  We’re just not quite so literal about it.  Don’t let fear keep you from moving.  Don’t let inactivity rob you of the ability to move.  Don’t spend all of your time trapped in a room with the stink of your own waste for god’s sake. 

Shit and get off the pot.