When your age is calculated in months, going potty is a big deal.

It’s either an event your parents, grandparents, babysitter, whoever is not looking forward to – because one of them wins the prize of having to dig out whatever foul-smelling, tooth-curling work of art you’ve left in your diaper – or a blessed event worthy of high praise and high-pitched voices because you’ve actually learned to bypass the Huggies and gone directly to the plastic seat to do what every breathing creature is destined to do quite often in their lifetime.

But after about three or four years, no one really seems to care about your exploits in the bathroom. With a few inevitable slip-ups along the way, you take care of relieving yourself, taking a whizz, pinching a loaf, hitting the head, taking a crap and other such colorful descriptions of your activities in the porcelain jungle pretty much without fanfare.

And barring those mad dashes to what you pray is a vacated toilet bowl after a long night of boozing, it becomes routine.

Ho hum, pass the Charmin.

Then again, you could wind up in Wildwood.

The greedmeisters have long since deprived me and the wife and kids from spending any length of time at the shore. What used to be a money-saving change-up from a pocket-draining excursion to Disney World or the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls is now just another major drain of the family coffers.

So instead of taking out a second mortgage just so I can scrape sand out of my ass with a plastic shovel and endure sunstroke for a week or two at a time, I splurge big-time and take the brood down to the beach for one rip-snortin’, sun-bakin’ day every summer.

Did it again a couple of weeks ago.

It’s not much, obviously, and the preparation plans unfold by rote. Get up at the crack of dawn, throw a couple things in a bag, load up a cooler for the beach and head for Wildwood.

The drive on the AC Expressway was akin to taking a leisurely excursion in the middle of the racetrack at Talladega in mid-500. The ride – better than anything you need 12 tickets for on Morey’s Pier - is enough to fray the nerves of Eddie Sutton. But hey, I dealt with it because I’m doing this in the name of family unity and the memories of the times when days at the shore actually were relaxing.

Got into Wildwood and took a good half-hour to find a parking place semi-close to the beach. But again, we’re in this for the family, so I actually restrained myself from throwing a bottle at the five-year old who took 10 minutes to cross the street (and his oblivious parents) and the jerk-offs who U-turned in the middle of the road to snare what I thought was going to be my parking place.

The beach time was great. And the bikinis, even though they’re now draped around asses of girls younger than the daughter, were a bonus.

So far, so good.

Things like rules are defiantly ignored by nearly everybody these days, but I actually try and stick to most of the letters of the law. That means when 30 or 40 signs are posted every beach block imploring patrons not to use rest rooms as changing rooms, I heed. There’s a spot right off the boardwalk where you can park, spend five bucks a head to use indoor showers and morph from beach animal into clean, slovenly dressed tourist. It ain’t the Ritz, but it’s convenient.

After a semi-good meal I was ready for some down time on the boardwalk. While the family would rather have spikes driven through their necks than stroll the boardwalk, it’s one of my few pleasures.

This trek on the boards, however, featured a beach moment lower than whale dung. In fact, that may have been preferable.

I had an ill-timed call to nature that forced me to make a routine stop at a public restroom located under the boardwalk. Only I can’t imagine what public this hellhole could have possibly served. Swear to Tebow, this one was too degrading for Jerry Sandusky.  

Public toilets are forgettable. Walk in, do business, walk out. I can, and have, used them in my sleep. Only this toilet layout had to have been directed and designed by Lucifer himself. And the bastard is probably still laughing.

The place was packed, which meant the place was hot, damp and the walls seemed to be sweating.  En route to one of two vacated cubicles, I was stopped by a very large and very prominent pile of excrement in the middle of the floor. In a completely illogical situation, I found myself trying to logically deduce how and why someone, literally two feet from a commode, would stop, drop trou and dump one on the floor. This wasn’t someone in a hurry who didn’t quite get there. Someone took their time to create this piece de resistance. I’m surprised there wasn’t a TV Guide next to the pile. Perhaps even more shocking, no one else seemed to care.

I managed to sidestep this thoughtful gift and entered the cubicle, only to find the toilet seat and the entire floor around it smeared with the same crap (literally) I just do see doed around. By now, I’m ready to kill, ready to scream and, damn it to hell, I couldn’t even get out of the blessed cubicle because I was sliding around on the mess covering the floor. In case you ever require this information, traction is non-existent in human waste. And all I could think about was what was accumulating in the crevices of my shoes.

Now, let us recap. We have one sweetheart who felt it was perfectly fine to squat and take a dump in the middle of a public facility, and another one who believed it was just as peachy swell to smear the floor with it.

No wonder more people know Snooki’s pregnant than know the name of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

After finally getting some semblance of footing under me, I bolted out of the cubicle, only to run into not one, but two asswipes (pun not intended) changing clothes in the restroom. One douche bag was actually finishing up and had his infant son on deck for clothing change numero dos.

I actually found a vacant and semi-clean toilet, did what was necessary (by the way, has anyone noticed how thin toilet paper has gotten in public restrooms?) and got the hell out of Dodge.

When I told my wife about my fun and games in Cesspool City later, she refused to believe this part – there was actually a restroom overseer standing next to the exit – some old brain-dead geezer gazing out the door. Beside him was a sign that read, “Patrons, Be Sure to Thank our Workers for Keeping This Area Clean.”