“What if They Put It in the Dishwasher” — Woman Learns What a "Poop Knife" Is at Kids' Sleepover
"Well it’s better than how I thought they used it."
Published June 11 2024, 2:43 p.m. ET
Sometimes, families have weird traditions that seem like absolute insanity to anyone who's not a part of that family. From creepy shared showers, to convincing folks that you and your siblings recite the pledge of allegiance to a flag in town before dinner every night, there are very specific things that specific tribes do.
And while it's important to be open-minded about different cultural practices and folks' individual traditions, there are some that are just begging to be questioned and probably ridiculed.
Like the "poop knife" a TikToker named Tarayn (@taraynalexess) discussed in a viral TikTok she posted to the popular social media app.
Tarayn begins her video by stating that her discovery of the poop knife first came about when she was 8 years old while spending the night at a friend's house. For a little kid, it was a win-win situation for her, she says: She got to spend time with her best friend and gawk at her friend's older brother who was a "cute" 13-year-old sk8r boi.
She had a pretty great time at her friend's house too, because the young girl's parents were apparently very affluent: they had a big house with a pool and a dedicated movie room, which was a far cry from the type of lifestyle Tarayn said that she was living.
But as it turns out, the fancy digs weren't the only things different about her friend's house; there were certain cultural differences as well.
Namely the poop knife.
"She has like a whole closet worth of snacks," Tarayn points out, mentioning that if you're the type of person who grew up in a house without snacks, then you'll know, first hand, just how crazy of an experience it can be to witness a full pantry packed with goodies.
While walking through the home thinking that it was the most "amazing" place she had ever seen, she says that she "noticed that there's a knife on a rope hanging on the wall."
Thinking that this was a bizarre fixture out of place, naturally 8-year-old Tarayn was going to inquire into what this knife could be used for in a laundry room of all places.
"I don't say anything about it because I'm having a good time and I don't wanna ruin the vibe," she says, adding that she "completely" forgot about the knife hanging in the laundry room the more she hung out with her friend.
That is, until the next morning. "We're all eating breakfast and the brother's downstairs too with us, and we're eating breakfast having a good time. And then he goes upstairs and we're just sitting there watching cartoons, eating cereal, whatever, and you hear him from the top of the stairs or from like the bathroom upstairs saying, 'Mom, I need the knife!'"
Tarayn continued: "I look at my friend and I'm like what? And my friend like, looked at me, doesn't really register that I look confused, and she goes, 'Mom, don't worry, I'll get it.' She goes into the laundry room, she grabs the knife off the wall and goes upstairs, she comes back down without the knife, sits down like nothing happened."
The TikToker's 8-year-old mind was immediately concerned with the whereabouts of the knife. She wanted to know where it was and what happened with it. She then finally decided to ask her friend about this mysterious piece of laundry room cutlery.
"She's like, 'Oh my brother's using it.' I'm like, 'For what'? And she's like, 'It's a poop knife.' And I'm like ... 'I'm sorry, what's that?'"
Never hearing this terminology before, Tarayn was very concerned: "What's a poop knife? Girl, so calm, cool, and collected, goes, 'Oh you know, when your poop's too big to flush you just slice it with the knife.'"
That's right, Tarayn's childhood friend's family had a dedicated knife for slicing massive logs straight down the middle. You know, instead of just flushing right as their poop hit the water, aka a courtesy flush.
Tarayn wondered a lot about the poop knife and why there seemed to be a dedicated tool inside of her friend's home for such an operation: "I have never been so shocked in my life. Because there are so many questions like, why is this a thing? Why are we constantly, why is this such a big problem that we have a literal designated knife to it?"
She then wanted to know why there's only a single knife for this cause hanging in the laundry room and why there isn't a knife in each bathroom for this operation, instead of announcing to the entire household you punched a humongous loaf: "What's the sanitation process like? What, like, why don't we just keep it in the bathroom, why don't we just have one designated knife per bathroom?"
"All of those things. And she, like, said this to me like it's a completely normal thing, everybody has this, that I'm the weird one for not having it," the TikToker said, adding that she ultimately just "dropped" the poop knife questions she had entirely.
On her way back home from a sleepover at the little girl's house, Tarayn says she distinctly remembers asking her mother why their family doesn't have a "poop knife."
The TikToker prefaced her next statement by acquiescing that while her mother definitely has her flaws, she said something that she immediately respected — and it's that she was never to spend the night at Britney's house again.
Tarayn said that her childhood best friend most certainly stayed the night at her place, but she never slept over at hers.
She said that discovering her crush "has to literally slice" his poop in half completely changed her outlook on the young man. Tarayn added again that she's still flummoxed by how they sanitized the poop knife at all and why it was just hanging in the laundry room "on a rope."