The calamitous commode.

The calamitous commode.

–There are some who say that their careers are in the toilet. I can understand that. I’ve had times in life when I thought my whole life was in the toilet. And those traumas would be triggered by something as ordinary as having a clogged pore.
–My current problem, however, is that my upstairs toilet is in the toilet.
–And so it occurred to me recently that I had better order a new one. The old one wasn’t making the right swishing noises, the whirlpool of water wasn’t going anywhere and I had to be a certified whirligig operator to get it to stop running. Along with that, there would be instructions to guests complete with x-rated gestures on how to operate the thing.
–So when my last water bill looked more like an arrest warrant for assault on the city water tower, it was time to act.
–As an addicted house design-o-phile, I get excited about changes. Granted, I’d rather have a new state-of-the-art kitchen straight out of the dream magazines. Or maybe a new brick terrace where my hag friends and I can sip from long stems and admire my newly landscaped rose garden.
–But hey, I’ll take a new toilet. It’s a change, after all. So when the plumbers trudged in carrying the new box with gleaming porcelain, I was buoyant about the house upgrade, no matter how insignificant.
–I envisioned a new toilet smiling and sparkling in its stylish bone color. And I would flush it and walk away like a normal person in the Third Age. My new toilet would make strong whooshy sounds, sing an entire stanza of “Anchors Away” then fall responsibly silent until its next use. Even the water bill people would celebrate and deliver a bill somewhere beneath room temperature.
–“Ah, er,” was the first indication from one of the plumbers that there might be one small teensy, weensy problem. “I think the floor is sinking,” was his next sober observation.
–But he pressed on and didn’t burst my bubble yet. The house was still standing, and if I promised to call my handy dandy carpenter soon, all would be fine.
–But the news got worse. “Ah, I don’t think…” and he went on about how maybe the house wasn’t still standing and that there was nothing left, in fact, to attach the new toilet to. So I was advised to wait for the new toilet and call my carpenter to prevent further damage meantime.
–Had I waited longer, in fact, the old toilet – circa 1937 – would have eventually fallen through the ceiling. That would have been as timely as the clogged pore. Forget the brick terrace and the wine stems, my hag friends would have been in the living room below during that fateful occasion.
–We would have had our noses in the air while engaging in proper conversation like who read what high brow literature lately, or how best to appreciate an upcoming art exhibition. Soon, however, we would lower our noses into shallow gossip about some daughter’s mother-in-law and how she made a scene buzz buzz buzz.
–But, “What’s that noise?” would have immediately escalated into an emerging tumor in the ceiling followed by an ungainly crash to the couch below, narrowly missing one of my hag friends. There would then be a cloud of dust swirling around shards of porcelain everywhere. When the dust settled, there may have been a curious and confused cat peering through the new hole from above.
–Sometimes life is in the toilet.