Before you tell me it wasn’t you, think about it… Here we are, you and I. We’re the only two in the house and it’s been that way all afternoon. Three hours ago when I number oned, the porcelain God willfully whisked away the lemon-tainted water. Now, there is a bowl full of chocolate water. And when I say “a bowl full,” I mean “a bowl full of and a floor covered with chocolate water.” The only two conclusions I can come to are that 1) somebody tracked mud into the bathroom while we weren’t looking and decided to mop it up using the toilet as a mop bucket, or 2) somebody — by this, I mean you — dropped a kid off at the pool too fat or too tall to fit through the gate. And, well, I don’t see a mop anywhere. But don’t be ashamed. I’m not a saint by any means.

I remember visiting my friend, Paige, in Ames last February. Actually, she was the girlfriend of my friend, Andrew, so we were friends by proxy. Anywho, she had class in the morning and had allowed us to stay at her place while she was gone. Both Andrew and I were lounging around the apartment watching early-afternoon soap operas or The Real World or some other mind-sucking show, when the urge hit to let loose the volatile-projectile I’d been storing up for over a day. By the way, I’m a huge fan of cheese… So, I rushed into Paige’s pristine, girly-decorated bathroom and took my rightful seat on the royal throne. As I rifled the projectile out the orifice opposite my mouth, I remember looking around at the polka-dotted shower curtain, the funny shaped soap dispenser, the Andy Warhol inspired floor mats and thinking, “Wow, the girls really put a lot of effort into making this place look good.”

Plop!

The sound of trouble.

It was large (I’ll admit, I looked), maybe a little too large? Not wanting to cause a scene, I chose to use my courtesy flush. What followed, however, was anything but courteous. The projectile, too long to slide down the pipes feet first, broke in half and tried going through the hole like a hot dog down Kobayashi’s throat. It went down far enough for me to lose a visual but evidently not far enough. The water level began to rise as pulled up my britches and prayed for the best, but it kept rising! I frantically searched the bathroom for a rubber tipped Excalibur to battle the brown dragon before me. Nothing! Not even a toy sword. The level continued to rise. I searched for a bucket or a glass, anything that would hold water in case I needed to bail water into the tub. Again, nothing! The level continued to rise. I cried out, “Houston, we have a problem!” But it was too late. The water spilled over the rim. It spilled right onto the plush, green Warhol-styled floor mat.

“F,” I thought. “What am I going to do now?” At that point, I could think of nothing to do but watch as the puddle around the toilet grow larger. Then I dawned on me, “Shut the water off, stupid!” I stepped into the puddle, reached down and turned the knob clockwise. The water stopped!

Silence… I took a step back and surveyed the damage. Though the dragon had been slayed, the village lay in ruins. A bittersweet victory. Now what? I know, I’ll ask Andrew for help. We’re men, we can fix everything before Paige gets back from class. I figured we had at least an hour to clean up the mess before she arrived home. I figured wrong. As I stepped into the kitchen to tell Andrew the news, I heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Panicking, I ran back to the bathroom in a last ditch effort to figure out a solution. Then the door opened. The butterflies in my stomach took flight.

“Hey, Paige,” said Andrew.

Game over! Returning to the kitchen with my tail between my legs, Paige greeted me.

“Hey, Jeffrey. How are you?” she asked.

I thought about acting like nothing happened and playing dumb when she found the standing chocolate water. But reason told me I’d never get away with it, so I fessed up.

“Paige, I done a bad, bad thing.”

“What?”

“Well, I kind of, um, clogged your toilet… and it overflowed, a little.”

I expected her to fly across the kitchen in a feline-like furry and claw off my family jewels. But she didn’t.

“There’s a plunger and some towels in the closet,” she said, pointing to the living room.

She wasn’t happy by any means, but she wasn’t mad, either. With my jewels still intact, I cheerfully grabbed a plunger and a towel from the closest and went to work returning the bathroom to its pre-dump state.

Long story short: don’t try to hide the fact that you clogged the toilet. It’s not hard for me or anyone else to place you at the scene of the crime. Just tell the truth and I’d be more than willing to help you resolve the problem. Remember, **it happens.