“Will you PLEASE put some clothes on?!!?”

I think MJ has uttered that sentence 1,000 times in the last month. Sometimes to me, but mostly to Will. He’s going through a naked phase right now and he NEVER wants to wear clothes. Ever. Even getting him dressed for school is a task because he sees no reason why he can’t attend preschool in the buff. So basically if he’s in the house, the kid’s got no clothes on.

Which drives MJ crazy. Mostly because it means she is now living with two male nudists.

My wife does not understand the seemingly male desire to shed all clothes and bask in our naked glory. Especially in the oppressive heat as of late. I’m guessing she’s not a fan because stripping down to our birthday suits involves copious amounts of “exploring our bodies.” Which is a nice way of saying grabbing our junk. I’d love to say I’m just talking about Will here, but that’s not the case.

What can I say? I loved being naked as a kid and never really grew out of it. And it seems the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. And it may sound gross to you ladies, but guys do have a tendency to—well, to make some adjustments. Or to be super tactful, we go Al Bundy all over this mofo and have a crotch-grabbin’ good time.

OK, OK, so maybe I have no good excuse but Will is still figuring out where everything is and how it works. And being naked not only provides easy access for that, but it simultaneously keeps us cool in the summer.

I don’t see the big deal but it drives MJ absolutely bonkers. And it seems to be happening a lot more lately.

We were walking along the Cape Cod Canal last week—me, Will, MJ and Haley the dog—and Will had to go pee. We were pretty far from the car and there are no public restrooms. Without saying a word, Will and I immediately started walking towards the trees a little ways off the path.

“What do you think you’re doing?” shouted a bewildered MJ.

Will and I stopped, both of us surprised, and just stared at her. I told her I thought it was pretty apparent that we were headed off to the nearest tree to take a leak. But my wife was horrified that we’d even consider dropping trough in a semi-populated area. She went on and on about how it’s not appropriate, how it’s uncouth and how we’re out of our minds for even thinking about it.

It’s gotta be a guy thing. It’s probably because penises are pretty handy to whip out wherever necessary and take an impromptu leak. Whereas women have to really invest in the location of a spot, the squatting and the exponentially higher likelihood of urinating on themselves, men just point and shoot.

But the most defined difference between genders in the Daddy Files household came two days ago during an incident that might be classified as “TMI” for some of you good readers with weaker stomachs. But it was too funny not to tell. You’ve been warned.

Will was in the bathroom dropping the Cleveland Browns off at the Super Bowl. And from the sound of it, they had a pretty tough road through the playoffs to get to the big game because it sounded like Will was wrestling an elephant in there. And suddenly he called out to me.

“Daddy, Daddy! Come quick. Come look at my poop!”

I didn’t give it a second thought. I was up in a flash and headed to the bathroom, my curiosity thoroughly piqued. MJ—looking as horrified and disgusted as is humanly possible—stood up and firmly objected.

“You can’t be serious. Why are you going in there to look at poop? What the hell is wrong with you??”

“Are you kidding?” I asked incredulously. “I have to go check it out. What if it’s something awesome? You only have a handful of truly memorable poops and this could be his first one. I’m going in there. You should come too.”

She walked away muttering something about disgusting men and lamenting the fact that she lives with heathens, but I stand by it.

It took me back more than 20 years ago. I was hanging out with my childhood best friend Brian when he excitedly began screaming from the bathroom. When I went in there he was wide-eyed and staring at the toilet. I asked him what was the matter, but all he could do was point to the bowl and he kept telling me to check it out. So I did.

It was a perfect continuous ring of shit around the bowl. Almost as if Brian’s ass was a soft-serve ice cream dispenser. He was so proud of it. I was completely jealous. I asked him how he did it but he said he didn’t know and it wasn’t planned. It had just happened. Like a miracle. Granted we were 9-year-old boys and easily impressed, but we were in absolute awe that day. We must’ve talked about it and (verbally) dissected it for a half hour before we had to flush it when his sister needed the bathroom.

I think we even took a Polaroid. Hopefully that’s been incinerated by now, but it just goes to show that boys have scatological minds.

Fast forward 20-something years and not much has changed. I’m standing in the bathroom with my 3-year-old son as he excitedly gazes down into the porcelain abyss, admiring his own handiwork. It wasn’t a “dead ringer” by any means, but it was pretty good for a beginner. And so father and son exchange a high-five (after he washed his hands of course) while mom shakes her head disapprovingly.

Sorry mom, it’s a guy thing.

Will is pretty good about it, although he’s not fully there yet. He doesn’t crap in the toilet. Never has and it feels like he never will. The silver lining is he doesn’t like pooping in his underwear, so when he has to take the Cleveland Browns to the Super Bowl he tells us and we put a pull-up on him. Hey, it’s a start.

But peeing in the toilet is a whole different story.

