Fluent Plumbing
I was awoken at an obscene hour. It wasn’t even light out yet. I was awoken by my wife who was tapping me on the shoulder saying, “You have to see this.” She had all of her clothes on, so I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever she was going to show me.
She leads me into the bathroom, where our daughter, our dear cherub-faced child stood. “Look at that.” With one eye open I noticed there was a toilet in the bathroom. Our daughter was standing in front of it.
Then I heard, “Move.” At this point I realized a number of things:
1. I was not the one in trouble – this is always a good thing.
2. I was going to have to open both eyes – this was not going to be a good thing.
3. Our daughter was in trouble – this is never a good thing.
4. My wife was mad, border line furious – this is never ever a good thing.
“The toilet won’t flush.”
At early hours of the morning I find it advantageous to keep quiet, move slowly.
“Tell your father what you did.” (Is there a more ominous phrase?)
I realized I should start actively participating in this early morning episode of show and tell. I speak slowly to my daughter when she is trouble. When she has done something wrong she becomes suspiciously quiet. “What happened?” She pointed to the toilet without saying a word.
The toilet seemed to be the focus of attention so I decided to open both eyes all the way and try to focus on the toilet. That was when I realized that the bowl was full of water. There seemed to be a lot of white stuff down at the bottom.
I repeated calmly, “What happened?”
“She put the whole roll of toilet paper in the toilet and kept flushing it, only it won’t flush now.”
The sad realization came upon me slowly, coffee and fresh scones would not be easing me into this day. Suddenly, and without the aid of caffeine, I realized that the water level was rising. Not a huge problem. Any veteran Do-it-your-selfer, like myself, knows the first thing you do in a situation like this is turn off the water.
Please raise your hand if you know where to find the water cut off valve on a Japanese toilet. Anyone? Anyone? No?
Not a huge problem. Any veteran Do-it-your-selfer, like myself, knows the second thing you do in a situation like this is look under the tank cover. I took the top off our Toto brand toilet’s water closet.
(Hey, Brian. Did you say Toto? ‘Cause if you did, that’s pretty funny. Yes, Toto. Really. And since you have brought it up, shall we do the next line together? (I will bold it so we can read it together like a responsive reading in a church bulletin: We aren’t in Kansas anymore Toto.)
Thanks for the help with the punch line. Of course, in every joke there is a little truth. I am use to simple toilets. The kind with a float, a plug, a chain. Toto reminded me of Bill Cosby’s car in his 200MPH monologue that has “pipes running all the way around the car.”
While chuckling at the thoughts of Toto and Bill Cosby monologues, I pushed down on the plug and stopped the water running into the bowl, and then held up on the float stopping the water.
With both hands kinda busy, I thought the best way to turn this into a valuable lesson for my wife’s daughter was to have her remove the toilet paper that she had inserted. I sent the daughter for a bucket. I explained to the daughter what she was going to do. Ever the bright child, she quickly pointed out, “But I will have to get my hand wet.”
“Yes.”
The bucket arrived. The daughter put her hand in and quickly retracted it. “But its cold and I will have to get my arm wet.”
“Yes.”
She finally got most of the big clump of toilet paper out that was at the bottom. And then she decided it was fun to chase the random floating pieces of toilet paper around in circles. Learning opportunity over. Child extracted from room.
Since the toilet was still backed up and since the handle still wasn’t working properly and since I had not had my coffee, and since we rent, I felt little need to continue to solve this problem.
I beckoned for my wife and suggested she go downstairs to see if the nice part-time garbage toting lady was in her little room yet. Thankfully she was. Now, in the States, if something like this had happened, I would have simply been summoned and informed, “It is broken. Fix it.” It would have been immediately moved to the top of the honey-do list. And I would have wasted a Saturday.
But things are different here. So I added that she should ask part-time garbage toting lady for a number for a plumber. (I am trying to figure out why it has taken me so long to make this option number one when things break.)
Moments later, and for the second time that morning, I would again find myself standing in a state of bewilderment. This time though, it happened as I watched and listened to my wife do something in Japanese that she would never have done in English. I had explained to her what was wrong with our toilet. And now, she was explaining all of this to the plumber, in Japanese, over the phone.
Please join me in a round of applause. To your feet now. This deserves a standing ovation! BRAVA! (Mind you, when you start doing things in a foreign language that you could not do in your native language, you can no longer claim that you are not fluent in that language.)
A few hours later Mr. Plumber showed up and fixed everything.
We offered to pay him with our first born (you know, to help him flush out some more business.) He wasn’t interested.
So our toilet works again. We think (hope) our daughter has learned not to play in the toilet. The cramps, from keeping our legs crossed, seem to be subsiding. And its probably a good thing my day didn’t start with coffee.
Written -September 10, 2004Buy Skype Credit now to make cheap calls internationally
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