I did not go poo in the toilet until I was 4 years old.

Yes. 4.

I went pee in the toilet, of course. I mean, I wasn’t a freak, am I right? The toilet could have all of my pee it liked. But my poo, no. Pooping was my sacred time, and I wasn’t about to bid it farewell.

I remember the night. The year: 1991. The place: Los Angeles. A night like any other, except on this night my parents decided that enough was enough and threw away my diapers. They were fed up with cleaning the butt of a person who could use full sentences, fed up with me soiling myself in the candy aisle of a drugstore rather than using the stockroom toilet, fed up with their own fear that I would go to college still in diapers. (Little did I know that being an “adult baby” is an actual fetish lifestyle. Had I known that in 1991, my life might be very different right now.)

It didn’t register with me that the whole thing was abnormal until later in life. It was probably in high school when I realized that my parents weren’t being histrionic; 4 years old is indeed way too late to be potty trained. I think I casually said in a group of people, “I wasn’t potty trained until I was 4,” and, as the heads at the party slowly turned around to look at me, I said in what felt like slow motion, “Iiiiiis thaaaaaat weeeeeeeeeeeird?”

Back to 1991. As I said, I remember the night I went in the toilet very well, partly due to the fact that it’s all on videotape. Yes, my mother taped the entire thing, with my father off to the side doing what would now be considered director’s commentary. That might sound weird, but you’ve got to understand: My parents had a new camcorder and really wanted to try it out.