Friday, February 26, 2010

Royal Flush

Or, Royal Pain in the You Know What

I’m probably not even calmed down enough to be writing this. But I’m going to. I’ve been wanting to write another blog post, as I promised a couple of days ago, and there’s certainly something on my mind at the moment. So I guess I’ll write about it.

About an hour ago, give or take, I went to help Edison finish his business in the bathroom. Things were going fine and dandy until I flushed the toilet, at which point the bowl started to fill with water and make a gurgling, bubbling sound rather than sucking everything down and belching in satisfaction as one would normally expect. It was obvious to me that nothing I had just flushed could be causing the problem, but that wouldn’t have been my first suspicion, anyway. Not lately. Because, after about a two-year hiatus from putting things in the toilet, Edison has started “accidentally” dropping things in there again. And flushing. Two years ago, I found Eddie’s habit rather frustrating. Being that he is almost four-years-old, I now find myself absolutely livid with each new occurrence. Over the last two or three months, we’ve permanently lost a couple of small toys down the toilet. That’s better than, oh I don’t know, a pair of eyeglasses, such as he flushed down the toilet in Atlanta. But as irksome as it has been this time around, tonight was the worst. Not because we lost anything of value, thankfully. No, tonight I am beyond upset because I don’t think I’m going to be able to fix the toilet on my own. I’ve always been able to plunge the toilet enough to get things running smoothly, and sometimes even retrieve whatever was flushed. But tonight, Eddie has flushed a small ball that is basically the perfect size for getting wedged quite tightly, right where you can’t really get to it without just pushing it even further out of reach.

To make matters worse, the toilet water started overflowing, spreading all over the bathroom floor. That’s also something we’ve been fortunate enough to avoid until now. I know this is the kind of thing you eventually laugh at, but right now, the only thing I can imagine bringing a smile to my face is sticking Eddie’s head into the toilet and flushing him a few times. Sigh. Maybe next time.

5 comments:

  1. I completely feel your pain and frustration, I don't think Shyanne ever did that but Shae was horrible and the same thing happend, he flushed a wheel of one of his trucks that was just the right size to go down and get stuck. Fortunately at that time our neighbor was a plumber. The twins haven't been much better, and I recall having to unscrew the toilet here and drag it out into the backyard -pre-grass era... not pretty. Makes me glad I'm not a plumber but I bet they make bank off of kids doing this sort of thing. Probably keep a wall of shame collection, like they have at the zoo, of all the things they've retrieved.

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  2. As a stop gap measure, you know how to turn off the flow to the toilet so it doesn't actually fill up and run over, right? There should be a little tap head to turn down next to the foot of the bowl somewhere.

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  3. I hate moments like that. I really love my kids but sometimes they do things and I get so angry, that it amazes me. Especially when it comes to something like this. And then after you cool down you feel horrible for getting so mad, even if there was no yelling involved. Knock on wood, we haven't had this particular problem just yet.

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  4. Oh Benny, you so funny!!!!!
    This has to be the most entertaining thing I've read in some time.
    It may be something you eventualy laugh at, but for me, I'm laughing hard right now!!!!!!!!
    That's just damn funny!! I love it!!

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  5. Oh my goodness!!!! I'm so sorry to hear about this. It is just maddening. I hope you have maintenance to call for help. Our old clunker[toilet] still goes on kicks and won't work decently for a day or two at a time. We do a lot of extra shopping during those times, so we can use the restrooms. It gets so we don't even bother trying the one at home. It's just easier to go out someplace. And I'm saying way too much. But sorry to hear all this. It's NOT funny.

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