I have always related to a disturbing extent to the deranged mother played by Kathleen Turner in “Serial Mom.” Firstly, I swear like a sailor, just as she’s doing in the above clip, and I desperately wish I could torment all the people in my life who get on my tits the way she’s doing here to her annoying neighbour. Secondly, I would cheerfully and gleefully kill anyone who hurt my children. But the biggest similarity is my aversion to poo talk. Just as Kathleen warns her children at the dinner table that there will be no talk of the “brown word” in her house, I too cannot ever go there without almost throwing up.

And so it is with no small amount of confusion that I bring up the topic of holiday constipation. It happens to me every time, and it never happens to me in my normal, everyday life unless mass quantities of cheese have been consumed. But I just cannot go while not in my own home. And the minute I step in the door from my vacation, everything immediately returns to normal.

Is this psychological and related to my aversion of “the brown word?” Is it physical? Is there something in the water that changes the situation? What is it? Does anyone know, and does anyone else suffer from this strange affliction?

Of course, I won’t really be able to read your comments because I’ll puke.