Heisse Scheisse translates to hot shit. One would think that with a rhyming like that, more people would say it. But no.

The first time I used the phrase, my German husband, bilingual except on those occasions when it is convenient to misunderstand, looked at me as if I suggested it as a meal.

“Yes honey, hot shit for dinner tonight. Its part of that South Beach diet.”

He suggested that I not say it to strangers as they wouldn’t understand. However, since I’m an American LEARNING German I have an out. People just look at me and smile as I butcher their language. Except for the time I said “evil pussy” to my mother-in-law, most people give me the benefit of the doubt. (Evil pussy was a total mistake, BTW. It rhymes too. Böse Möse. How can you not put those words together?)

And Germans have kind of an obsession with poop. The toilets beg you to look at the poop, the heisse scheisse. They have shelves and take lo-flo to the extreme. Your poop lands on the shelf. When you push the button to flush, the water lifts it off the shelf. The button is on the top of the tank or on the wall above. Even the most pious have to look. It stares you down, it dares you to look. It double dog dares you to examine it a little closer.

After a while, I became poop-obsessed. I started to wonder why some days were more “productive” than others. I added fiber to my diet, I ate apple sauce. I even started to consider a high colonic.

Sparky’s mother instructed me to place 1 sheet of toilet paper on the shelf when I need to relieve myself. If you forget or if your “product” doesn’t fit on the small square, every toilet in Germany has a toilet brush right next to it for quick cleaning. Another fascination of the Deutsch, cleanliness of environment. I’ve had poop and cleaning raised to new levels of awareness since moving here.

When designing our bathroom, we ordered Italian toilets. The model name ‘Sweet Life’. It’s the antithesis of a German toilet. Rather than a shelf, it has a deep dark hole. Once something enters, it is never seen again. Its nice, but sometimes I miss the shelf.