pottyThe green movement has made the hand-me-down hip again.

Sometimes, I'm glad to be uncool.

Because the third time is the charm for a pair of shorts, but not the kids' potty.

Still a friend handed one off, and I was trying to be the grateful person here, the sort of uber-mom who refuses to look a gift horse in the mouth and doesn't raise an eyelid at a little bit of someone else's poop encrusted around the edge of a plastic potty.

I packed it in my car to take it home.

Where my husband agreed that I was absolutely right to want to drop it, scream, and run to lye soap scrub my hands.

He may even have shrieked a little in sympathy.

Into the garbage it went, and off to TargetIwent to buy my own.

We spend so much on our kids' products that we can't help but hope for a second life out of them. The Stir's own potty training diarist is looking forward to the day her new potty turns into a stepstool for her daughter (and not only because that means they'll be done with the actual training process).

Of course that diarist is the one who confessed she too had originally been given a hand-me-down potty, and when she balked she was told by more than one relative to stop being such a ninny and just use it. So that kid pooped in it. Hers would too.

And so I offer a little perspective for those of you out there who think we should take your kid's crap in stride: Next time you walk into a ladies' room and the PP (previous pooper) failed to flush, let me know how your tummy roils at the sight. 

Now think about touching that.

Would you use a hand-me-down potty?


Image via dougclow/Flickr