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splinterswerve
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
splinterswerve.hotmail.com
by Matt Smith
Don't you hate it when your toilet is about to overflow, and you're hunched over the edge praying that the water won't spill, and then it stops just in time and you're like, "Thank God!" but then you stick the plunger in and it all comes rushing out? That blows.What's worse is when the water doesn't stop just in time, and you're kneeling down trying to convince it not to spill, and then it starts to breach the edge, and you're like, "No! Fuck! Shit! Cocksucker! No!" and it keeps coming, and you're stepping back trying not to get your feet wet, but it's moving fast. And you hope against hope that it doesn't spread so far that you won't be able to reach the toilet, but then even though it stops flowing, it keeps moving on the floor until the whole bathroom is consumed. And then you haven't washed your hands, and you gotta go look for towels to soak it up, and you gotta use like ten of 'em just to make a dent, and they get all heavy. And sometimes there was toilet paper in the water, and you churned it all up with your first, desperate plunges, and it dissolves but not all the way, so it's completely mixed in, and you got a bunch of little bits of wet toilet paper half-clinging to the towels, and some of it gets stuck along the bottom of your wall. And then you're close enough to get the plunger in again, but that just makes more water spill, and when you start to actually plunge that makes it even worse, plus it starts to splash. And you get it unclogged, but it doesn't make you feel any better because you know you've still got a lot of shit to clean up and you can't go anywhere until you get it done.
At this point about half of the floor is still underwater, including around the sides and back of the toilet. You've used every towel in the house cleaning it up this much, so now you've gotta do laundry. You turn the washer on for an extra large load and go back to the crapper to gather your haul. You can't take all of the towels, because some have to stay to act as a bulwark against the continued spread of the water still there. You're wary about putting them in the washer with all of that battered t.p. stuck everywhere, but you don't see any way around it. You can only take one at a time, because otherwise the drippage would be uncontrollable. As it is, you can usually just manage to prevent the water from falling off by cupping your hand underneath, but you still gotta run for it.
After a while the washer starts making weird noises, and when you open it up the water level doesn't look quite right because all of the water that you didn't have anywhere to wring out of the towels went in there too, and now it's threatening to do some serious damage. It smells like ozone and burnt rubber but you let the cycle finish anyway because, really, what else can you do?
You begin to ascribe metaphysical significance to these events, because only a conspiracy of the Fates or the wrath of God could possibly be responsible for such a situation. So you try to settle down and see things in perspective, because maybe everything will resolve itself if you can make your peace with the universe. And then you realize that you could be a lot worse off, and that having to clean up your bathroom isn't such a big deal anyway. You'll be finished soon enough and you'll be able to get on with your life and everything will be okay.
The spin cycle has done its job well, and you find that you don't have to put the towels into the dryer. You have more than enough to finish the job, and the rest of the water on the floor has evaporated by now. When you're done, you put the used towels into the washer, and this time there isn't a bunch of water spilling all over the insides of the machine. You don't hear any weird noises, and things seem to be actually going your way for a change. You clean yourself up and marvel at how terrifying everything seemed.