By Georgia Grellier | Illustration by Cate Johnson
Welcome back to Story Time with Georgia, where I relay various stories from members of the CC community, and also sometimes just me.
Who: Finlay Bressler ’20
When: Two days ago? Three days ago? There is no time anymore.
What: Pee poop issue
For all the boredom, panic, and sadness COVID-19 has brought many of us, social distancing does have its silver linings. For example, I’ve personally seen a sharp decrease in how often I publicly embarrass myself — I’ve never gone this long without waving back to someone who wasn’t waving at me or responding “good” to someone asking “what’s up?” Still, no stay-at-home order can protect us from the main culprit in most of the embarrassing stories I hear: a malfunctioning toilet.
For approximately two months now, I’ve had the pleasure of being isolated mostly indoors with Finlay Bressler ’20, and for the past two weeks he and his brother have been sharing a bathroom that connects to each of their bedrooms through different doors. This had gone smoothly until three days ago at 10 a.m., when Finlay’s brother approached him and made allegations that he’d forgotten to flush after passing a bowel movement (is that medically correct? I don’t even know). “I could’ve sworn that I flushed,” said Finlay.
He was surprised that he’d forgotten but owned up to it and returned to the bathroom to flush again. When his brother appeared in his room a few minutes later, saying, “You still didn’t flush, poopy pants,” Finlay was very confused. Upon further investigation, his gross little turd was in fact still floating in the toilet, and Finlay made the tragic mistake of flushing a third time.
Obviously, the toilet started clogging. I’m usually pretty good at dealing with gross things, so I tried to make them let me fix it, but when I was messing with the flusher the whole thing started overflowing, so even though I’m trying to make this seem like Finlay’s fault, it was probably 75% mine. Anyway, Finlay started yelling that he didn’t want me to see his poop and the next thing we knew there was a very alarming cascade of pee/poop-particle water coming from over the edge of the toilet bowl.
It was probably five seconds before we were very much standing in his pee as it spread across the entire floor, pretty much at a loss for what to do other than throw towels on everything and make those disgusting as well. Finlay’s brother ran to get the plunger, but since the suction was way too small for the bowl, the ratio of minutes of positioning time to number of plunges was at least three to one. In the name of hygiene we sprayed Lysol on our legs and feet before exiting the bathroom, but I have a big fat open blister on my foot right now and as a public service announcement I’d like to also point out that this is the only reason anyone should be using Lysol on their own body in this day and age. Don’t worry, we bleached the floor, toilet, and towels afterward, and now Finlay has set the bar even higher in terms of what embarrasses him.
Even though it’s a trivial issue, it’s insane that it’s 2020 and toilets are still getting clogged. Toilet anatomy is not my area of expertise, but given that new toilets aren’t getting released every year like iPhones and Tesla trucks are, I’m assuming the technology is pretty standardized at this point. Why are the people who develop toilets making heated seats? Nobody needs that. People don’t even want that kind of thing until they learn it already exists. Just make them clog-proof and pitch them on Shark Tank.
Takeaway: This is kind of a polarizing statement, but bleach actually smells kind of good.