"A sphincter is a circular muscle which normally maintains constriction of a natural body passage or orifice and which relaxes as required by normal physiological functioning." - wikipedia

a body has many sphincters but at the end of the day you only care if one of them is working as advertised; the anal sphincter. this is one of those hyper-smart organs that can discern what's what with great alacrity and precision. right now, three of the five sphincters in my home are malfunctioning at the hands of some twisted and humorless virus. mine is one of them. bella's is another. and alex, well poor alex has all sorts of evil stuff going on.

as a parent of a school-age bella, the stakes of having an unpredictable digestive illness such as this are much greater, because she greatly delights in sharing everything about our home with her classmates (i mean does the child have no sense of propriety). so if my sphincter were to deceive or fail me while, say, sleeping on the couch and bella came to learn of this misfortune, she would be sure to regale her wide-eyed, floor-sitting schoolmates with the story about how everyone in her house is potty-trained except her baby brother and father. please wish me luck in holding the line.

and for those keeping score at home, i still haven't puked.