Disclaimer: The following post most likely will contain a lot of curse words. If you tend to clutch your pearls at such unsavory language, you’ve been warned. I henceforth will not be held responsible, legally or otherwise, for any choking due to said pearl clutching or loud gasps of outrage. In fact, now would be a good time to get out the fans and smelling salts.

Fuck. Me. (Seriously. I warned you.)

“Why such foul language, Nurse Ratchet?” you ask…Well, First Born Male Child has been at it again, and venting of my hot, seething rage through cursing like a well-educated sailor is saving his goddamned life. (Yeah, you might want to get the popcorn now.)

AAARRGG! [pulls hair] Fuuuuuck! Okay. [Deep breath.]

So the other day Young Son casually says, “Hey Mom. The toilet in our bathroom won’t flush. I think you might need to plunge it.”

Christ on a bike. These boys need to start eating more fruits and vegetables, because their shit is the size of a well-fed barn cat. It’s appalling, really. So I trudged upstairs and figured I better get it over with. Nothing makes me feel like getting my sexy on more than plunging a stopped up toilet.

So what’s the first thing you do when you begin plunging a toilet? You flush it, of course. You gotta see what you’re dealing with.

*Flush* [Disgusting murky toilet water swirls and swirls and water goes up and up and up…]

“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck! Staaaaaahhhhhppp!!!! Plllleeeeeaaasssseee! …. *whew!* That was close! Well, I guess I have time to check Facebook while I wait for Satan’s stew to recede before I go to work.”

A few minutes later I braced myself, gave a blessing to the plunger and had at it.

[Plunge plunge plunge plunge]

Nothing. Shit.

[Plunge plunge plunge plunge]

Not even a gurgle. Grrr.

[Plunge plunge plunge plunge]

“Young Son!!! Come in here!”

“Yeah, Mom? What’s up?”

“My blood pressure. Do you have any idea what happened here? This is ridiculous.”

“No luck, huh? I don’t know. It was like that when I got in here. I just had to pee, so it wasn’t me. It was probably First Born.” Of course. Total shocker.

“Go get your brother and tell him to come in here.”

“Got it, Mom!” YS trotted out, clearly happy to be off the hot seat. A little while later, First Born strolls in with Warrior Princess in tow.

“Yeah, Mom? YS said you wanted to see me.”

Hmmm… He had a wide-eyed look of casual innocence, which is usually a dead giveaway for his guilt. “Do you know why this toilet is so clogged?”

“Huh. No idea. It wasn’t me.” He stood there looking at me, trying not to blink.

“Warrior Princess, do you know why the toilet is broken?”

“First Born did it.” She will either tell the truth as easily as she’ll throw her brothers under the bus in a heartbeat, rightfully so or not. I still wasn’t sure.

“First Born, did you flush something down the toilet? If you did, you need to tell me now so I know whether or not I need to call the plumber. I just need to know what I’m dealing with. I’ll even try not to yell if you did.”

“It wasn’t ME! Honest!”

*Harumpf* I shooed them out and continued plunging a while longer.

“Screw this. I’m done. Husband can deal with it when he gets home.”

Later that evening, I told Husband what the problem was. He was as thrilled as I was and trudged up to deal with the shit show. A little while later, I heard muttering, cursing and complaining. “Goddamnit. People are always breaking things in this house! No one even cares!” [plunge plunge plunge splash] “This is why we can’t have nice things! Now we’re going to have to call a plumber and pay a fortune. I don’t know who did this, but they’re on my list!!”

He gave up and stormed downstairs. I figured this would be a good time to start getting the inmates’ showers and baths going for bedtime instead of reigniting my bad mood by being around his. While Warrior Princess splashed around in the tub, I decided to ask her again if she knew what was going on with the toilet from hell. She stood strong with her declaration of it being First Born’s fault.

Young Son sauntered in, “Hey Mom. How’s it going?”

I stared him down, “I’m going to ask you again, do you know what happened to the toilet?”

He looked at me and knew I meant business, so he immediately cracked, “It was First Born. He flushed one of Warrior Princess’ Duplo figures as a joke. He even recorded it and put it on his YouTube channel.”