He is great about not peeing his pants and I’d say he’s 95% potty trained in that regard. We remind him about it and ask him if he has to pee every hour, but he’s pretty good about telling us he has to go. That and he grabs his junk and walks around squeezing it like he’s trying to put a crimp in a garden hose. What can I say? My extensive daddy observational skills pick up on the little things.

Despite weeks of success, the last few days have been a little bumpy. Will steps on the stool, pulls his pants down and looms over the toilet like usual. Except nothing is coming out now.

“Dad, it’s not working,” he says in the cutest way imaginable.

At first I just told him to try again. Didn’t work. So then I ran the faucet thinking the sound of water would make him have to pee more. But I forgot he doesn’t like noise so that just pissed (pun very much intended) him off even more. In one of my more desperate and ill-conceived moments, I actually told him to blow on it. I know, I know. I’m an idiot.

But then I had a Eureka moment.

“Hey bud, how ’bout if Dad pees with you and we race?”

This must have sparked Will’s competitive spirit because he immediately brightened right up and rose to the challenge. I moved his stool to the right so I could fit in next to him, and we prepared for a phallic duel of epic proportions. We each held our weapons firmly in our hands and I told him we’d fire on the count of three. But my little cheater jumped the gun.

I didn’t even get to 2 before he let loose a stream into the toilet bowl. Not wanting to lose, I quickly followed suit and the race was on. Will was laughing hysterically and I was silently patting myself on the back for coming up with such a great idea to make potty training fun.

But it turns out it was a little too fun.

Will was laughing so hard and getting so excited during our pee race, that he began listing to his left and coming dangerously close to falling off the stool. In mid-stream. And I was still going as well. Now for those of you with lady parts, I will tell you that stopping once you start is hellish. And, quite simply, out of the question. So I did my best to use my right hip to keep Will balanced on the stool all the while making sure our respective streams stayed within the porcelain target.

Easier said than done.

Will’s left foot slipped completely off the stool. I was somewhat able to catch him with my hip and get him back on, but not before he instinctively turned his whole body toward me. Yup, that’s right. He sprayed me full on. A good dad would’ve just taken the punishment and avoided further catastrophe. But what can I say? I’m squeamish when it comes to getting peed on. So I jerked my body away from his pee stream which meant I momentarily directed my own urinary arc away from the toilet and onto the wall. I was relieved initially because I thought I missed Will, but come to find out the pee ricocheted off the wall and got him in the back.

The stunned silence in the immediate aftermath of this fiasco was broken by my son.

“Dada?” he said quizzically.

“Yes bud?”

“You pee on me Dad.”

“To be fair, you peed on me first.”

Then the two of us just started cracking up laughing. Belly laughs. Guffaws and hysterical cackling to the point I would’ve peed myself all over again if I hadn’t just soaked my toddler.

When we turned our attention to the bathroom it looked like a crime scene. Will peed on me and himself. I pissed on the wall and — thanks to the splatter — Will’s back. What started as a fun way to approach potty training had turned into an episode of CSI. Or the back room of a really disgusting fetish club.

The worst part is a precedent has now been set and he wants to race me every single time he has to pee. Anyone have a haz-mat suit?

“Why is it so great for guys to pee outside?”

This question, recently posed to me by my wife, caught me off guard. What’s so great about peeing outside? Is she kidding?? The real question is what’s bad about peeing outside? I just looked at her as if she had just asked why oxygen is so important to breathing. But since she’s a girl, I launched into an explanation.

You see, Will peed outside for the first time a couple of weeks ago. And since then he’s been dying to use Nature as a toilet instead of his potty. As a guy, I love this and I totally get it. The two of us never discussed it, it’s just an unspoken understanding and appreciation. Peeing outside is cool. And fun. It’s because of our anatomical make up, so I guess I really can’t blame MJ for not understanding. So I tried to explain it to her as best I could.

Men are often bored and easily amused. We’re also competitive and turn everything into a sport. This includes bathroom breaks. Peeing in the toilet is all fine and good and you can make do with a few tried and true games. You can stand back and go for distance. You can do a ring around the bowl while you’re peeing. If there’s a bug in the toilet you can aim at it and try to drown it. All fine and dandy ways to go #1.

But it’s nothing compared to peeing outdoors.

First of all there’s a certain thrill to being outside where other people might see you. You need to find a tree or some other barrier that will shield you from the general public. Second, there are so many more things at which to aim. Plants, leaves, insects, trees. Mother Nature provides a plethora of urinary targets.

And honestly, we just love the mere fact that we’re built to rock a squirt wherever we are at any given time. There’s no waiting in long bathroom lines at crowded parties for a guy. We just step outside, find an isolated corner and take care of business.

And of course, nothing gives a guy more pleasure than peeing outdoors in the snow. You can write your name, draw a design, or — my personal favorite — pick one spot and keep peeing there in an effort to drill a hole all the way down to the ground. But the possibilities are limited only by the boundaries of one’s imagination.

