101 Ways To Plug A Toilet, Chapter 3

Sometimes when you have 9 people in a house, there can be a line for the bathroom, even if you have three of them like we do. We have our a bathroom upstairs, which has been deemed "The Children's Bathroom". We have a 1/2 bath downstairs off our living room, and another bathroom off the Master bedroom. We have always kept the 1/2 bath off limits to the children until we put Titus on the Potty Train. It was pretty unrealistic to expect the 2 year old to make a run for it, UP the stairs to go potty without having an accident. You know how it works.... they hold it forever until the very mention of any liquid is going to make them wet their pants! Why complicate the matter over carpeted stairs by making the little fellow bound upstairs to the bathroom?? Well, as you may know, Titus has been off the official Potty Train for quite a while. We had allowed him to continue using the downstairs bathroom because there were often too many conflicts over him premeditating his need to get upstairs before he was going to have a problem lifting his legs to get upstairs. How can we expect him to hold himself, do the potty dance AND climb the stairs at the same time?? (Pardon me, I think I digressed)
After recent events (refer to Sept 08 posting titled "Domestic Terrorist Strike), Titus has been using the downstairs bathroom with much closer supervision. Recently we had reason to re-evaluate his status again...
Note to self...."Hmmm, That toilet sounds funny when it flushes". It just wasn't filling back up after the flush like it is supposed to ... Maybe someone else was using water in the house and it affected the toilet?? Those were the thoughts that I was mulling over in my brain until one day when my Dad (who is visiting for Christmas) asked me for a plunger. Immediately, my mind is filled with dread. Plunger? No! Surely, Titus couldn't have done it again, could he? No Lord, please tell me he learned from the first and second time. .... A plunging we will go, a plunging we will go, hi-ho the, okay, sorry, sometimes I just break into song to relieve the momentary stress of a bad situation. Dad plunged and plunged and we flushed and re-flushed to see if it got any better. It didn't. It kept making that same sickening glug, glug, sucking sound as the water went out. I hate that sound! As if toilets aren't gross enough! I took Titus aside and asked him a few probing questions about his use of the toilet. No leading questions, just some round about ones that would incriminate him if he were truly guilty. He didn't fess up, but I still banned him from using the toilet until he was 27. The next day, I was out on some Holiday errands when Brian called me requesting that I make a stop at Lowe's for a heavy duty plunger. The toilet was plugged with "matter" and we needed to get it taken care of once and for all. Once I got home with the plunger, Brian and my Dad plunged a while to no avail. Titus even stood by watching and was overheard saying "I didn't do it", to himself. (my sweet baby boy must be innocent, right?) I was struck by momentary brain damage and offered to put on my rubber gloves on and go for a good old fashioned "Explore" to find out what was in our commode!! (WHAT, was I thinking??) Well, even though my hands are very small (my ring size is a 4), I still couldn't bring up any treasures to solve our problem. Finally, Brian decided that the only way to really find out what was causing our problem was to take the whole commode off and give it a look-see. Thankfully, I had a used plastic tablecloth that would cover the hallway so Brian could carry our toilet out into our front yard. (As a side note: It is a long standing joke in our family to call our house the Hayden ghetto or to refer to ourselves when things get messy as the Trailer Trash Hayden's! lol, and here we were with our toilet IN THE FRONT YARD!!) This was too hilarious, in a not-so-funny sort of way.
It's dark inside a commode, even when its upside down in your front yard, so they had to get a flashlight to shed some light on the situation. There was no way to reach whatever the "thing" was, the space was too small. They could see something green. I know, it sounds gross, but it wasn't that kind of something green, it was something synthetic (man made, I mean, made by un natural causes, oh, there's no good way to say this!!) Okay, it looked like plastic, that's better!
Brian asked for something long and skinny to try and fish it out. Now, what did I want to give him to use in working on a toilet that wouldn't create a lasting yucky memory? Ah, ha! A metal coat hanger!! Just such a coat hanger as several people have chided me for keeping around my house!! (I always keep a few in my closet and they rarely get used for hanging clothes... saving airplanes from neighboring trees, retrieving green things from toilets, etc) After several minutes of bending and poking and prodding they finally retrieved none other than a green Starbucks straw!!! LOL, how funny is that?? Of course, only MY family would ever have a plumbing problem that included a Starbucks straw! lol.
Now after Brian found the straw he brought it inside where we were all waiting (since it was 29 degrees outside), and as soon as Titus saw that little green straw you could see a look of dread cross his face. Brian asked "Titus, Do you know how this straw got into our toilet?" and Titus said "Yes, I do, I flushed it down the toilet!" As it turns out, he got the straw from the garbage and for some reason only his 3 year old mind understands, he flushed it down the toilet. We still don't know if he did it when he went in there to go to the bathroom or if it was just a mad dash into the bathroom to flush the straw. Why, oh why would he do something like this again?? WHEN, will he ever learn?? Those are the questions that will remain unanswered. At present, Titus is not allowed to use the downstairs bathroom under any circumstances short of a tornado safe room. I don't think that it is because I am being negligent as a parent that I have allowed these wonderful things to happen, perhaps some would disagree. Perhaps, but not with knowledge. We're thinking that Titus may have a calling into the field of plumbing or perhaps underwater spelunking. Only time will tell how the events of these crazy days will shape the days of tomorrow.