Splatterpoop And The Adult Diaper Dilemma

I called my friend Derrick a couple of weeks ago. He's just had his second kid and we haven't talked in forever, so I rang him up and we talked for about an hour. It was great catching up with him, but he left me with a nagging question. Here's the situation...

He's got a relative who is getting on in years and has to use adult diapers (don't chuckle - we're all headed there!). His wife was talking about this relative to another relative and asked if, when they saw him the other day, he was "poopy." Derrick's whole point in telling me this is that it's pretty common to refer to a baby as being "poopy" when it needs a diaper change, but it's kind of disturbing to refer to an adult family member as "poopy." There has to be, he said, a better word for it.

I have been pondering over this off and on since Derrick and I spoke. With the baby boomers growing older, there is going to be a glut of people who have to go the diaper route in the next 10-15 years. And Derrick is right - I can't see myself asking my mom if my dad is "poopy." I decided that this is a linguistic hole that needs to be filled.

I asked a few people their opinions about this, and I learned a few things in the process. First, not everyone is comfortable talking about poop at work. One person even told me that this was "inappropriate" right before they left to use the rest room. I could almost smell the irony.

Then there's the other extreme. Some people had poop stories at the ready, like they'd been waiting for the right time to use them, and here it was. My favorite was this one, mainly for the visual: "I have a friend who lives in England and he goes to Europe all the time. He told me that in Holland they call diarrhea 'splatterpoop.'"

I haven't been able to confirm that, but it sounds right, and I can certainly get the mental picture. But I digress....

Today's question: what should it be called when an adult has crapped their diaper?