MJ lamely tried to counter this argument by saying that women can pee outside as well. This is technically true, but have you ever watched a woman try to pee outside. It’s just sad. They need to pull their pants and panties all the way down, squat and then try like hell not to pee on themselves. And the only way they can write their names in the snow is if they do that weird crab-like crawl. But I imagine they would end up with their girl parts inadvertently landing in the snow at least once or twice, which has to be unpleasant. So let’s face it, when it comes to outdoor urination men are kings.

I’m not saying our outside peeing skills are the sole reason men have historically run this country. But I’m pretty sure it’s a contributing factor.

Will was watching Handy Manny on TV, happily enjoying his morning milk when Nature called to me. So I walked to the bathroom and I started to pee. And since we’re slowly trying to get Will used to the idea of going in the potty, I’ve been instructed to leave the door open when I’m peeing so Will can watch (and hopefully emulate) me.

Truthfully, it’s somewhat difficult to “perform” when someone is watching you intently and chronicling your every move. Sort of like prison, I imagine.

So I’m in the habit of leaving the door open when I pee, and Will usually follows me in there. But seeing as it was so early in the morning, I really wasn’t paying attention. And because he was in his ultra soft and comfy feety pajamas, I didn’t hear him walk over to me.

Suddenly, in my sleepy haze and right in the middle of peeing, I hear a cute little voice chirp “Dada, pee pee?” It caught me off guard. But not nearly as much as when Will decided to prove to me that he knew exactly what a pee pee was, by pointing at it.

Except…well…he got a little too close when he pointed.

Yup. He put his hand in the stream. All of a sudden piss was spraying everywhere. I didn’t help matters by momentarily freaking out and shifting my position. Just in case you ladies haven’t heard, stopping in mid-stream is painful and quite honestly it takes a few seconds to turn the hose off. That means when I turned, I got more piss on my son, myself and my surroundings.

You can read all you want about potty training, but there is no section about what to do when you accidentally urinate on your own son. I checked.

Maybe I’m the one who needs to be potty trained.

I came home from work starving and craving something sweet. MJ had just picked up some things at the store so I started to peruse my choices. I was looking up on top of the fridge where the cereal and other assorted snacks are located, when I came across a brightly colored package. In my haste to satisfy my hunger, I immediately grabbed the box and took a peek inside. The brightly colored, bite-sized objects made my heart soar because I was sure I had found just the thing for my sweet tooth.

I reached in and grabbed a blue one. It felt flaky, like it would dissolve in my mouth. And just as I was about to pop it in my hungry pie hole, my eyes caught the label:

“PIDDLERS: toilet targets.”

Yup, I came that close to eating a urinal cake for toddlers. After getting over the shock, I checked out the box and tried to figure out what the hell these things are. They’re manufactured by a company called Cheeky Monkey in Illinois. Apparently you’re supposed to pop one of these things in the toilet or your kid’s potty, and they serve as a floating target for boys during potty training.

I immediately had several thoughts.

1) Why is my wife putting kiddie piss targets in the same place as food? She knows my ravenous hunger, so did she just want to get back at me for something by having me eat something that’s supposed to be peed on? She says no but I have my doubts.

2) It must have been a woman who designed this product. She was obviously stuck in a house full of guys and tired of cleaning up all the pee that inevitably lands on the bowl, the lid, the floor and even the walls. So she thought she’d find a way to start training boys to aim better right from the start.

The only problem is that’s not going to happen. Ladies, I know you’re mystified and frustrated with us. You just can’t understand how we can’t aim it into the toilet every time. I know it sounds like it should be an easy task, but we’re often distracted or facing other impediments that make this more difficult than you realize.

First of all, it’s true we don’t like putting the seat up. But even if we don’t pee right on the seat, the subsequent splash sometimes kicks up and lands on the lid. Second, our heads aren’t always in the game. Let’s say we’re really tired or it’s in the middle of the night. Or in my case, you don’t want to turn the light on because the slightest noise or sound can wake up the sleeping baby. So now you’re either peeing in the dark or half asleep, neither of which improves our accuracy. Also, if you’re trying to pee with morning wood you really need to get creative. You end up doubled over in front of the bowl desperately trying to point that sucker down, often to no avail. And lastly, simply peeing right in the toilet is boring. We like to spice things up a little sometimes. That’s why we’ll pee in a circle around the bowl or try to write our names. Consider it practice for the winter when we do the same in the snow.

Either way, buying these targets in an attempt to train your little boy to pee on target is futile. Because eventually his male DNA will kick in and he will piss EVERYWHERE! Walls, the floor, the seat…it’s gonna happen no matter what.

So buying this product is not only a waste of money, it’s also a health hazard to hungry husbands.