I hate toilets

So I have another gross story for you! Are you ready?

I know you are.

So last night, I was doing my sweep of the house after the kids went to bed. I noticed that one of the children had not flushed before they went to bed, and so I reached over and flushed the toilet. That's what you do, right?

Yeah, bad idea.

The stupid thing clogged.

It happens semi regularly at our house...in fact, if you remember (which you probably don't, because this is stupid), we gave up on our second bathroom last summer and have been dealing with only having one that functions.

I grabbed the plunger and went to work, listening for that one very special sound that tells me that the clog is taken care of.

It didn't come. I plunged again, and again. My phone rang. I answered, said I was having a toilet emergency, and then put my phone very far away from me so that I would drop it into the very sickening toilet, which I knew I would do if I kept it close. It was a foregone conclusion. I can be smart, sometimes.

I plunged until I was sweaty and panting, my hair sticking to my forehead,  literally praying out loud for God to let the stupid water drain. I figured maybe a breather was in order, so I stopped and got online to see if there was some super special magical way to plunge I was missing out on.

I watched videos on plunging, read descriptions. I was doing it the right way. The computer told me to pour hot water and detergent into the bowl and let it sit, then try to plunge again, so I boiled a pot of water on the stove, poured it into the toilet bowl and squirted in liquid detergent. A little seemed like a good idea, so a lot seemed like a great idea.

After I let it sit for a while I went back in. Things looked the same. No change. I put the plunger in and started plunging again, and before I knew it bubbles were frothing up over the bowl merrily, like the best Santa beard bubbles you've ever seen. I thought about leaving it like that...at least it looked festive, and masked the scent of what was brewing underneath.

I tried to get really fancy and took the lid off the tank to look around like I knew what I was doing. I set it behind me on the sink and messed around in the tank, jiggling things. Out of nowhere, I heard a terrible bubbling sound and the entire toilet exploded, water running down the sides of the bowl and onto the floor. I stood there, horrified, frantically trying to un-jiggle what I'd mistakenly jiggled while simultaneously reaching for every towel I could reach to build a makeshift moat to keep the dirty, gross water from exiting into my bedroom. After I had sacrificed literally every towel in my house to the cause,  I carefully started plunging again, from behind the towel moat that was holding back two inches deep of water. I was unsuccessful again, and after a few tries I groaned loudly and leaned back against the sink, almost crying in frustration.

Of course, that's when my hip bumped up against the counter and the ceramic tank lid went crashing down into the wading pool I'd created and smashed into a thousand pieces. My bathroom was floating in feces filled water seasoned with shards of glass.

Good night. I slid to the floor (the free of contamination floor outside the bathroom) and tweeted that my obituary was going to read "Death by toilet." I received a tweet back immediately. "Like Elvis?!" No, that would probably have been more fun.

Eventually I found a bucket and scoop and I bailed out the still sudsy bowl and cleaned the floor and painstakingly picked out of the pieces of ceramic. I burned the towels and decided we'd all air dry after showered. So the floor was clean. The bowl was no longer overflowing.

And yet, for the record, my toilet still wasn't working.

I decided denial was my only option at this point. Yes, that's a recurring theme for me, if you hadn't noticed. I shut the door and pretended I didn't have a bathroom, that I didn't need a bathroom, that I would never go to the bathroom again and neither would the kids. Who needs a bathroom? Not me! Not us! I called a friend on the phone and whined loudly that I hated being single, that I would date for free meals and plunging service and I'd be happy about it.

Of course, my resolution to stop needing to go to the bathroom only lasted until this morning, when I was knocking on the next door neighbor's front door barefoot and doing the potty dance, begging to use their commode.

Apparently will power doesn't keep you from having to pee.

The good news is that my mom came over and did some kind of magic and got the toilet to work again! She deserves a medal.