Flushed

I am an independent person most of the time. Unless it has to do with plumbing, in which case independence is replace by stark denial, which kind of looks like independence, or arrogance, depending upon the situation. A recent pipe incident illustrates this nicely.
There is a lot of interest in pipes at our house, usually because somebody or something has clogged them; and I ain't talking about spaghetti down the garbage disposal.
With a preschooler whose very existence revolves around activities he can accomplish himself, namely hanging out in the water closet, I am never sure what navigates the wastewater channel out of our home. Yesterday it was as clear as the water making its way out of the bowl and through my floorboards.
Poor Wolf had made a visit after arriving home from school and shouted down to the yard where I was assisting the canine child with his duties, "MOOOOOMMMMMMM, there is water all over the bathroom!" Any mother who has heard that screech of toilet desperation knows where she needs to go. To the basement to get the plunger? Not hardly, unless it comes with a plumber attached to it. No, I went to the phone to call Yukon, who probably sat in his third-floor office with the phone away from his ear as his hysterical wife screamed negative adjectives of homeownership at him.
Feeling better, I did find the plunger and towels and took care of the situation upstairs. Downstairs is another matter; as, well, matter is probably still in the ceiling and making its way into the crevices of my walls as it drips and drops towards the basement floor.
I told the kids that if they ran their toilet over one more time they were going to be digging a real Alaskan-style outhouse for their own personal use. No plunging necessary. Just a lot of dirt. And dirt is something we got plenty of around here.