The Bridge Builder

When I was about 18, a family member came to stay at our house, and it became an epic, historical visit. This family member must remain anonymous because if I told you all who it was, there would be prank phone calls and name calling. But it's safe to say that you're all going to know it was a male-type person who made such a fond memory for my family, so we'll call him George.

It was sometime in the afternoon when everything had calmed down in the house and we all got to take a breather before preparations for dinner began. Each of us was going about our business, and George was depositing his particular business in the guest bathroom. No one took notice of this fact until Mom went in to use the facilities right after George.

I was laying on the couch with my nose in a book, as usual, when I heard a strange sort of sneeze-snort come from the bathroom. I looked up and saw my mom open the bathroom door a crack and wave frantically to my sisters and I.

We discreetly left the family room and casually sauntered over to the bathroom door to see what was up with Mom. She had one of those grins on her face that you try to hide with some semblance of dignity, so it ended up looking like a weird pucker-frown.

"Look at this!", she whispered as we all crowded around the toilet to see the biggest turd ever created by man. Or woman, I would hope.

"Aww, that's disgusting! Flush it!"

"I tried!", Mom snorted as she attempted to stop herself from bursting into fits of laughter. "Watch!"

Sure enough, she flushed the toilet and the water swirled around and around the bowl, but the log didn't budge. It was wedged across the gap at the bottom like a bridge, and let me tell ya, it was a sturdy one. Had it been life-size, you could have walked across it without it caving, (but you would have had to jump over the enormous peas sticking out of its surface).

"Flush it again," my sister suggested. "Maybe this time it'll loosen up and go down."

No dice. That thing wasn't going anywhere.

We were spluttering and shaking with our laughter as we tried to find a way out of this predicament. We couldn't just leave it there, because then the house wouldn't show well if we ever decided to move. Plus, we didn't want to humiliate our guest. Something had to be done.

We all just stood there, crowded in the bathroom with tears running down our faces while we covered our mouths with our hands and brainstormed.

I don't remember who's idea it was...Probably Mom's. She's a smart, classy lady.

"Someone go get a coat hanger."

Brilliant.

By this time, we had invested so much time into the project that none of us wanted to miss the grand finale, so we all stayed to watch Mom slice the turd in half with the coat hanger and go for that triumphant flush. With bated breath we watched.... And only half of the bridge went down.

One more flush, and the other half was gone, too. Grand total of about ten flushes and one coat hanger to get that stubborn thing down.

We women bonded that day. We made a memory. We succeeded in performing stellar hostess duties.


Moral of the story?  Always watch your poop go down before leaving the bathroom.