Blog Post #8: Toilets and Tenacity

There’s a certain feeling of panic that sets in when you flush the toilet and the toilet doesn’t flush. Multiply that feeling by whatever large number you’d like when the toilet is at someone else’s house. That was the situation I was in last night at my partner’s house around 11 p.m. I didn’t know what to do, so I called him over to assess. I hadn’t put anything down the toilet that I wasn’t supposed to. When his attempts at toilet plunging failed, we knew something was seriously off. I suggested flushing the toilet again. He pulled the handle down, and water went cascading over the toilet bowl. The nightmare grew. Toilet water spread all over the bathroom floor, getting on our feet as we threw paper towels down. His younger sister materialized at all the commotion, and helped by sacrificing two clean towels that she had just folded. After drying the floor as much as we could and washing our hands and feet, we gained the strength to tell my partner’s (sleeping) parents about the toilet fiasco. His father came down the hallway, bleary-eyed, and upon seeing the damage made some comments and left to get the toilet snake. Even after five minutes of vigorously trying to unclog the toilet with the toilet snake, nothing budged. It was time to get to the root of the source. He again left to get some screws and other tools and began unscrewing the toilet from the floor. It took 10 minutes just to get the screws off. Finally, he lifted the toilet and propped it on its side. It was a mess. Water was leaking everywhere, so I held the roll of paper towels and handed them to him as needed. With the toilet lying on its side, the problem was revealed. Someone had left the largest number two in the toilet earlier that day, complete with way more toilet paper than should have been used, and the whole mess was blocking anything further from going down. My partner’s dad said, “in my 20 years of dealing with apartments, I’ve never seen anything like this”, which made me and my partner’s sister giggle. It was almost 1am, and the situation was starting to feel slightly absurd and humorous. I’m sure I wouldn’t have been laughing if I had been the one scooping shit out of the toilet, but I was safe by the door handing off paper towels. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say “nasty” so many times in the span of an hour. After the blockage was cleaned out, the toilet was finally returned to its usual position and the whole area was wiped with a bleach cleaning solution. I learned two things that night. One, how to fix an ultra-clogged toilet. But two, no matter how much shit there is to scoop through, no matter how many paper towels it takes (1.5 rolls in this economy?), no matter how many times you have to say the word “nasty”, you will get through it as long as you keep going. We could’ve left the issue for a plumber to deal with in the morning, but instead we decided to problem-solve and fix it ourselves. In real life, shit doesn’t hit the fan. Shit gets stuck in the toilet along with wads of toilet paper at 11 p.m. at night, and needs to be cleaned out. But you can clean it out, and life keeps moving, and folks, the water will eventually keep running. So keep going. I believe in you.