published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, February 20th, 2009
This is it. I’ve had it. I’ve completely had it.
Before I begin my diatribe, I will spend a final sane moment and warn you that today’s column is NOT for the young reader. This column is rated PG-13: Pretty Gross, even for 13-year-olds. (Now that I have perked up the interest of those who are too young to ordinarily be interested in what I have to say, I will begin.)
Someone has habitually been breaking into our home. The doors and windows, as flimsy as they are, show no signs of forced entry. No alarms go off. Our dog never makes a racket. If either dog or alarm were operational, we could catch the villain in the act, but s/he always gets away.
Yet, I am certain that someone has been entering our home.
How do I know this? I have evidence, that’s how. It is a very nasty sort of evidence, but the intruder always leaves something behind. Man or woman, boy or girl, s/he always leaves the same crappy calling card. It is a clogged toilet.
Why not pin the blame on a member of my own household, you say? I see. You, too, are a simple-minded thinker like me, because I had initially come to the same conclusion. Simple minds are so easily distracted by the obvious.
We are happily and simple-mindedly going about our own business. Sometimes this business involves the lifting of the toilet seat cover, either for personal use, or to facilitate the planting of a young-one, pants down, for a little visit until they call to be wiped when…simulate music from Jaws here…we discover that Something is rotten in the Town of Warrenton. And it’s right there, in the toilet bowl! Paper is puckered into the little hole that apparently just couldn’t chug, chug, chug this stuff away, no matter how much it thought it could or how much we wished it would. There is a disturbing lack of water in the bowl, and an even more disturbing proliferation of solid material.
Back when I thought like a simpleton, I would see this and fume. “All right! Who clogged the toilet this time?”
In a household of this size, it is hard to keep track of who has gone, or when, or in which particular bathroom. So, when I bellow like a beached beluga, I get one of two responses. The most common response is no response. When you sound like an animal in your own home, people refuse to condone that type of behavior and simply ignore you. Sadly, this is a system of which I was a big proponent. It works wonders on shrieking two-year-olds, but is even more maddening when applied on a full-grown adult with a bloated bladder.
The other response I’m used to hearing is a series of sweet and innocent-sounding “Not me’s.” Of course, it couldn’t be you, with your angelic face. I carried you within my own body for nine months, where you proceeding to squash and smash my bladder. I carried you and cared for you from the earliest times of your infancy, when you controlled my every waking moment. You controlled when or whether I was allowed to eat, sleep, or use the bathroom. And, no, it couldn’t be you, who as a toddler followed me everywhere, and made me suffer your constant company even when I needed a few moments of privacy with the toilet.
You have caused me nothing but suffering in the toilet department all your life, so of course, it couldn’t be you. That’s too obvious! It must be Mystery Man on the Go…again…and again who breaks into our house, feels the urge, begins to purge, and either forgets to flush or is unsuccessful in doing so. He has to be the one who ends up clogging the toilet.
I don’t know a lot about toilets, but I have learned how to plunge them. Being the sort of person who is interested in life-long education and an educated youth, I have trained everyone in the double-digit age range in our house in this simple plunging exercise.
Our home was a new construction, so our American Standard toilets are 6.o Lpf or 1.6 gpf. I’m no do-it-yourselfer, and I know very little about toilets, (except that there should be a bowlful of clear water in them before each use and after each flush). Regardless, I will venture to say that 6.0 Lpf means each flush consists of 6.0 liters of water, which is the same as 1.6 gallons being tossed at whatever you can send its way. I don’t know what the “old” flushing standard was in the good old days when we didn’t care about our food, our water, our planet, or whether the pollutants we left behind could make a tear trickle down from the eye of a weathered Native American man on commercial television in the 1970’s.
How much water does the new flushing standard save? I’m not sure. I suspect the data is skewed, because some people in our house routinely flush multiple times after a single visit, desperately hoping that the next 1.6 gallons will do the trick that the earlier, lethargic one could not.
Once upon a time, when I was a kinder, gentler person, I would have sighed after the chorus of “not-me’s.” I would have picked up the trusty implement and taken the plunge. I had resigned myself to the fate of ACP (anonymous clog plunging) forever, and wrote it off as one of those petty or unpleasant tasks that falls upon the sagging shoulders of the happy homemaker.
But then, something snapped. Perhaps it was being forty-two years old, and still having to routinely perform ACP throughout the house. Perhaps I had achieved and exceeded my lifelong ACP quota at a relatively early age. Or, perhaps, like stores who shower the nth customer, I had performed an ACP for the nth and final time, and now it was time to pass along the baton (or plunger) of knowledge.
At any rate, one fine day I decided my plunging services, like me, were exhausted. I allowed a clogged toilet to fester, because no one would ‘fess up. (Naturally not. We all realize it was Mystery Man.) I realize that this has not been a pleasant thought. But I assure you, the sight is far worse than the thought. If you were just enjoying a nice snack or a drink, I apologize.
Day One. I announce that I have retired from ACP. Some other heroic, altruistic soul is going to have to step up to the plate (or bowl) and do the duty, even though it had not been his or her fault. No response.
Day Two. Would the guilty party please just go and plunge the thing, because that bathroom has become entirely unusable. No response.
Day Three. Assemble the children. (It was close to Christmas at the time – perhaps that might have explained the little present?) “Hey, guys, you know how in some families people choose names to give each other presents?” Yes, yes – their eyes light up. To this I actually get a response, and it is in the affirmative. I sense excitement and a keen desire to participate. All people of plunging age have their names written down, and the youngest child in the house drew a name. “Here,” I say, “you get plunging duty on this one.” It was not a pleasant task, but I must say that I admire the fortitude with which the unlucky child approached the task – with plunger in hand, he almost looked like a soldier going off to war.
Yesterday, it happened again. So at night, I allowed each potential plunger to draw lots. It was very Biblical, I thought – just like when Jonah was on the ship and no one knew why they were having horrible weather problems, or when they needed a quick replacement for Judas Iscariot’s twelfth disciple position. Each paper had “Freebird” written on it, save but one. That one had the dreaded “Clogger” written on it. The children hesitatingly drew their lots. A sudden cloud of doubt fell around the child who pulled “Clogger.” The others viewed him with a sense of sympathy and doubt. (His name had been pulled on the Christmas name-drawing as well.)
Experience is a great teacher, and this one thing I have learned: you don’t have to wait three days before drawing names. I just wish I had learned this technique years and years ago.
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