Holy fuck!! Seriously? I quickly pulled up his account and sure enough, there was the video of poor Madame Gazelle, Peppa Pig’s teacher, getting the swirly of her life. God, just take me now. Please. What kind of fucking moron does something so stupid then posts it on YouTube as evidence??? My child, evidently.

[Yes, see, this is proof how disgusting and what poor aimers my inmates are — I have no idea what the hell that green swipe is on the toilet seat either. It doesn’t come off. Probably some jack wagon move from another time.]

“Thank you for telling me. You don’t need to tell First Born you narked him out. I’ll deal with this.”

So what did he do? He immediately trotted downstairs and told First Born! What in the actual fuck?! What kind of death wish did he have?? Evidently he inherited the idiot gene too. Jeez! Instead of hearing YS being pounded by FB, I heard First Born say, “So is Mom mad at me? She is, isn’t she?” Oh, so NOW he finds his ticket for the clue bus!

Somehow I managed to maintain my composure and didn’t immediately go nuclear on his punk ass. Instead, I decided to let him sit and sweat it out while I put Warrior Princess to bed. He knew the hammer was coming, but he didn’t know when. I’ll be honest, it gave me some satisfaction knowing he was filled with dread.

I calmly called him upstairs to talk with me. He looked sheepish. “What exactly made you think flushing a toy down the toilet was a good idea? What, pray tell, was the point of that stunt? For fun? To make people laugh at such jocularity? Because you felt like breaking the toilet? WHY?”

You know damned well what he answered: “I dunno.” So I played the video for him to refresh his foggy memory. And you know what that asshole did??? He laughed! Honestly! Did he have the same kind of death wish his little brother had?! “Well, it was kinda funny, Mom.”

“Well, I don’t think you’re going to find it ‘kinda funny’ when you see what the plumber bill is going to be. You realize you’re not going to get any allowance until you’re fifteen now, right?”

“*Sigh*…Yeah, I know,” and he slunk off to his room, probably grateful that he didn’t lose his life instead of his allowance.

So I texted our plumber and explained the situation, even including the YouTube link for reference. I said, “I understand if you aren’t able to find a pole longer than ten feet to touch this with.”

He replied, “I’ll try to auger it and if that doesn’t work, I’ll have to pull the toilet when I come out tomorrow.” Excellent. Just freaking excellent. I also asked him if he had any references for military schools. Maybe he’ll get back to me on that one.

In the meantime, one of the inmates had decided to take a fucking DUMP in the broken toilet. No, I’m not kidding. I think I was tasting metal for a good half hour after I discovered that gem.

When the plumber arrived, I told him about the newest shitty development. I have never seen someone look like they regretted their career choice as much as he did at that very moment. He was able to auger through the shitberg and managed to find a Penguin action figure from Batman, but alas, no Madame Gazelle. I’m not sure what The Penguin did to deserve getting flushed, but it very well may have been Warrior Princess’ doing. He pulled the toilet, and still no Madame Gazelle. Fuck. That meant she was lodged even further down the pipe. He was going to need to come back with a vacuum and a camera to find out where Madame was lodged. Hopefully he’d be able to rescue her that way, otherwise he was going to have to cut a hole in the ceiling downstairs to access the pipe that way. Jeez. At this point, we’re probably going to need to dip into First Born’s college fund. Not like he’s going to use it if he he keeps up this crap!

So we decided we may as well replace the toilet since he’d pulled the old one already. I suggested the kind you can flush golf balls down (and just not tell the inmates of its capability so they don’t accept it as a challenge.) He said, “No, you don’t need all that. People don’t poop golf balls or Snickers bars. A new one will be more efficient and have a bigger diameter so it won’t get clogged as easily.”

So off to Home Depot I went to get his recommended commode. Nothing makes me feel dumber than a trip to Home Depot. Ugh! What is it about that place that just makes me lose all sense of intelligence? I always feel like I wander around aimlessly until I find what I need by accident. But I was successful in the end, and a bright shiny new toilet awaits in the back of the mini van.

So dear reader, please pray for me…that the plumber won’t have to hack through the ceiling to get at Madame Gazelle…that First Born will live to see another day…and that my hand basket will be well padded and comfy for my long journey to hell. At least there I can swear as much as I want.