My Bowl Overfloweth

The cell phone rang as I was driving home last night.

“Dad, where’s the plunger for the toilet?” That’s a question I didn’t need to hear.

Just hang on. I’ll be home in five minutes.

I’m greeted in the driveway by the two boys, large wet spots on their clothing. “Dad, it’s worse than you think.” More words that I didn’t need to hear. I can think—and imagine—a lot.

Which toilet is it? “Upstairs”.

I grab the plumber’s helper from the garage and walk into the family room. Water is dripping through the ceiling fixture to a large circle on the carpet, where one of them had the presence of mind to place a garbage can. I hurry upstairs to the bathroom, where the water is an inch deep.

I’ll spare the gentle sensibilities of readers by refraining from a detailed description of what happened next. Suffice it to say that over the next two hours I wielded a mop, bucket, plumber’s helper, plumber’s snake, ladder, bathroom cleaner, sponges, and paper towels. Nevertheless, I was grateful for two things:

1) The spouse and mother had chosen last night to attend a play in San Francisco. Spouse and mother does not take kindly to dirt on the carpet, and this event was the equivalent of a mudslide. Fixing the immediate problem would have been exponentially more difficult if there were the usual “high-intensity interpersonal communications” occurring in the background.
2) The summer heat wave that had produced uncomfortable sleepless nights now was an ally. The water evaporated quickly on the bathroom linoleum, but the carpet was still moist this morning.

I could tell from the changed placement of the Clorox and other cleansers that additional work was performed after I went to bed at midnight (if you ask by whom, you don’t have teenaged boys). Everyone was sleeping peaceably when I left for work this morning, so all’s well.

Tonight’s lesson: the location and operation of water shut-off valves. © 2004 Stephen Yuen


P.S. to Mom and Dad: Happy Anniversary!