Poop finger

[B]By JIM RAYPHAND[/B] [I]Special to the Saipan Tribune[/I] [I]WARNING: What you are about to read is full of poop and contains other crappy language that may be offensive to some. Reader discretion is advised. Views expressed herein are solely that of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone associated with and/or working for NMPASI.[/I]

At home I’ve been relegated to diaper duty of late—the price I pay for having a strong stomach and a small price to pay for sitting at the head of a table. With an average rate of 10 diaper changes per day, several of which are done at night half asleep, it’s not uncommon that I stick my finger in a pile of poop from time to time—inadvertently, of course. I suppose it should be expected that if you handle enough poop in the course of your day-to-day, you’re bound to stick your finger in it on occasion. The key then is knowing how to contain it and to wash thoroughly in order to eliminate any odor and to avoid the spread of unwanted grossness. For sure we can’t just avoid the poop and hope it goes away on its own. In other words, if there’s poop in your house you need to clean it up and dispose of it appropriately and in a timely manner; otherwise, it will fester and become a biohazard for all who live there and anywhere nearby. Given the choice, I’d rather have a poop finger every now and then.

In the workplace, poop doesn’t come neatly (or even semi-neatly) packaged in a disposable diaper; in fact it rarely comes in packaged at all. But no doubt, if you work with people, you inevitably will have to face your fair share of poop. Most of the time, you won’t even see it coming. Some people drag it around silently on the bottom of their shoes and some carry it in like a chip on their shoulders while others are basically just so full of poop, they’ll purge it anywhere, sometimes right in the middle of the office so everyone has to step through it when coming and going. It’s a fact of life really and whether you’re shoveling it daily or only every once in while, if there’s poop in your office, it’s best to clean it up every time. The point is: Everyone poops sometimes, so you will face some poop sometimes, but you can’t face all the poop all of the time.

We’ve all heard of the white elephant in the room when there’s something that should be said, but people are afraid to say it. Frankly, I’d be more inclined to overlook a white elephant than I would the elephant’s brown pile of poop in the room, but that’s just me and whether it’s an elephant, poop or anything else sitting where it doesn’t belong I wouldn’t hesitate to point it out. More importantly, I’d try to clean it up…maybe not with my bare hands, but certainly with the right set of tools or a little help from my friends.

Come to think of it, I suppose it makes sense that I and some of my closest friends work for the Northern Marianas Protection & Advocacy Systems, Inc. (NMPASI). You see, abuse, neglect, and general discrimination of people with disabilities is about as crappy as it gets and our job is to clean that up. Discrimination too comes in all forms, shapes and sizes—like taki, paa, pwuse, alow, tae, and so on—but no matter how small or what kind it is, we still have a duty (no pun intended) to clean it up. Sometimes it’s a simple matter of wiping up a little smudge, but other times it’s a question of unclogging the entire system’s plumbing. Truthfully, whatever the case, none of us at NMPASI will walk away from or stay silent about a pile of poop just so we don’t get our fingers dirty. And oftentimes, given the opportunity to show people how to keep a place free from abuse, neglect and discrimination of people with disabilities, we do find that most people would rather and much prefer to live without the poop in the room.

For more on poop—I mean discrimination of people with disabilities, feel free to contact the NMPASI office at (670) 235-7273/4 [voice] or 235-7275 [fax] / 235-7278 [tty] or via the web at www.nmpasi.com.

[I]Jim Rayphand is the executive director of the Northern Marianas Protection & Advocacy Systems, Inc., or NMPASI.[/I]